Topping Up - Is it worth it ?

Lately, i've been playing tourneys that allow the player to top up in chips just before the 1st break ends. Is this worthwhile ? It seems to me the top up chips only come into play at the 'margin' - every time you double up or when you are close to being knocked out. Should you get them if you are near the top of the field in chips, middle ?, bottom ? Anyone with experience please advise.

From my experiences I never usually top-up at the first break. Whether it be live or online- I like to think the cost of a buy-in on a top-up is a slight waste of time. Sure it gives u more chips, and possibly more time if u become shortstacked, and a higher stack potential, but ultimately what's a couple thousand going to matter when the blinds are 20K/40K? If it's ur night, it's ur night

Unless a new game has been added, most refer to these as re-buys. Re-buys are a beast unto themselves.

Don't play rebuys much but i tell u good tactic.
Have 16 rebuys ready before u enter....allins everywhere until you hit 17k or die trying.
After the break now u have big stack and can start to play poker and win the thing.
I find these r a waste of time pussy footing around in the early stages.
BUST OR CHIPLEADER THATS WHAT I SAY.

When I play a rebuy, I always plan to make the maximum rebuy at the beginning and also plan to add-on at the break. If I can't do that, I won't play the event. The reason for this is expectation.

Take an example where you get 1500 chips for every rebuy. Let's assume that two people both play and don't get a huge hand for the entire rebuy period, but manage to keep up with the blinds. (This is a worst-case scenario, though I have had it happen to me.)

The person who rebuys/adds-on as much as possible would start the post-rebuy round with around 4500 chips. If they can get a hand to double-up with after the break, they will have around 9K.

The person who doesn't rebuy at all will have 1500 chips, and will be at around 3K after a double.

The advantage for the person who rebuys increases by a factor of 3 for every time they double, even if the other person keeps pace and doubles at the same rate.

This is why people who sit down with a single buy-in almost never see the money in these events.

Very interesting theory. However playing like a maniac isn't the best way to play either as you'll be hitting the re-buy button very often meaning that you will waste more money than you would necessarily waste otherwise. Although it is true that once you double up post-break you will have 3x a bigger stack, but if you waste 10+ rebuys (which I have seen many times) it is not worth it unless you get in the FT.

Also I feel rebuys are a loosing proposition in general as each time you rebuy you get a smaller and smaller share of the total chips, ie. your not necessarily getting your money's worth.

Indeed - I don't play like a maniac though - I'm usually only seeing about 12-15% of the flops during the rebuy period. About 1/3 the time I pick up a big hand within the first hour and double, the rest of the times I just grind it out after the rebuy period ends.

If I buy in for the max and can't make it out of the rebuy period with that, I almost always walk away from the event and put the money into another tournament. I'm probably not playing my best game anyhow, and there is no sense chasing the money when I'm not at 100%.