RE-BUYS

I use to avoid re-buys because I felt they kept me from outlasting the competition. Lately, I’ve reconsidered. The beauty of re-buys is that is prize pool becomes bigger and bigger as the scrubs re-buy. My strategy is to play well enough that the re-buy is unnecessary or just simply leave when I bust out. I played two tonight simultaneously without re-buying or adding on.

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I played well enough here, but the cards didn’t cooperate when it got close to the money. I left when my AQ fell to TT. It was that old Yankee trick where I flopped a Q and then he runner runnered the straight.

The second attempt yielded money, but was really more heartbreaking.

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I saw AA once and I got all my money in versus QJ and he drew out.

The biggest fiend of the night was QQ

I was sitting around 37th with 130 players left and received QQ two hands in a row. The first time I got all my money in versus AJ and he turned an Ace. Next hand I was all-in versus AK and he flopped a K. Luckily they were both on the shortstack, but my decent sized $30,000 chips fell to $9,000 on those two bloodlettings. I went from shoo-in to the money to on the bubble. I can't fault the play either time, if I play so timidly that I fold hands like QQ then I'll never make it deep in a tourney and that's worse than not cashing near the bubble.

When we’re down to 102 players and I’m about 99th with 7,000 chips, I get all my money in with JJ and flop quads versus KK. It was the only race I trailed going into the flop in the tourney.

The same guy ultimately got his revenge when he cold called the blinds with A8 and I slowplay AQ from the big blind. The flop brought an A, but also an 8. The 8 was unlucky, because he had 8x my stack and I'm sure he would have let me double up even if his 8 hadn't hit.

The guy who knocked me out ultimately finished 2nd in the tourney, and I made 4x my buy-in.