Rebuy tournaments are my favorite types of tournaments to play.

I am not much of a gambler away from poker; I rarely play table games like craps or blackjack and I never bet on sports. My tournament style, and overall poker style for that matter is more of a tight aggressive style, but during rebuy tournaments I use a different strategy that is fun to play and given me a great deal of success in the past. Many people have different strategies for rebuy tournaments, and I think that people should use whatever is comfortable for them. I have tried different strategies from not playing any hands during the rebuy period, to playing and raising almost every hand during the rebuy period, and everything in-between. The strategy I have found to be most fun and most successful, has been a hyper-aggressive style. I use the first few hands to make it known that I am ready to gamble, and it always seems to get the table to cooperate with me. Whenever I am playing in a rebuy tournament, I am always willing to make at least five rebuys. Getting a big stack early can be a huge advantage, as I will explain later. This hyper-aggressive style sometimes works in regular tournaments, but the problem is if you lose, you are out of the tournament, whereas in a rebuy, if you lose you can get right back to square one by rebuying. After I show the table my willingness to gamble and have the entire table gambling themselves, I continue my chatter but ease back on being the maniac that they all think I am. I recently played in a $150 buy in rebuy tournament at Foxwoods in Connecticut, with $60 rebuys and 186 participants. I will explain some key situations and important concepts, which ultimately lead me to winning the tournament and taking home a first place prize of $14,000. The rebuy hour was one hour long and had two levels, thirty minutes each. During the first level, the blinds were $25-25, and in the second level, the blinds were $25-50. We started with $500 in chips, and for $60 in real money you could get $500 more chips. I always rebuy when the tournament begins. The reason for this is that you always want to have as many chips as possible, so if you find yourself in the position to double up you can have a big stack. The reason for my hyper-aggressive style during the rebuy period is that I am trying to obtain the biggest stack possible. As soon as I sat down, I began to chat with everyone and tried to create a positive atmosphere. A few hands into the tournament I managed to get all my chips in preflop with KK, and I was called by two players, one with A 10 off suit, and the other with Q9 off. After the flop was AQQ, I failed to improve on the turn and river and I immediately rebought two more times. (In rebuy tournaments, when you lose all of your chips you have the option to rebuy two times.) Instead of complaining about the bad beat and going on tilt, I did the exact opposite. I continued to talk a lot and keep the table gambling and having fun. A few important hands came up during the rebuy period were created because of the gambling style I portrayed during the first half-hour or so. With the blinds at $25-50, I went all in early position with A6 suited. I would not typically play this hand in early position. However, I was trying to build a stack and get calls from weak hands. To my surprise, after getting three callers, the hands were turned over and I had the best hand! I was up against KJ off suite, and two players had KQ off suite. The flop came down ace high and I now had an above average $4k stack. Once I reach a certain chip stack, I tend to tighten up a lot, and my goal for this tournament was to have a 7500 stack by the end of the rebuy period. Luckily, I had two other situations that put my stack over $10k. The first hand was just a lucky situation that I happened to be on the right end of. Four of us got all in preflop and my JJ was somehow the favorite against 1010, and 2 players who both had AK off suit. After this hand, I was around $8k in chips and one of the tournament chip leaders. At this point, I was not playing the hyper-aggressive style anymore, but the table kept giving me action because they thought I was in every pot with nothing. A few hands before the rebuy period ended I limped in with 33 from middle position after two players limped in front of me, and the flop was 732 rainbow. One of the early position limpers made a weak bet into the pot, and I made a small raise. He instantly went all in and flipped over his J7 proudly. I took the last few hands off and finished the first hour with about $11k in chips, making me one of the top five chip leaders.