Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Rebuy

I don't think I've ever mentioned this before, but there's a type of MTT NLHE tournament on PokerStars which includes a rebuy option. What that boils down to is that if you hit the rail before the late registration period ends, you can rebuy into the tournament as if you hadn't already entered it. You can do this as many times as you like, within that time period. Not only that, when the late registration period ends, everyone has a one-time opportunity to buy more chips for a set price.

I think I've played at most five of this type of tournament in my career. Last night, in the fourth tournament I entered, I played another. I realize I didn't play it in the optimal fashion. What's the optimal way to play such a tournament? I've thought about this a fair amount, and here's what I came up with:

1. during the late registration period, you should throw caution to the winds; since you can always rebuy if you hit the rail, it's to your advantage to play very aggressively. Your goal is to build your stack up as much as possible; it's worth it to play more loosely at this stage.

2. as soon as the late registration period ends, you should avail yourself of the buying extra chips option if your stack is less than the average stack

3. from this point onwards, you have to play as tight as a drum

My mistake was to play as tight as a drum from the get-go.

style flavor buy_in entry players hands entries paid place winnings

MTT   NLHE    17500  2500       6    47     486  114   158        0
MTT   NLHE    43500  6500       9    13      51   12     -        0
MTT   NLHE    45000  5000       6    22      29    8     -        0
MTT   NLHE    87000 13000       9    33      76   18    34        0
MTT   NLHE    17500  2500       6    87     463  114    73    39700 

delta: $-200,300
MTT NLHE balance: $3,412,948
2017 balance: $1,333,925
balance: $12,751,755