I am playing in a live 20 man tourney with re-buys tonight. $50 entry and each re-buy is $50. I am not 100% sure what the rules on the re-buy are, but lets assume that its 1 re-buy in 1st hour only if below starting chips.....

Since I normally play freeze-outs I am just curious how I should adjust my strategy during the re-buy period. I am tempted to just play my normal tight starting requirements and count on everyone elses loosenes to help me accumulate chips and not need any re-buys.

Alternatively, I can play looser and try to double up early knowing that I have the re-buy option........

I have been playing real good poker of late and would really like to take this thing down....it could be a boon to my bankroll.

Funny how I won't play above $5 SNG's on line, but a game like this comes along and I am chomping at the bit to start playing.

Just play your game and you'll do fine, but if you have a nut draw in a multi-way pot during the rebuy period then go for it. Take the chance on a draw and if you hit in that situation you are going to do more than just double up, and if you don't hit just re-buy. A lot of re-buy tournies that have a fixed number of re-buys also allow you re-buy at any time regardless of chips, so you can just re-buy at the beginning and start with a bigger stack. The only live re-buy tournies that I've played in that have a chip requirement to re-buy are the ones with unlimited re-buys in the first hour.

OK....

No lesson needed anymore because I learned my lesson the good old fashioned hard way.

The tourney was a $60 entry with unlimited re-buys for 1st hour. 1st buy was for $2000 in Chips. Each additional was $30. No limit on when or how much you re-bought for.

This game was insane. I actually didn't like it because it was exactly what e-clinchy said. People were going all in with crap and then just bleeding money into the kitty when they got busted. I got raised out of the 1st 3 pots PF only to hit the nuts on the flop and watch people go all in and take the pots down with crap. I knew then that this was going to be a bad night. My strategy was to be patient and play good hands strong figuring I would get called with less than typical hands...I was right.....to a point

I ended up making two re-buys, which was much more money than I wanted. The second re-buy came at the end of the hour when I realized that if I didn't re-buy I would be playing with an M of 5. The blind structure was ridiculously aggressive...it made PP seem like a slow game.

Beginning the 2nd hour we were at 300/600..blinds went 50/100....100/200.....200/300 and so on every 20 mins. I am not sure when antes kicked in, because I didn't get that far.

Anyway...right after break I had AK...(5000 chips in my stack)..raised to 1800 (BB 600). only caller was all in for less than the BB...My hand held up.

2 hands later I limp ni with A5Club and flop 234 (2 clubs....almost SF). As I contemplated how to extract chips, 1st guy to bet moves all in...again he was a short stack, so I only made 1K off of him when my straight held up......

Now comes the tough hand. I had QJ suited in the BB. Hand was folded around to the table maniac who raised it to 1500 (BB still 600) everyone folds to me. Since he was the table maniac and I saw him playing crap all night I figured he was raising with Ax. Flop came Q 6 2 rainbow. I have 5500 in chips....he has me way covered....about 10K. I lead out with a 2000 chip bet (pot was 3800). He comes over the top and goes all in.

What to do? My read is that he is holding an AX. Maybe he has top pair crap kicker......he is fully capable of moving all in with either. Its going to cost me my remaining 3500 chips to call a bet with over 11K in pot (not counting what I can't cover) Easy call here...at least I thought so. I knew when I bet my 2K that I would push if he came over the top. I left myself great Pot Odds in case he made his move. I also thoguht 2K would be enough to scare him off if he had nothing.

He shows..................

Q 10. My Q J has him covered.

Turn...........

10.

River.........

Blank.

Unbelieveable.....This clown calls me and hits a 3 outer to bust me. If he doesn't get lucky I am at 14 K in chips and right with the leaders with about 24 people left.

Thats poker.

My only question..............knowing what I knew about this guy, should I have just pushed up front to scare him off and just take the pot down now? After all, it was still a good pot at 3800 chips. I doubt he would have folded, but thats really the only second guess I can come up with. I think I played it well. The only hands that could have had me was P6, P2, or QQ, KK, AA. This guy would have pushed PF with any of them, so I felt I was top hand at that point.

The place has a freezout every Thursday night for $120...The next time I have some extra cash I will be going to that game. No more re-buys for me.

I know my story was long-winded, but doesn't anyone want to comment on my handling of the fatal hand?

I think that you played the top pair/good kicker right considering you were up against a maniac.

Good story, BTW.

You played the hand right. There is no way you can go all in with something like QJ, even if he is the table maniac, he only has to have something like K 7 to beat you.

On the flop i dont blame him for doing what he did either since he DID have Q 10. But even if he had something like 2nd pair, he had so many chips compared to you.