I had a 3 hour marathon at a cheapo re-buy tourney. It was advertised as guaranteed $1000 in payouts, and it only had 50 entries with an initial buy-in of $2.25. The site I go to looks pretty shady, and they don't clarify the exact payouts anywhere on the site, but I'll take it on faith they deliver as promised.
My first rebuy was when I had my pocket Aces cracked by pocket Queens in a five-way (!) all-in battle in the first hour. I had been playing well in the conservative mode and was up in chips at that point, but wanted more so that if I doubled up from some idiot, the pot would be worthwhile. I was able to grow this re-buy to an acceptable size by the time of the cut-off, at which time I bought the optional rebuy for good measure.
A total investment of $6.75, while I witnessed others re-buying willy nilly and going all-in as fast as they could catch any kind of starters at all. (This lead to some ridiculously big stacks.) I'm sure many players spent $40 or more for a $2.25 tourney.
I survived to the final table almost without incident. I played very few hands, but was able to use controlled agression to take a few pots with no showdowns, and I took more than 50% of the showdowns, so I never got below 10M.
Payout was to top 10 spots, so I naturally blew a gasket once I made the final table, going all-in with pocket 8's in response to a 3BB raise. Naturally, the raiser had a higher pair (KK) and statistics held true, failing to give me a suck-out. I got what I deserved for losing patience after 3 hours of careful, tedious play.
If I had folded my 88's or at worst called....
My payout for 10th prize? $20, or slightly worse than first prize at a 10 player sit'n'go. Whoo-hoo!
