Another Good Reason to Avoid Re-Buy Events

Wil Wheaton's been guest-posting over at the official Poker Stars blog, and has served up several entertaining stories from behind the scenes at the WSOP. But his most recent tale, about the in-progress PLO-with-Rebuys Event, offers something a bit more curious and eye-opening. We'll pick it up where Wil is conversing with Barry Greenstein, with Greenstein fresh from bouncing out of the event:

"So you're doing really well, right?" I said.

"Well, I was," Barry said, "until there was this table of Europeans behind me where they were going all-in in the dark, and Tony G won a pot with a pair of nines."

"What?!" I said.

Barry ate a bit and said, "He stacked his chips, and didn't play a pot until after the rebuy period. Doesn't that seem like some sort of collusion to you?"

"Uh, yeah." I said. "Did anyone do anything about it?"

Click that hyperlink above to go to the rest of the tale. Suffice it to say that this behavior --- whether the allegation in the above is true or not --- is one of the two main reasons I seldom play rebuy tourneys: it's too easy for friends to dump chips, building up a big early stack for at least one of them; and rebuys are often a case of who's got the biggest bankroll, rather than rewarding skill.

I'll stick to freezeouts, thanks, except on the rare occasions where I have other reasons for playing.


*here is the counterpoint to the Tony G rebuy situation. The KAP Blogger played in the Poker Dome with none other than Tony G and learned more.

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