Doing the Math on R&A Tournaments

Probably every online cash poker player has seen the tournaments advertised as “$10 buy, $10k Guaranteed” or something similar, where the guaranteed money is a very attractive number compared with the buy-in. This is an R&A tournament, where the buy-ins are pooled with the collected number of rebuys and add-ons to form the total prize pool. And while this may seem like a great deal for the players, it is worth noting that I have never seen a major site fall way short of the guaranteed prize pool and have to subsidize it with their own money. Occasionally, they might fall just short, but never more than a few percentage points, and often times the prize pool far exceeds the guaranteed money due to overzealous players buying in repeatedly.

First, I should explain how the rebuy/add-on system works, and then you’ll see more clearly where the caution points are. In the R&A format, your initial buy-in will get you the standard number of starting chips that all registered players get. The “rebuy period” is open right from the time you take your seat at the table, so you may see some players at your table who have 2x the number of starting chips that you do before the first hand is even dealt. This is legal because the rules for rebuys require that your chip total is less than or equal to the starting chip total. Since your starting total is, by definition, equal to itself, you can rebuy immediately one time to double your starting chip total. Many players do this as they see it to be an early advantage. I will address this strategy at a later point in this article.

The rebuy period usually lasts for the first hour of the tournament only, and it ends with a short break period of a few minutes. During the rebuy period, you can rebuy a full starting stack at any point where your chip total is less than or equal to the starting total. If you go all-in and lose, you have the option of buying two starting stacks, just as you did at the start of the game. Once the rebuy period is over, there is an “add-on” period during that short break. An add-on is nothing more than a final rebuy option for every player, but an add-on can be purchased by anyone regardless of chip total, and on many sites the add-on awards more chips than a standard rebuy does. Once the add-on period closes, the second hour of play begins and the prize pool is now closed and calculated. The tournament lobby will show the prize payouts starting in the second hour.

So that’s the formula. Now… is it worth it? To answer that, you need to know what your plan is for your R&A limit. Do you rebuy immediately upon sitting down? How many rebuys will you allow yourself? If your chip total is among the leaders, will you purchase the add-on when the time comes? This strategy is critical to have in mind as you play the tournament, because rebuying 10x and doing the add-on will require that you finish in some prize position of 12x your buy-in or better, which usually is a level only the final table or two will meet. If you don’t get there, you’ll lose money on the tournament even by finishing in a lesser cash position. Many players take the no rebuy/add-on approach and just try their luck against the reloading field. This is fine and worth the buy-in, but don’t be surprised if you remain among the lowest chip totals in the field for much of the tournament. There are many players buying/rebuying for double stacks constantly around you, and you have to make up that chip difference through winning more hands. I am continually amazed when playing these tournaments at how many players will play recklessly and rebuy constantly for the first hour. By the time the second hour begins, they’ve contributed more to the prize pool than any reasonable cash finish will return to them. Nothing short of the final table will get them to break even, and this is just a foolish strategy. However, a player who rides a single buy-in all the way to a cash finish in this format has done extremely well, considering that many players actually got knocked out multiple times.

More than probably any other tournament format, R&A tournaments require that you watch the tournament lobby constantly. You’ll see the number of rebuys increasing and the players shifting ranks in the main list. But there’s one critical stat to look at here: Average Chip Stack. Most of the time, we pay attention to this number as we get near the final table of a tournament and we want to see if we have enough chips to survive by playing fewer hands. But in this format, you must look at this number frequently, and absolutely look at it when considering a rebuy or add-on. The reason is that math I was talking about: a rebuy will net you a standard starting chip stack (ex: 1500 chips) whether it’s in the first 5 minutes or much later in the first hour. Early on, that rebuy will give you a competitive chip total versus the players around you. But late in the period, the Average Chip Stack might say about 5000 or so, which means that a rebuy will put you at more than a 3:1 disadvantage against the middle of the field, and much worse against the top players. Many players blindly select two buy-ins at this point and come back in for 2x the starting stack, but this is equally as foolish. Yes, your chip total is closer to the average, but you just paid double the money to still rank in the lower half of the field. It’s not a good value bet for your money. Plus, you now have to finish even higher in the cash positions to earn back what you’ve put into the tournament.

Then there’s the ultimate money flushing: players who intentionally go all-in on the last hand of the rebuy period, hoping to double up before the add-on. If they lose, they rebuy 2x for the double stack, and then do the add-on, so they’ve now put 3x the buy-in into the pool over and above whatever else they’d already contributed, and at best this will give them an average chip stack. Net result: they just played a $30 hand in a $10 tournament. Not smart on any level, especially considering how long they will have to survive into the money to break even. I see this play a lot, and I never understand it, but if I’m still in the field, I’m grateful that they just increased my potential payout without it costing me anything. It’s only one more player to knock out later, and they’ve paid the equivalent of three players to stay there.

So you see now how the prize pool builds in the R&A format. One thing I can say is that these tournaments are seldom boring, because players committed to rebuying will make large bets and go all-in frequently during that rebuy period. This leads to some huge pots being traded early, and you might just find yourself tripling up with every hand you win. You can play the reckless kamikaze with the rebuy trigger at the ready, or you can play the patient assassin who takes down only the occasional hand, but gets 2-3x his chips in return every time. The patient player will have a huge payout potential relative to their buy-in when the time comes to land in the cash positions. That’s the appeal of these R&A tournaments, and it’s why the sites feel confident about advertising “guaranteed money” levels for the prizes. They know the player’s tendency is to reload and keep going, and the site collects their prize estimate nearly every time.

My recommendation for the R&A format is this: allow yourself only a specific number of buy-ins and keep it low (3-4 max). This allows for even the lowest cash finish to get you back near even. If you’re in a reasonably competitive position at the time of the add-on, go ahead and purchase that too. In my experience, about 85-90% of the remaining players purchase the add-on, so to not allow for doing that would be a setback in your overall chip standing. Without losing a hand, you might drop a few thousand chips against the average, and that’s difficult to overcome. Pay attention to the Average Chip Stack in the tournament lobby whenever deciding to rebuy or add-on, and then play your best poker after the break and try to get into one of those inflated cash positions. Good luck!