Of all of the tournament formats, R/A tourneys have to be my least favorite. I can understand the appeal. We've all been in tournaments where we've been doing fairly well early on, before running into a monster hand, or having someone shove all-in on a draw and sucking out on us. It would be nice to have a second chance. And that's the way you think it will be, like a normal poker tournament, but with second chances.
Then the tournament starts and reality sets in. That reality is that while some players, probably most, will play the game as they normally do, there will be many who employ a specific strategy in these tournaments. They will shove all-in pre-flop with any playable hand. This could be any Ace, any pair, or anything suited. They will shove with any hand that they might enter a pot with in freezout tournament, in hopes of amassing as many chips as they can before then end of the rebuy period. If they lose and get knocked out, they simply buy away their bad play and start over.
I've seen a player re-buy eight or nine times before the end of the re-buy period. After his final re-buy, he doubled, then tripled up on the last two
hands before the add-on period. Having played well enough to be in fourth place and still playing on my original $3 buy-in, and confident in my ability to continue to play strong poker, I chose not to add any chips. I took advantage of the break to use the restroom and grab a cold beverage from the fridge. When I returned, I found that the maniac at my table had done a double add-on and bought his way up to eighth place while I had dropped sixteenth. But he had spent at least $30 on a $3 dollar
The maniac calmed down somewhat after the break, but still continued enter a lot of pots and play a wide range of hands. I kept an eye on him after we were moved to different tables. He was knocked out about half an hour add-on break. I went on to make the final table. But being one who likes to see good solid poker prevail over risky play and luck, I have avoided them ever since. I've probably only played a handful, either winning my way into one or entering them by accident. Once or twice I might have entered just thinking that I play well enough not to need to rebuy. In every one I've played, though, there has always been at least on lunatic off his meds at my table.
Out of the ones that I have played, I think I have only ever rebought one time. Most of the time, I either made it past the re-buy period or made it deep enough into it, that the blind levels discouraged me from buying back in. But I have to say, more often than not, just seeing the way the chips fly in those things, was enough to make me not want to have any more to do with them.
