RiT in theory is great. I generally RiT whenever people want unless it's a small pot. The problem is in practice you get people who want to only RiT when ahead and want to see the other players cards 1st. Then they take forever to decide, or it creates and argument. It also takes extra time if the dealer has to wait and see if players want to RiT even if they don't.

He's not attempting to "introduce variance" in poker - He's arguably "introducing more variance"

And here I thought running it twice actually reduces variance.

FWIW, I hate RIT because it slows things down and leads to more stupid split pots and less tilt from suckout victims. I don't really care a great deal, but I always refuse to do it if I'm in the hand.

Imo: if you run it twice, you shouldn't be playing that high.

Even if this were true, you could argue RiT allows people to play higher.

Nah. For any bankroll size and any level of risk aversion or risk-neutrality (as US income taxes introduce effective risk aversion), all rational players would always personally prefer any amount of variance reduction with no change to EV. There are certainly interpersonal/metagame factors that might compel rational players to not RIT but this isn't one of them.

Yep, and I do believe people do decide to play higher for this reason.

RIT has been discussed a lot on other threads. There is no consensus I can understand. We allow it in our homegames HU only, but I can't remember a time I ever saw it at a casino table. Likely it does happen sometimes in some casinos where it is allowed. I consider it a waste of time, most of the time.

I disagree.
For the game as a whole, I prefer higher variance. Variance is your friend. It allows those not as good as you to win sometimes and give them the illusion of being a winning player. Not allowing variance to be lowered (RIT) also encourages people to fold when they have a close decision.

Agree with this. Variance allows a worse player to sometimes enjoy success while running above expectation. Similarly, it allows hero (assuming hero is better player) to sometimes run below expectation. All other things equal, however, the edge is still there.

Giving villain confidence to keep playing A) keeps his/her hobby alive and B) keeps money on the table

I play almost only home games so think about this a lot.

My game is 1/2 deep stack. If pot is 500 or less I really don't care about running it twice. More than 1000 I generally prefer it. In between just depends.

If I'm in with a fish or whale or someone I like ill do whatever they want. Some regs really want to run it multiple times to avoid variance. I usually won't do it with them unless pot is huge because this desire is usually correlated with over folding and I want them to be afraid to call me.

I would imagine there's an "optimum" level of variance that you want in a poker game that keeps losers happy while rewarding the house/winning player over time. I'm sure I sure a documentary on gambling that talked about this, and how slot machines in particular are geared to just the right level of pay outs. Something like those video slots where they have a couple of dozen lines, it's actually possible to pay out too frequently to the point that even though there's still a house edge it's not fun for the losing player.

I've played plo home games where you can RiT six ways three times and it works great because all of the players already know who does and doesn't RiT. The dealers are amazing at chopping the pots and it goes really fast. Nothing about the casino games work this smoothly so I wouldn't compare RiT in casino to home games.

Some slots pay out small amounts frequently because many people want to experience frequent "winning". Other slots payout less frequently but in great big chunks because some people don't want to mess around with the little "wins", they want the jackpot. Both sets of people know they are negative EV against the house, their "fun" just comes in different ways. I expect it is the same with poker players that know they don't have an edge.

i always run it the maximum times allowed

Hate it.slows the game down,results in less money being on the table and helps prevents tons of players from tilting. Most people also suck if they get deep stacked.There is no upside if properly rolled and you can emotionally handle swings.

I hate it too for the most part.

Your edge is being able to handle variance better then your opponents. Not to mention I'd rather have somebody really deep and the other guy reloading.

A lot of people have this "always run it twice or never" sort of mentality which is just silly. I just tell people it depends, but if you absolutely must know, assume I'm not running it twice. Because chances are once the moneys in and its a massive pot I dont mind running it twice on a 60/40 or w/e, but I can't have an "always run it twice" set up because I dont ever want to overbet shove the turn with like As2x on K954csss and get called by KsQh only because he thought we could run it twice. This goes both ways of course, as I can have the nuts and get him to call drawing dead because he can run it twice... but you can only make the nuts so often ya know

I have mixed feelings about its place in the game, because on one hand I do feel like it keeps a lot of rec players happy and more willing to gamble

I play mainly PLO so this logic might be different for NLHE.

If I have a made hand already, and I think my opponent is on a drawing hand, I ask to run it twice. This will allow me favorable results since if they hit outs to hit their hand, thats less outs for them to hit in the 2nd draw.

If I'm on a draw such as a flush draw, I always ask to run it once.

I always say no; my thinking is that people playing pots against me get a little more cautious and less aggressive. They have in the back of their head '****, this guy never will RIT.; I better keep the pot small or fold". It makes the table fear you. But of course I really can't tell for sure how well this works.

Some punters will prefer different set ups (hence slots where you can choose how many lines to play and such) but there are regions that will have higher popularity. I know there's conditioning experiments on these lines where they find being rewarded too much isn't as motivating as only being rewarded some of the time.

I don't care for it. I don't do it on-line. It has no effect on long term odds or variance, only on short term variance, which we're supposed to ignore anyway. And it seems kind of tacky, giving some loser extra chances like it's a pity party, or begging extra kicks at the can because you suck and you got it in bad. So meh.

If you have the edge then in the long run you get all the money; the problem is in the short run you can get pretty unlucky and end up losing your bankroll or a significant portion thereof. So it is good for a winning player to reduce their variance, especially if it comes at no cost to your winrate. A skilled blackjack player might abstain from doubling A6 v 2, even though at virtually any plus count the double will have a slightly higher expected value, because the modest increase in EV does not compensate you sufficiently for the increased risk compared with hitting. This is especially the case of the full kelly bettor who has wagered say 1.5% of their bankroll on their hand at TC +4 for example.

RIT vs fun players if they want to, and RIO vs almost all pros or anyone bad for the game.

I just agree to whatever the opponent wants.

Kinda this. I think RIT twice is a waste of time mostly, but debating it with somebody just wastes more time. Just my opinion.