What is a good method for using a kill at these stakes? Hearing some complaints about how they are doing it at rio. (30 hk on $200 scoop)

I guess it depends on your philosophy of what the point of kill or half kill games is. Usually they seem like a method to trick people who are uncomfortable with the higher stake into playing it, in which case you should make the kill pretty easy to attain. A 5bb scoop for a stud8 game seems like it would hit often enough. Is that the complaint, that there's a kill too often? (I have seen games where its easier, and there's a kill on nearly every scoop)

Kills are difficult to add to a stud game, but the value is usually half a bet (half-kill), so 20-40 kills to 30-60, although I have seen full kill games where the stakes double.

I say they're difficult to add because the forced action in stud is usually quite small with a bring-in relative to the starting pot, encouraging people to play, but in a kill pot the ante doesn't change, making a very small starting pot relative to the forced action of the kill. Correct strategy is to play tighter than normal in kill pots, the opposite of the intended effect of a kill in, say Holdem or Omaha.

I think no stud game is improved with a kill. There is a "voluntary" kill version of stud I've heard of, where any player can double his ante, which doubles the stakes of the game. This also makes for a tighter structure, but because it is instigated at will, it's usually the loosest players that kill pots and compound their errors by doing it.

I'm not a big fan of kills in general, but personally I think they ruin a stud game, and Stud 8 is my favorite game. It changes the whole structure of the game more than does a holdem or omaha kill. You can call it just a "half kill", but the minimum bet is going up 6 times, from $5 to $30. Even if you assume the bet is generally raised once in either game, it still then goes up 3 times, from $20 to $60. All with the same ante as the regular hands.

At the Bicycle 20/40 they used to have what they called an "action button" if I am remembering right. The stakes didn't go up, but if a player scooped a certain size, they had to complete to $20 regardless of their cards. The low still brought it in. I didn't love this either, but thought it was better than a regular kill.

I have never heard of anyplace doing it this way, but I think it wouldn't be terrible to increase stakes to 30/60 and have the scooper just put extra ante money into the pot.

Something like this used to exist in the ancient high-ante stud days. The limits wouldn't go up, but the killer would have to match everybody's ante.

So in a 20/40 with $5 antes (I know, I know) a table would start with $80 in the middle rather than $40, but it would still be 20/40.

It may have been 10 big bets (that was always described as 20 small bets, for some reason) that triggered it, but I don't really remember the exact format.

At any rate, this really promoted action, and wasn't merely a ploy to reward nits.

I'm pretty sure this is wrong. I think when the killer posted the antes, that counted as his bring in, and the limits did double, but I'm not sure who the action was on. I'll ask some other old guys in Vegas how it worked.

Played in the 10-20 O/8 game at the Rio last week. The kill was 5 big bets which did seem low to me. Typically on the east coast in the casinos I have played at it is 7 1/2 big bets. So in a 20-40 game the kill (or half kill) would happen on a scoop of $300 (not $200). I remember last year playing Stud 8 at the Rio and no one at the table could agree how the kill should work so we called the floor. The floor was totally useless. We all agreed not to have a kill in the game.