You'd rather open that can of worms then - I can't imagine how variance 2 can be expressed quantitatively in an interpersonal way. I'm far from a PR specialist, but if players don't know the math or at least smth science-like, the first thing that crosses their minds is that InsPlay is -EV because it takes fees. The more science-like the explanation is, the more they believe.

Edit: oops, that's a crazy little thing called English... I think when I read your reply in that blog, I misread 'I am little troubled' as 'I'm a little troubled'; that's the most common case when a tiny article changes the meaning to the opposite.

A funny thing is that the CEO responded, 'Yes our calculation was wrong and yours is right'

Assuming the methodology I used there was correct -which was not, his correction was about a simple scaling mistake I made so I acknowledged that.

I'm glad it made you laugh though, never a bad thing...

does insured play work when you run it twice?
this could be interesting for people playing pots bigger than 1000.

No

^ That's a secret plan of world dominance. The idea is that when non-InsPlay grinders run into IP users cockblocking their RiT more and more often, they'll have more incentives to start using IP too. What a sly method of squeezing rivals out

But seriously, IP should start supporting RiT - that will allow IP to reduce the volatility of their assets, hence lower the fees for RiT pots to, say, 0.2% for loyal users, hence attract more customers, though the volatility of users' IP accounts will be reduced too, allowing them to hold 1.4x smaller rolls there, which will result in reduction of IP's assets.

However, the risk of IP's ruin will still be reduced this way (the assets will fall 1.4x, the fees will fall 1.25x but the variance will fall twice, 1.4*1.25=1.75<2). Also, I think one of the main complaints now is cash flow issues (people are less willing to store 15 BI than 10 in their IP accounts), so supporting RiT will increase the demand.

(That would be in an ideal world where everyone would RiT; the real effects will be less pronounced but still win-win.)

OK, but how can we measure that a person's hand-reading skills are significant enough to affect AIEV? It is tautological to say "because he's a solid winning pro." Aside from the idea that he may be winning largely due to rungut, he may be winning for reasons other than hand-reading ability, or to a lesser or greater extent to that ability. What you say makes sense instinctually, though.

The luckometer is nice, hope you keep improving.

Thank you. I'm glad you liked it. We'll be adding many other features in time.

Read the 3d and Matt's one. In the past I worked for an insurance italian company, life case, so I know that the subject has pros and cons, depends on the point of view.

But here in this 3d I read some good mathematical approach and so I wanted an hint.

Soon I'm gonna put my self on a small grinding challange on ps.it, planning to build up a BR starting from 1k€ using the first deposit bonus, and playing zoom.
I used to play small/mid stakes, so I was thinking of starting slightly ooBR (which I always considered 100x) at NL25.
I'm skilled for that level, but still this BRM is variance sensitive.
Do you think investing something like a 1/4 of initial BR on IP would be a safer way to grind up (goal is BR at least 50x for NL100) or just a waste of money? 250€ is not a big amount, but on this challange could be the difference at the start.
I'm gonna play 4tables, 20h/week min, something like 100khands/month. Is IP gonna cost me too much?

Thanks for your replys, ofc I would like to read from someone who is NOT working for IP

and excuse my english, I'm italian, so...

If you already know that you are skilled enough to beat the level you are going to be grinding then you should just go ahead and grind it without the insurance. Sure run bad can happen, but a lot of the time you run bad it isn't even due to all-in situations but just running into the tops of peoples ranges, people bluffing you more often when you are at the bottom of your range, people sucking out on you before the money goes in etc.

Chances are if you are confident in your ability to win, you'll just run normal and have wasted a bunch of money on fees.

If you do run bad, you can always drop down a level and grind it back up fairly quickly.

true,

but there are two points that lead me to think about IP just for the beginning of that challange:
1) italian field - on avg (casual, fishes, reg tards) is very aggro (loose to maniac). Ofc at NL25 you can still play abc, little nitty; and ofc Zoom seems to be nittier than regular; but still I can promise you will se a lot more pf or flop ais on ps.t micros than ps.com micros... for sure. This ofc increase the variance.
2) my initial BR, as said, will be 40x for that level. Not worried, but variance is a b***h, as we all now...

ideologically get an insurance seems to be a safer way to make it trought micros levels untill I'm in BR (lets say at least 80x at NL25)... but I'm concerned about the mathematical side (discussed previously) including the fee and the EV for a short period.

I think it's getting more on the side of curiosity at this point... At those limits I should probably just play :P

Some of the best players have 20-30 buyin swings at higher stakes on a (somewhat) regular basis. 40 buyins is not enough these days, go back to 2005 and then it's enough

Really hate the insurance thing but I was thinking about getting it solely for 40bb stacks.

In my last 115k hands (2 weeks), I'm down 40 buys in ev vs these guys if I filter for just regs. The variance these guys produce is ugly even at 40bb.

That's almost $5k between the 2 limits. Problem is, I'm due for some change in variance and I'm afraid the moment I buy insurance I hit a heater and pay out some serious cash

The fees are just too damn high to be worth it. If I had the roll for it I would massively undercut these guys and still make a killing. I can see it being a very popular idea if the fees come down. If these guys don't make some big cuts to their fees then I predict somebody else will come along with the same idea and undercut them.

To recap my above opinion itt: IP should be used if the winrate is sufficiently big, then fees would eat only a small portion of it and, with variance reduced significantly, the player will move up limits faster. That's under the assumption that he will use a flexible BRM: e.g. if he 4-tables NL25 (it's hard to play more tables with a siteroll of 30 BI), he should replace one of his tables by NL50 as soon as he wins $300, or by NL10 if he loses $150 instead, and so on.

Given that the site in question is the ultrafishy ps.it with fast cashouts, storing 10 BI at the IP account (maybe insuring not all AI pots, but e.g. those with 66/34 (a straight vs a set) or closer equities as they have bigger variance; everyone has to determine which pots to insure basing on his own stats) seems a viable strategy to me, provided that the player has fundamental knowledge that will automatically allow him to crush Italian fish.

P.S.: I'm not an employee nor even a client of IP, just an observer, as I've said that's because I'm unsure of my winrate.

Oh wait... I'm not even playing at any of their supported rooms... yet (except for 29 hands at FTP)

Thank you

Hello,

I am a happy user of IP, but have a feature request.

When playing PLO, since the betting is pot limit it's not uncommon to get the vast majority of a stack on on one street, but get the last few chips in on the next street when a card may have fallen that has vastly changed the equities.

For example, I have AAJT and 4bet to $50 preflop. Villain calls with 222Q, leaving $1 in his stack. The flop comes 233 and villain bets his last $1, which I call (since I am never folding any flop). When the first $100 went in, I am an 86%, but after the flop I only have 13% equity, and the 13% is the number used to calculate my insurance premium for the whole pot, despite the fact that we were effectively all in before the flop.

My feature request would be to have some cutoff percentage of their stack at which a player is considered all in and insurance is taken on the pot at that point. So in the previous example, we might have the cutoff be 90% -- since each player has committed 90% of their stack preflop we take out insurance before the flop is dealt for $100. I don't really mind whether the final $2 is insured separately.

I understand that this evens out in the long run -- there will be lots of flops where my equity actually improves and I end up paying less of a premium. However, the reason I'm taking insurance in the first place is to cut down this kind of variance. It's also worth noting that this would increase the number of pots that are insurable (possibly only slightly), since again it is not uncommon for a player to end up with 95% or more of their stack committed on the turn and get the final few chips in on the river. In this scenario, the pot would be insured on the turn rather than not being insured at all.

Thank you for your feedback. It is an interesting request and we will take it into consideration.

Any plans to offer Bubble insurance for smaller buy-in tournaments - say in the 5 to 20 dollar range?
Thanks.

Hi,

Unfortunately we will not offer bubble insurance for tournaments with buy-ins in this range.

Just to offer my take on IP from a customer perspective - I'm probably the perfect example of a very happy customer although my experience will not be that of a dedicated player.

I use the service because I've not got the inclination/time/dedication to work hard enough at certain leaks I know I have and I can hand on heart say that it has massively improved my winrate and confidence.

Let me explain. I am only a casual, recreational player. I generally play short handed or HU PLO cash in short hour/2 hour bursts and put a few thousand hands in a month. I'll play usually up to $1/$2 or maybe $2/$4 if I'm feeling frisky. I never leave much of a roll online and cashout if I win a few G's.

If I had the time I prolly would have stuck to $50/$200 stakes MTT's but I'm in my 30's, have 2 kids, a wife, and a business. I like poker but in the same way I don't have time for big MTT's these days I also don't have time to work too much on my poker game. I'm not a lazy person - quite the opposite - but poker just isn't a major, major priority. As such grabbing some HU PLO sessions in my down time I find fun, a challenge and a hobby which I hoped would be financially rewarding.

I have a decent (not astounding) income of around $120k pa so I'd say my cash flow is decent. My online bankroll however is not. I rarely keep one as life for me is full of priorities/costs/stuff to buy that maybe a lot of younger players don't have. However, playing for much less than $1/$2 stakes to me is just too boring.

I could lose $2k in a session and nobody would really be affected (my family certainly wouldn't go without anything noticeable) but I would be tilted badly inside thinking of what I COULD have bought for them etc.

I'm smart enough to know that although I think my play is fairly decent that I definitely played too passively against good, aggressive players (although, before you say it I clearly wasn't smart enough to not play them!). It was a tough spot because I'd give up too many pots too often, get frustrated, tilt (not quit them as I should) lose and potentially reload and lose.

I'm the guy who needs insurance!!

IP has given me so much more confidence in playing back at people i previously would have simply melted against. It hasn't just affected all in situations. I'm making better decisions all round because I know that I'm not longer scared to face down multi-barrel aggression. I'm getting way more fold equity by having the confidence to put my opponents to tough decisions with my decent (but definitely beatable) hands and my non-showdown winnings have gone through the roof.

I'm not trying to endorse the product to everyone of course - it seems mad for some multi-million hand grinding machine who can handle the emotional aspects of the game well enough to ride out variance without any problems to bother with insurance at any rate. But I read this thread and was kinda perplexed that some people (All Hail Crice for example) couldn't see the value in anyone using the product. Believe it or not some people don't have the time to do a lot of the things they know would improve their game - yet they still want to play it - you may find that stupid/dumb or whatever but there are plenty of us out there.

I've used it for 3 months and have honestly had the best three months of my poker playing life simply because it's given me the confidence to play how I want to play rather than how I did play.

what sites and buy in ranges do you offer for your MTT Bubble Insurance?

thanks

This doesn't make any sense to me. It's about ALL in Equity, what does that have to do with facing multi-barrel aggresion?

It seems that they insure bubbles of only FTOPS and major $22+ Stars MTTs. The full up-to-date list is here.

To OP: I guess there are so few insured MTTs because the customer base is yet small, right? Is insurance planned for miniFTOPS, iPoker or Party in the near future? Are there plans to add other sites from (.com traffic) top 15, at least cash games?

I'm not going to lie I'm excited to try this. What do we know about the company. Where have they come from? How financially secure are they?