Texas Hold’em tournaments, regardless of format, all usually follow the same general guidelines. Players will pay a fixed entry fee and then compete until one player has all of the chips. Players are not usually allowed to cash in any of their chips as they would in a live cash game. The game must be played out until completion. While there is no official rule for how chip values are assigned, there are common standards used for most poker events. A complete basic set of poker chips used in private poker games or other gambling games is usually comprised of white, red, blue, green, and black chips. Larger, high-stakes tournaments may use chipsets with many more colors. Texas Hold’em Rules. In Texas hold’em each player is dealt two cards called their ‘hole’ cards. Hole cards can only be seen and used by one person. The dealer button (denoted by a circular disc) is allocated before hands are dealt to allow for the positioning of the forced bets: small blind and big blind, and also to determine who will act first and last in the hand. The second most popular form of Texas Hold'em is Limit Holdem.Whereas No-Limit is a game of brute force where players play big stacks and run up huge bluffs, Fixed Limit Hold'em is a more subtle, gentleman's game where players look to exploit small edges: a game of finesse and well-timed aggression. Most poker chip sets will come with an uneven number of chips of each color. For example, a typical 500-chip set may give you 300 white chips, 100 blue chips, and 100 red chips. You will always want to use the higher quantity chip (in this case, white) as the lowest denomination chip.

A rebuy in poker is buying more chips when you have lost your entire stack or have fallen to a short stack level. Depending on whether you are playing in a tournament or a cash game, there are different rules and procedures.

Rebuys in a Cash Game

In cash games, if you lose your entire stack or most of it, you may choose to rebuy back in with more cash and keep playing. In cash games, you can only rebuy when you are not in a hand. If you are running short on chips and are dealt a pair of aces but can't make the maximum bet you want, you can't rebuy at that point.

The rules for rebuys for cash games usually include a maximum buy-in, and your rebuy can't put you over that limit. There may also be a table minimum and you may have to make your rebuy enough to meet that minimum.

Rebuys in a Poker Tournament

In a poker tournament, there is often an option to rebuy to get back into a tournament if you bust out or your chip stack falls below a certain number. You may be allowed to rebuy only once during the tournament or you may be able to rebuy multiple or even unlimited times.

When a tournament allows rebuys for short stacks, such as when you fall below 500 chips for a 2500 starting chip stack, your rebuy will only bring you up to the original chip stack.

Tournaments limit rebuys to a designated period, such as until the first break. After that, it is a freezeout. If you bust out during the freezeout, you are out of the tournament. Always check the tournament rules to see when the rebuy period expires.

The effect of rebuys and reentries on tournaments is that they build the prize pool, leveraging the number of players who enter the game. You may start out with a small prize pool, but as players bust out and rebuy or reenter, the prize pool grows.

Budget for rebuys, reentries, and add-ons and decide on your strategy. A tournament that allows rebuys and reentries will often have looser play in the rebuy/reentry period. You can use that to your advantage. You may decide to play looser yourself in the early blinds or play aggressively when you are short stacked, knowing you can rebuy if you bust out.

Tournament Rebuy Compared with Reentry and Add-on

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Some people confuse rebuys with a reentry. In a rebuy, when you bust out or your chips get low enough, you buy back in right there at the table. You even retain your same seat. In a re-entry tournament, you need to go back to the cage and buy a whole new entry and draw a new seat as if you were a brand new entrant into the poker tournament.

Rebuys are also different from add-ons, which allow all players to purchase additional chips, regardless of how many they still have. Usually, this is done at a specific time, such as at the first break. Add-ons usually have a better value, and you may be able to time it right to have both a rebuy and an add-on at the same time.

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Texas Hold'em Poker Chips Value

Edited by Adam Stemple