“I have x-amount of dollars, how can I build my roll?” It’s a question we have all seen or heard on one poker forum or another. And there are many different answers, some correct, some not correct. Personally I built my roll playing sit-n-go’s and cash games back in the day. But I have recently found a tournament that gives a fairly high return on investment and could potentially lead to thousands of dollars. It’s the nightly PokerStars $3 re-buy tournament. This tournament can be profitable for people with almost any bankroll. You can be successful in this tourney playing conservatively and spending $9-$15 or you can go crazy and spend $30 trying to get a big stack if your roll can handle a $30 swing. Below, I will cover the two approaches separately as well as tell you what is so great about this tournament.

Before we get into the conservative or aggressive approach, you will see in the tournament lobby that it has a simple $10,000 guarantee. Not bad, right? Well, by the time the tourney starts, the prize pool often exceeds $30k!!!! That means almost $10,000 for first place! That’s not bad for a possible $9 investment! As for the budget for this tourney, I would say that $15 is a good amount to expect. Sure, there will be times that you only spend $9 and there will be times you have to spend $20, but $15 should be a good amount. This allows you to buy-in and re-buy immediately, as well as take the add-on at the end of the first break. The extra $6 is because sometimes you are going to bust and need to double rebuy to get back into the tourney. This tourney is one of the most profitable I have seen. I can’t believe how many of the players only buy-in once or twice and then leave when they bust. This thins the field quickly and makes it easier for a good player to make the money.

If you have a REALLY short bankroll (less than $250), you should probably go the conservative route. This means buying in, immediately rebuying and planning to get the add-on as well. **As a quick side note, you should take the add-on no matter how many chips you have at the break, even if you have a HUGE stack…still take the add-on.** Since you don’t want to spend 10 rebuys, you want to play the early stages fairly conservatively, but remembering that the tourney is a rebuy. For example, in a normal tournament, I might fold AK to a raise and a reraise, especially if the reraise is all-in.

But in a rebuy tourney I would call or move all-in myself with that AK. This is because during the rebuy period, you're going to see players going absolutely nuts, because they are willing to put in 10 or 15 buy-ins. This actually HELPS the conservative player, making it easier to get paid off when you make good hands. When I pick up a hand like KK or AK, Ill often raise it to 5BB preflop. Not because I want to protect my hand, but because people with worse hands will often call you! If I have KK and I can get a player with QJ suited to put in 5BB preflop, I'm going to do it all day long.

Patience is the name of the game. Wait for good hands and then push them hard, as long as the rebuy period is still in effect, you will get paid off. Your goal should be to come out of this period with a slightly above average stack, including the add-on. Many times I have used this strategy to make the money for only $9, however, you should be prepared to spend up to $15-$20 if its necessary.

Ok, now on to those of you who have a little more money to spend, say you plan to spend $20 but are willing to go up to $30 or $35. This strategy is a little more expensive, but also can really allow you to build up a huge chip stack. The first thing I do when playing this strategy is to figure out if my table will let me limp. Early in a rebuy, usually people like to limp in and try to hit a big flop with mediocre holdings. Now, you don’t want to steal these bets, often there is not enough in the pot to make it worth the risk, you want to join in the fun. Suited connectors, suited 1-gappers, any two face cards, etc., you want to limp when there are 2 or 3 people ahead of you that limped also. You want to hit a big flop, like 2-pair or a straight or trips or something big. Having 2 or 3 (or more) other players in the pot with you, increases the chance that someone else will hit the flop and therefore increase the chance that you get paid off with your hand. Even in this strategy, I still don’t try to steal a whole lot (during the rebuy period) because people are just too willing to get chips in. So rather than trying to bluff, you're more taking chances to hit big hands. I might call a single raise with suited connectors, I might call an all-in with TT, I am willing to take ANY coinflip situation I can get.

So, what qualifies as a big stack? Well, think of it like this. If you were to bust just before the rebuy period ends, you could buy-in for 1500 chips, rebuy for 1500 more and then add-on for 2000. So even if you bust, you will start after the break with 5000 chips. This means that anything less than 9k or 10k in chips and I am probably taking some BIG risks in the last 8 or 10 minutes before the end of the re-buy period. If you can pick up another 5, 6, 7k in chips or even double up, the risk of going from 8-10k down to 5k is WELL worth it. The goal of this strategy is to be in the top 10-20 chip stacks when you come out of the first break.

Well, I hope that this helps you guys get ahead a little in a tournament with a HUGE prize pool. This tourney is great for players who don’t have a ton of money to play with, but who would like to potential for a nice score. No matter which of these strategies you use, you should be able to make the money a nice percentage of the time. Exploit those players who are playing too loose and pay attention to how many chips you have vs. blinds, vs. the other players and pay attention to when the rebuy period ends and you might just find your $200 roll becomes $10,200! Good luck!