Is there something to the madness of playing poorly on purpose?

Lately, the online poker scene has changed dramatically. Many sites now have extremely long re-entry periods and/or long late registration periods. I've given this a lot of thought and came to the conclusion that a solid player should be able to do BETTER in these types of tourneys than the average player, the ones that allow themselves unlimited numbers of rebuys/re-entries, right up until the last minute. Those types of players are the norm. They will buy in, quickly start going all in, playing in general, extremely recklessly, making seemingly poor decision after poor decision after poor decision, bust out, rebuy/re-enter again, do it again, and again, and again, until at some point they get miraculously lucky and go on a tear. During the tear, they will double up, then they will catch a miracle river card and double up again....then, yep you guessed it, they get lucky again...and again...and again and again and again and again...until this (supposedly) bad player is in the chip lead or almost in the chip lead....then when the re-entry period is over, they finally settle down. But here's the strange part.....their luck continues to be good even though by now the blinds and antes are so high that anything could happen....but it doesn't seem to happen to these fine folks....they get so lucky that they end up in first or at least 2nd or 3rd....

OK, I just described a common scenario...someone gets really lucky, but even stranger is that this same person does the same thing tourney after tourney after tourney after tourney after tourney until they become a filthy rich person....all the while laughing their way to the bank as they buy their new car, house or party hearty with their new-found wealth.

My question is...what am I missing here? Could it be they're doing something right? Could it be that if a tourney has a buy-in of 60 cents with 60 cent unlimited rebuys and they spend $30-40-50- even $60 on such tourneys that the reasoning that "well, I'm bound to get lucky at some point" actually has some sort of twisted merit????????????

Has been a common strategy for many 'rebuy' players for a long time. These 'reentries' have morphed into these type of rebuy games you used to find on PS. Good players who know how to change gears have been successful making money. The problem is, it takes a lot of Capital (money) to make this strategy work, and if you do not finish in the Top 3 or even win these these things on regular occasion, you will be broke pretty fast. But the right kind of player can make this work.

In the end, get a top player a stack of chips, and he can do damage more times than not.

you know its not just luck playing that way :) players who play well short stacked dominate in this environment. these are the same players that also dominate bubble time, its a hard strategy to succeed with, and the WORST variance, but can be a good way to profit as well

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Originally Posted by WECpoker

In the end, get a top player a stack of chips, and he can do damage more times than not.

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Yes, I know what you're saying for sure...I used to be one of those "top" players who knew how to manhandle others at bubble time and at the final table. But nowadays it's just crazy. People will call me down with any two cards (but they won't call down the "top" players of today).

When late registration finally ends 3 hours and 45 minutes after the $1.10 buy-in tourney started, all that's left are players that are going to call me down no matter what. If they're looking at my stats, they shouldn't have any reason to call me, yet they do. However, there seems to be an ample number of posts and books and other literature out there about abusing the bubble and having a deep stack, etc etc etc. that it makes me believe some folks are still doing well at bubble time and at the final table....and I'm a direct witness of that, too. Maybe it's my timing or something that makes folks not believe me but they do believe these "top" players of today for some reason. Maybe I'm taking too long to make my raise or my shove and my hesitation instills a feeling that I'm weak and therefore ready to be exploited (which I often am) whereas in the old days they used to just click the fold button automatically unless they had a great hand.

back when Merge had the dollar frenzy, I would wait until the add on re buy period was up to enter, I did at first start when the tourney started and watched players go all in and rebuy for like 5 or 6 bucks and would think they are insane. Sometimes they would hit with a 4 or 5 way all in but for the most part they were wasting money. Now these games have 4 hour late reg which seems completely nuts but it is what it is.

I am absolutely amazed at the play we see online. I will say the old timers that specialize in rebuy tourneys would play this dynamic with great success. I am starting to think it has some how morphed into this new crazy unpredictable online approach. The difference is that the old timers could use there tell skills. Online, there is very little. Kind of like you said, the hesitations and things of this manner are the new tells.

i really can't stand it when they are the really bad players that just hit everything combined with being loud mouths thinking they are so great and then you just still cant beat em even though always ahead

Yeah it seems like everyone plays shitty cards all the time and know one really has any skills people will play any two cards now.

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Originally Posted by StackSnack

I am absolutely amazed at the play we see online. I will say the old timers that specialize in rebuy tourneys would play this dynamic with great success. .

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True, how true. I am a rebuy specialist wannabe/usedtobe. But I don't have enough bankroll to justify the costs of 1 buy-in, 1 rebuy, and the addon. My bankroll management scheme is quite liberal in that I will allow myself to use up to 10% of my entire roll on any given tourney on any of my sites (I have about 6 sites), but the only site I have enough on (Intertops) doesn't have enough rebuy tourneys at the time of day I like to play and am at my best.

So I have to try building back up with late reg tourneys, whether turbo or not. It gets even more ridiculous when it's a turbo, even if the late reg period is much shorter because by the time a late-jumper-inner (or multi-re-enterer) jumps into those, they're only getting 5 bb or sometimes even less than that.

This should be GOOD news for me. The worse my competition is and the shorter their stacks, the BETTER it should be for me instead of worse, like it actually is, yet for some mysterious reason, it's not working out. Give me a standard structured rebuy tourney with one hour of late reg and I believe I could do fine...I have a history of doing fine in those, but they're not out there any more except where they're beyond my bankroll and this is starting to frustrate me a little.

Have any of you experimented around with the optimal time to buy into a mega-late registration/re-entry period and done EXTENSIVE experimentation? I do find the competition to be rather tough when I enter on time for the first hour or so, so maybe entering about 1 hour late would be optimal, I've tried that but still no luck...maybe 2 hours late would be better, I'm not sure. Maybe entering on time is best and just tough it out for the first half-hour to one hour and hope for the best and stop feeling frustrated after playing 4 hours and reaching the cusp of riches only to be shot down by another big stack who got HIS big stack from being exceptionally lucky after going on a once-in-a-lifetime tear and just so happens to have AA when his range is any two cards at the time I go up against him.

Very interesting topic. I hope to be doing this when I build enough of a bankroll

Change variance, and let them walk into you.

The most annoying part of the game is someone betting rediculous amounts while you're holding one of the better hands possible, and at the showdown they have nothing while you're holding 2 pair, and the other person calling them drops a set. People who play reckless and careless effect my game the most because I make the correct read on their betting. I'm just eager to play in a real game of poker w/o the careless individuals.

Just avoid the rebuy games. So long as the sites are making money on the rebuy tournaments they keep adding them. Play multi table sit and gos.

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Originally Posted by mawoyto

Just avoid the rebuy games. So long as the sites are making money on the rebuy tournaments they keep adding them. Play multi table sit and gos.

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I'm too stubborn to switch to multi-table sngs even though that might restore my sanity. What would restore it better would be if I could figure out the exact best time to buy in because it makes no sense that I should be doing worse than normal when the play is so reckless. There's something I must be missing....there must be a way to exploit these players and make a fortune off of them instead of them making a fortune off of me.

These games are tough for building a bankroll from FRs. The odds are against you if you're trying to cash with one buy-in, and with 3.5 hour late reg its easy to think you would need an average 10 buy-ins to get to the end of late reg. So if these are your type of game, then you really would want to already have a BR of at least 100 buy-ins (personally i'd like 300) to handle the high amount of variance. You need to build a deep stack going to the bubble to win these donkfests. I personally hate rebuy touneys because the variance is too high for my taste.