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What is the value of an add-on in a freeroll?? (3 Viewers)

yeahfkyeah

yeahfkyeah

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A local poker room holds a weekly freeroll tournament...OK freeroll is a bit BS, it actually costs $5 to play.

$5 gets you 50K in chips.
You can add-on an additional 50K chips for another $40.
Any time you are under 50K, you can purchase an additional 50K chips for $40.
If you bust out, you can rebuy 50K chips for $40 or 100K chips for $80.
At the break, they allow any and all players to purchase an additional 75K in chips for $40.

There are 45 seats max. The payout is $1500 min but seems to always float closer to $2500.


I'm trying to understand the value of the add-ons. Can someone help me? With such a huge opportunity for the first $5 spent, I find it hard to envision the value of the add-ons. People drop hundreds of dollars busting and rebuying, and I'm sitting there thinking about how many times I could enter this tournament for that same money. Am I just thinking like a loser? Does the initial buy-in not matter at all to this equation?
 
Depending on the payouts:

-You can try to just do the initial $5, double up early and run it up. If I was running good, I would do the add-on.
-treat it like an $85 tourney....buy in the initial $45 then do the add on.
-Just skip this shit show.

I never want to play a tourney where if I make the money, I still lose.
 
For reference, I play in a rebuy tourney with a large add-on quite often online. I wait until the end of the rebuys then buy in for the rebuy and add-on for about 22 bb's. Either I run deep, or I don't waste a bunch of time fucking about with multiple rebuys. If I make the money, I double up my buyin/rebuy.
 
They are very valuable… to the tournament organizers!

If you skip the add-on and suddenly go from top 10% to bottom 20%, then it probably makes sense to buy it. If you are already bottom 10% and buying it still leaves you in the bottom 10%, probably not worth doing. If you’re way ahead and not buying still leaves you in the top 10%, maybe buy or skip depending on how you feel about it.
 
If everyone bought in for the minimum, with 45 entries at $5, total pool would be $225. With a $1500 guarantee, the poker club would go bankrupt or stop spreading the “free roll”.

If everyone bought in and immediately purchased the rebuy and then added on at the break (assuming full tables at the break), 45 x $85 = $3825. That doesn’t include those that bust out and bloat the fee pool even more.

Does the poker room state what percentage of the money is given in prizes? With payouts of around $2500, the poker room would making pretty good money (>33% rake) if the pool is >$3800.

I guess you need to calculate your odds of cashing to determine whether this game is worth throwing money into the poker room’s pockets. Min cash probably won’t get your buy in, rebuy, second rebuy, add on back. Maybe a top 3 finish might get you there, but what are your odds of getting there?
 
If this is a weekly tournament, my strategy would be to play in it every week and never, ever rebuy/add-on. You will absolutely come out way ahead in the long run if you are a decent player at all, IMO.

50BB for $5 to start.

$80 for probably the same or less BB to rebuy. Just doesn't make sense.
 
Marc Hedrick said:
If this is a weekly tournament, my strategy would be to play in it every week and never, ever rebuy/add-on. You will absolutely come out way ahead in the long run if you are a decent player at all, IMO.

50BB for $5 to start.

$80 for probably the same or less BB to rebuy. Just doesn't make sense.
Click to expand...

This was exactly my take on it... in fact that was my plan in the first tournament, but I noticed a ridiculous number of people rebuying for $80, and a significant chunk of the field seemed to take the 75K option at the break.
 
yeahfkyeah said:
This was exactly my take on it... in fact that was my plan in the first tournament, but I noticed a ridiculous number of people rebuying for $80, and a significant chunk of the field seemed to take the 75K option at the break.
Click to expand...
My only tip would be to not advertise that you don't rebuy or talk about it really. No need to let them catch on that you're cashing consistently for only $5. If everyone does that this game will die quickly :ROFL: :ROFLMAO:
 
Marc Hedrick said:
My only tip would be to not advertise that you don't rebuy or talk about it really. No need to let them catch on that you're cashing consistently for only $5. If everyone does that this game will die quickly :ROFL: :ROFLMAO:
Click to expand...

I've never seen the payout at the min so I'm guessing this isn't much of a concern to them at the moment.
 
My strategy would be to try to run up your original $5 stack as much as you can and do the add on. Even if you’re chip leader. When the add on gets you more than the starting stack I think you have no choice but to do the add on. That extra 75k makes your ability to play actual poker and see more hands without just shoving preflop and banking on winning a couple of coin flips. Even if you run your initial stack from 50k to 125k doing the add on and now having 200k makes you in a much better position to cash/win. The $40 is well worth it.
 
GetUrShineBox said:
My strategy would be to try to run up your original $5 stack as much as you can and do the add on. Even if you’re chip leader. When the add on gets you more than the starting stack I think you have no choice but to do the add on. That extra 75k makes your ability to play actual poker and see more hands without just shoving preflop and banking on winning a couple of coin flips. Even if you run your initial stack from 50k to 125k doing the add on and now having 200k makes you in a much better position to cash/win. The $40 is well worth it.
Click to expand...

Are you suggesting playing it like a freezout as well, with no rebuys?
 
I used to play in a tournament almost weekly, where you got three $50 bullets - 15K in chips for buyin and rebuys, but if you had a bullet left at the break you could get a 20K addon for it. I did the math many times - the average person (generally 50ish) runners was in for about $120. So yeah, most people love rebuys and addons. Doesn't mean its smart. I almost always played for a single $50 bullet. And the one year I kept good records, I did very well. Well, I more than doubled my money on the year for that tournament - to me that's very well.

I would say those $40 and $80 addons are sucker bets, when you can cash for $5.
 
upNdown said:
I used to play in a tournament almost weekly, where you got three $50 bullets - 15K in chips for buyin and rebuys, but if you had a bullet left at the break you could get a 20K addon for it. I did the math many times - the average person (generally 50ish) runners was in for about $120. So yeah, most people love rebuys and addons. Doesn't mean its smart. I almost always played for a single $50 bullet. And the one year I kept good records, I did very well. Well, I more than doubled my money on the year for that tournament - to me that's very well.

I would say those $40 and $80 addons are sucker bets, when you can cash for $5.
Click to expand...
The more I think about it....yeah, this is the way. Buy in for $5 and ride it till it bucks you....then go home. If you bink it once, you are in the black.

Playing this way, you are sitting at the tournament start....you are needing to get hands early and double up a couple times. Of course, the bonus is you have a lot of shitty players throwing money in then rebuying, so it's doable. If you bust, you go home minus $5.
 
yeahfkyeah said:
Are you suggesting playing it like a freezout as well, with no rebuys?
Click to expand...
Well me personally, if I get the ok from the wifey and my kids don't have anything going and I'm playing in a tournament that lasts for several hours I'm rebuying as many times as I get knocked out if its only $40. And I'd probably be doing the $80 rebuy/addon at the same time. HAHAHA. But that's because I don't get to play that much.

My comment was more along the lines of you spending just $5 or $5 plus the $40 add on for 75k in chips if that makes sense.
 
It would be nice if somebody could put a mathematical value on it, but I don’t think you can. So you’re stuck just figuring out what it’s worth to you, and what your goals are. The no rebuy, no addon thing isn’t for everybody. It’s certainly less fun playing with a short stack, knowing you’re at a disadvantage. Personally, beating the system is huge for me, so I love it. But if you just want to splash around chips and have poker fun and make more final tables, then hell yeah, the addon is for you.
 
Harrah's (Las Vegas) used to run a tournament like this for players that put in enough hours. I'd say the vast majority of the players played jam or fold poker.

I'll play along for the +EV, but that EV diminishes quickly if you must add-on to stay afloat. I'd compare the prize pool to the cost of my buy-in, and decide accordingly.
 
You can get a really good sense for next time by just seeing how many add-ons/rebuys happen this time. Prize pool divided by total chips times start stack at close of reg. If there are a lot of add-ons and double rebuys it could get somewhere in the $30-35 range. If they are rare, could be just $8-10

Edit: this was for the 50k chip add-on. The 75k chip add on might be worth over $40 and be a no-brainer
 
Last edited:
This is where tonight's tourney stands...44 people joined, 48 rebuys (this includes pre-break add-ons), and 29 opted for the 75k add-on.

Screenshot_20230111_203045_PokerAtlas.jpg
 
upNdown said:
So 75,000 chips are “worth” $28.23, as far as prizepool divided by chips in play. But I’m not sure what that information is good for.
Click to expand...

Sounds like 50k for 5$ is a good value, but everything else is overpriced chips. I'm sure you'd need to calculate this a bit differently though, right? Like ratio of money in to money out and odds of actually hitting money.
 
grebe said:
But if you are only in for the $5, others are paying most of that rake. Even if you min-cash, you are up HUGE. It's the same as value hunting when you have 4bb's left in a tournament....you don't need to be the favorite, you just need to be getting a good price.
Click to expand...
Yeah, that was sort of my point about calculating the rake. Throwing more and more money into the tournament with rebuys and add-ons benefits the poker room for sure. Hitting min-cash with a $5 entry is positive EV. Hitting min-cash with a $45, $85 or $125 entry is probably less so.
 

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