Rebuy Redux

It's been a while since I've played any rebuy tourneys. I don't much care for the free-for-all atmosphere of the rebuy period. It's more like shooting craps than playing poker. But, for reasons unknown even to me, I jumped in to a $10+1 rebuy on Stars over the weekend. I figured I'd allow myself up to four rebuys, but no more.

The last time I did one of these I ended up with seven rebuys and an add-on. Fortunately, that was only a $3 one, so my total buy-in was $27. I was very disappointed in my money management toward the end of that one, so I wanted to do better on that aspect this time.

Despite the presence of one total nut case at my first table (she -- I think it was a she -- rebought at least ten times and was seeing the flop on about 70% of her hands), I managed to keep my head, play a smart game, and come out of the rebuy period without a single rebuy. My stack was just slightly less than average. Considering the number of really big stacks at the top of the leader board, I'm sure I was actually well above the halfway point as far as stack size goes. I did go for the add-on, topping me up to 8600.

Shortly after the first break I'm in the SB with A2s. It folds to me. I've got an Ace, so I make it 3BB to go. The big blind calls. Flop comes AJ3, only one of my suit. I'm figuring any hand that has me seriously beat would have re-raised before the flop. (One of these days I'm going to quit expecting everyone to play like I do.) For some reason the thought of JJ shoots through my head, but, seriously, who would have just called pre-flop with JJ? Obviously, a bigger ace has me beat at this point, but, again, I would have expected a pre-flop re-raise from a really big ace, and I figure I can probably bluff out a smaller ace.

So I bet 600 (2/3 the pot) and the BB pushes all-in. The alarm bells were definitely going off, but I ignored them. I call. The other guy turns over JJ. This was either a brilliant slowplay of JJ or one of the stupidest ways to play a vulnerable hand I've ever seen. I'm leaning toward the latter. His set holds and I'm down to 1700.

Two hands later I get TT and push all-in against a 3BB raise ahead of me. He shows A4o. Naturally, an ace falls on the turn and, having survived the rebuy period without a scratch, I'm gone a mere 12 hands later. Extremely disappointing.