Then play lower if short term variance has that much affect on you and your bankroll. That is why it is called 'bankroll management'.

I'd like to see RIT banned from all casinos, for the reasons already stated by some above.

I wouldn't want to do this in a casino but I am fine with it in home games. It keeps the less skilled players in the game and gives them a little more incentive to gamble.

Say one time.debate over.

Why would you want to sacrifice your edge to reduce variance if you can just as easily reduce variance without doing so? Assuming your win rate at the higher game is greater than the lower game, it is a more effective bankroll management strategy to reduce your variance in the higher game than drop down.

This thread has become an interesting debate between focusing on proper bankroll management vs maximizing win rate, and I think it boils down to people's risk of ruin tolerance.

Conventional bankroll management is to have enough buy ins or bets relative to your skill level to make your risk of ruin statistically tiny. On the other hand, increasing risk of ruin to increase pure money win rate is not necessarily a problem if a person's risk tolerance is high for whatever reason, because higher risk does equal higher rewards if your skill level is high enough.

My issue in this case with playing higher is that running it twice does not lower the variance enough to match a lower stake, as well as the natural human ego to overestimate your win rate in general.

If you get it all in preflop too much with worse pocket pairs, running it twice won't fix your leak. But even if you are optimal, you will still go on run it twice losing streaks and downswings bigger than the lower stake.

But, if a higher risk of ruin is something you can actually tolerate, there is no logical reason to not play the higher stakes and lower variance if you know you will earn more money per hour.




And as for running it twice, do what keeps the fish happiest regardless of game speed (just keep in mind terrible dealers may tilt the fish)

A common heuristic is to pretend that any given bankroll size enables a range of "playable" stakes. That's not the whole story because of the above. Turning off RIT doesn't only affect the narrow band of players whose bankroll, for example, just barely would allow them to play 5/10. It also reduces the expected utility (or expected after-tax income) of even the 5/10 players with big bankrolls.

To put it another way, if you could choose between a game with an hourly EV of $50 and hourly SD of $3000 and a game with an hourly EV of $50 and an hourly SD of $2700, independent of metagame decisions (speeding the game up, altering the strategy of opponents, making people happy), the rational risk-averse OR risk-neutral player would always choose the second game -- regardless of his or her bankroll. The player on the thinner roll benefits even more from the difference between the two games, but all players benefit.

To put it another way, every player's risk of ruin is strictly higher when RIT is off. Even an adequately-bankrolled player has a nonzero risk of ruin.

All players don't benefit from RIT- not even close.

Most players tilt and/or are underolled.
My ev is way higher vs tilting stuck underolled,players than it is against those same players when they aren't tilting stuck and underrolled.
I'm doing them a huge favor by letting them run it twice.
I've played huge pots vs players begging like dogs to run it twice. Even when they win their head is messed up.when they lose a few in a row they're done mentally.

Most players are also worse with deeper stacks.running it twice is doing them a huge favor.

Your example would be correct if playing robots or playing against people who handle big swings well.most don't.

People on this site tend to just focus on the math part of poker and not the mental part which is a huge mistake especially live.if running it twice is actually smart for someone then they should run it twice. But they should also strongly work on how they mentally and emotionally handle things at the poker table.

An adequately rolled good player is not going bust.
The every pro goes broke old school nonsense we hear about is garbage.
Those people were never adequately rolled and often degenerate gamblers who happened to be good at poker.
Now with that said what many pros think is an adequate roll is basically a joke and when they break even for a few months they can't pay their bills so of course they should run it twice.

This!

If you're playing a lot with the same people, think about how they'll react to RIT, what you want them to do, and act accordingly. For instance, I think RIT encourage people to call you. If I'm playing against a fish, they're probably over-calling anyway, and I want to encourage that so will happily RIT. However, I also play with some TAGgish, straightforward regs. They are not over-calling, and I actually think they're overfolding in deep stack play because they're risk averse. I want to be able to semi-bluff these players, so won't RIT with them. If they want to call me down with a top pair hand on a wettish board to see if I'm bluffing, they're going to have to be prepared to get stacked even if they call it correctly.

That's a great rundown of the interpersonal/metagame reasons to not RIT. I agree. Those are all reasons to weigh against the personal benefits.

Hate it mostly for slowing down the game. When not in the hand it is painfully slow to listen to the discussion about Rit or not, and then feels like complete waste of time when chopped and both players get their chips back. If at a high action table I would rather have that time being used to play more hands per hour. To me the extra 2-4 hands per hour have a lot more value than reducing my variance on all-in decisions.

well said.
it's originally why i stopped doing it.

Once for me with rare exceptions when talked into it or tired of fighting trend of some games. I do think RiT makes some players dramatically looser on their shippage. But I hate the shipping with obvious intent to run twice and chop so often. I'm not playing that long usually and I want to win or lose it. Worse my hand is (occasionally caught on limb in PLO) the more I want to run once and try to sweep. Bigger the pot, more I want once. Strong general rule for me: Once, about 99% of the time non-negotiable.

this is all that needs to be said.

bc reducing variance in a game with underolled tilt monkeys isn't a tool at all-it's a favor.
neither is wasting tons of times for dealers to chop pots or worse.

This has got to be one of the most illogical poker arguments I've ever read.

Running it twice doesn't change your odds. It simply reduces short-term variance.

You seem to imply that running it twice offers you "favorable results" (whatever that means) when you're the favorite (i.e., ahead with a made hand), but doesn't offer you favorable results when you're the underdog (i.e., behind with a drawing hand). This makes no sense.

Basically what you're telling us is that you prefer to reduce short-term variance when you're the favorite, but prefer not to reduce short-term variance when you're the underdog.

There may be an emotional argument in there somewhere, but it's certainly not a logical one.

Back when there were just a couple card rooms where I lived, I played a lot with the same crowd of people. RIT was always an option in these rooms in HU pots and I was always open to doing just that, though I usually let my opponent decide what they wanted to do.

For me personally, RIT was super +EV in these rooms because it enabled me to get action that I otherwise wouldn't have. I had a reputation of being a very tight player back then, and since the reg player pool was a bit limited, it became more difficult to get paid off in AI pots. Once people realized that I'd always RIT, there were a lot of players that would play for stacks with me with marginal hands or would chase a draw when they weren't getting the right odds. Several players would even openly say things to the affect of "well if I call at least we can RIT" while they were tanking.

So I understand a lot of the reasons mentioned why people hate RIT (though I definitely don't agree with all of them), but with the game style I play(ed) and the smaller poker community that I used to play in, RIT was great for me and it made me a lot of money over the years.

Lulz at anyone who thinks running it once is macho and running it twice means the player is scared. Do you even understand variance or basic poker math?
Here is a direct quote from one of the top poker players in the world. We will call him Doug P.
" If you're ever given the option to run it twice (at no additional cost (rake)), you should always take it. Winning players should want to limit their variance as much as possible because it allows them to move up in stakes sooner."
This is from a player who has won millions and has a substantial bankroll. Quote taken from Upswing Poker site.

winning more money from tilted players and players who suck deep lets you move up quicker

winning players should embrace the variance if they can handle swings better than their opponents.

rit in a vacuum also doesn't let you move up faster. maybe you run bad and can't move up as fast or maybe you run great running it once and can.

doug polk isn't a crusher bc he runs it twice.

Doesn't refusing to run it twice just make it more likely the recreational players will quit faster (both because it makes the game seem unfriendly and they are the ones who likely only came to play with one buy in)?

RIT -does- allow you to move up faster "in a vacuum" from a theoretical perspective. And it's not because it changes your expectations about your bankroll. Rather, it reduces the bankroll requirements for a given stake of the game by reducing its variance.

Limon has the viewpoint they'll gamble more with you. I know people suck in LA but my experiences have been different. 95% of the time higher (nothing crazy high) stakes games I've been in the last few years at most have 2 or 3 bad players in them. Now they have have some break even players or slightly losing players but the real money comes from bad players.

Anyway I've almost never seen really bad or gambling players have a strong preference for twice. It happens on occasion of course but generally speaking it's the regs and nits who want to RIT.I've seen more fish only want to run it once then only run it twice and the vast majority really don't care.

I did see one player a few months ago at the Borgata in the 5/10 plo game who
1)was horrible at poker
2)a super nice guy- was easily down 20k in a few hours and having the time of his life
3) loved to run it twice

Had I gotten all in with him I was going to let him run it twice if he wanted.

Now if Limons games are filled with bad gambly type players who always want to RIT then yea he should be running it twice with them.While I disagree that most fish want to run it twice like he says it's a million times better of a reason to RIT than what doug polk said.

As for friendly etc- more pros should work on being friendly at the table in general. Lose the tablet lose the headphones and have a conversation at the table. That will do a lot more for the games than always running it twice.

Exactly. It's a statistical wash, nobody gains from it, but it keeps the players happy.

In my experience, people who don't want to RiT are usually degenerate gamblers who either want to bank a big win or go home broke.

I am astonished that some people in this thread think it might affect someone's decision to call or fold, lol. Most recs don't even think this option is even available to them when they make their calls and regs couldn't careless about a single pot so reducing variance is always a plus.

It's pretty lol that you actually think it doesn't effect their decision. I've had recs verbally tell me multiple times as they were folding that they would call if they knew I'd run it twice (if they ask while facing a decision I never answer, because obv I can't answer if I'm bluffing)

Of course I've had the nuts a few of those occasions, but also some air as well. It gets a lot trickier in PLO where equities run much closer and you likely make more money longrun by getting people to fold their equity rather than chopping it up a bunch of times. I have no evidence of this ofc, if you're playing a very tight style than this is of course not the case, but with mandatory straddles and people playing as bad as they do, I can't imagine even winning/solid pro's play as tight as they should to make it correct for their opponents to call all the time.

Curious what others think about RIT wrt PLO and equity protection vs. getting it in against dominated ranges.

I'll forgive you since you're in the 10% of people who correctly use "couldn't" care less

I honestly don't care either way, so i tend to let the the player decided, but I'll be damned if I'm going to let the other player decide after they see my hand. They can decide yes or no to it, then I flip my hand. So any time that is wasted is all on then. If they say they don't care also, then I'll suggest one of the other and they usually are agreeable. It doesn't take much time at all.

If they're taking a long time to think about it, then in will usually just speak up and say something like "you're taking too long, I want to keep the game moving, so I dont want to run it twice"