100%

bad for the game

wrote an article and the first comment was a "oh, now it's obvious that it's rigged" comment ... so yeah, could be push some recs into tinfoil hat ville :/

One thing that comes to my mind is that if the percentage they will offer will take folded hands into account then it can be used to guess what are folded cards of the opponents (especially short-handed). If it doesn't then it might be +EV to take the insurance depending on the estimated folding ranges.

What if, instead of the current implementation, it was a straight equity chop between all all in players that would only trigger if they both chose it ahead of time (as in, an option you'd have to check like RIT)? Maybe you could even choose an equity range, e.g. I only want this to happen if I'm >70%.

E.g. I have this option enabled, every time I go all in against another player who also does, we chop based on equity and pay the fee.

Not saying it's better just wondering what people think.

Cashing out equity seems pretty obvious to me - if you want it, take it. If you don't, don't take it.

I think it would have been revenue-positive for PokerStars if they had charged 0% fee for this, but I guess that charging such a high rate for this will help to increase their profitability further. I like the idea of charging different prices to different people for different services, so I'm generally cool with the idea.

If you don't like it, don't use it. If you do like it, do use it.

This is all it effectively is

Traditionally, gambling operators had a (basic) deal with gamblers: if you pay us some EV, we'll give you variance. That's the fundamental premise of literally every gambling game in existence.

It's legitimately impressive to see a gambling operator now offer the reverse: if you pay us some EV, we'll reduce your variance! In a way, it's a step further than many low stake slot games which, these days, often have lower variance for players.

No matter how the cost is taken, it is too high for PLO.

Not sure it makes any difference to a fish if there is an insurance or not. I used insurance at GG network and was looking at big ups and downs.

One should try to double up and running it more than one time might be worth it only if one is a major dog. But one should avoid busting a fish with some luck by running it only once; if he wins a half, the loss is small. One should avoid flips vs. a fish in a way that one gets a bigger edge and then tries to run it twice.

It's very common in Asian games. Most chinese players use that function (both regs and fish) and it is way more expensive than 1%.

They use the insurance for turn and river in case the all in was preflop or flop. (you pay it twice if you take it turn and river)

Less variance in the result of poker hands means players' results are closer to their true winrates. Actual winners win faster and actual losers lose faster on average. How does that derive increased rake?

Please do not reply with your 1000 player tourney false analogy again.

1% is too much, I'd never choose that. But I would be willing to pay >0%
Saying that, I'd rather see RIT(T) stays.

run it twice has to be accepted by both players

but i dont see AI cashout being accepted by both players?
is this true? it surely has to be accepted by both players yes?

if not and if you have 30% equity and take AI cashout, opponent disagrees, but you take down the pot 70% of the pot vanishes?? or does that goes to villain automatically even if they didnt choose AI cashout?

I believe that if you cash out on 80% equity and still win the hand, Stars takes the remaining 20%. This is balanced by the fact that if you take 80% and your opponent wins the hand, your opponent takes the full pot and Stars still pays you your 80% (minus 1% fee)

only one party hast to accept, the other(s) not.

if you accept, you get equity, but if you win, the pot is taken off the table (so less money on the table). if insured player loses and winner didn't buy insurance, winner gets regular pot and loser equity (more money on table).

2 players all in in a $200 pot.

Player A with 20% equity takes the insurance.

Player B doesn’t take insurance meaning Stars takes player B’s side.

Player A wins.

Presumably $200 needs to be pushed to player A who now owes Stars $160.

Again, presumably this will be taken from his account but what would happen if he didn’t have the balance to cover it?

what you're missing is that a reduction in variance changes the bankroll requirements

No. Player A takes 20% (minus fees) of the pot and stars gets the remaining 80%

Right. Currently witnessing the destruction of soccer/football at the hand of video assisted referees (VAR), because people cannot appreciate or stomach that variance is what separates professional sport from professional accounting.

And even if it were undesirable, the cost of removing variance is too great.

Because people go bust (and run out of money) when their results are below their expected loss rate.

If you deposit $100, and lose exactly $1 a hand, you will survive (and pay rake for) one hundred hands.

If you deposit $100, and have a 50% chance of losing $100 and 50% chance of winning $99, then you are likely to survive for much shorter than one hundred hands.


Similarly, when people win well above their expected win rate (eg, by winning the Sunday Million) they cash out a big chunk of that money - money that can't then be raked.

This is how I think it works:

For ease of calculation, let's say both players, A and B, start hand with $50.00 each; no rake is charged; all in pot is $100.00; A has 60% equity; B has 40% equity.

If both players cash out their equity:
A receives $60.00 and pays $0.60 to PS.
B receives $40.00 and pays $0.40 to PS.
Whoever would have won the hand:
A finishes hand with $59.40
B finishes hand with $39.60
PS finishes hand with $1.00
(Check: $59.40 + $39.60 + $1.00 = $100.00)

If A cashes out his equity:
A receives $60.00 and pays $0.60 to PS.
If A wins the hand:
A finishes hand with $59.40
B finishes hand with $0.00
PS finishes hand with $40.60
(Check: $59.40 + $0.00 + $40.60 = $100.00)

If A cashes out his equity:
A receives $60.00 and pays $0.60 to PS.
If B wins the hand:
A finishes hand with $59.40
B finishes hand with $100.00
PS finishes hand with $0.60 - $60 = - $59.40
(Check: $59.40 + $100 - $59.40 = $100.00)

If B cashes out his equity:
B receives $40.00 and pays $0.40 to PS.
If A wins the hand:
A finishes hand with $100.00
B finishes hand with $39.60
PS finishes hand with $0.40 - $40 = - $39.60
(Check: $100.00 + $39.60 - $39.60 = $100.00)

If B cashes out his equity:
B receives $40.00 and pays $0.40 to PS.
If B wins the hand:
A finishes hand with $0.00
B finishes hand with $39.60
PS finishes hand with $60.40
(Check: $0.00 + $39.60 + $60.40 = $100.00)

PS is acting as a bookmaker with a guaranteed profit of 1% if everyone always cashed out. If only the higher equity player cashed out, they would make a good profit. If only the lower equity players cashed out, they would be at some risk of losing, but presumably they have worked out that the extra 1% from those who would have sucked out leans the risk back into their favour; especially as that possibility wouldn't be likely in reality.

e&oe

That would be fun if they didnt consider this

Or maybe they did but they calculated that given the average folding ranges insurance is actually more than 1% +ev for them

Lol@ all the regs that are too cool to care about reducing variance Anyone sane would snapaccept at 0.1% (ofc not wanting the feature to be there cuz its bad for the games is a different story).

so really its just hides the variance , i wonder if you would see anything weird if like collectively players were downswinging simultaneously , it would have potential to take allot of money out of the player pool.

is it possible to have risk of ruin here as a player pool or is the variance not large enough when considering this many players?

More action surly? All in with PF with mid PPs, anything on the flop with decent raw equity combined with your fold equity. More action from recs for the regs. Apart from the excessive 1% fee I think this could be a winner for all players.

Are sure about that?

Maybe I'm overestimating Stars here but I'm going to say there is a zero percent chance chips will either be added to or removed from the table.

When Stars takes the insurance it will have to be sorted off the table from the players account balance.

I could be wrong, but surely not.

Check Mike Haven post. In some of his examples, money is added/removed from the tables.

That is also what happens on chinese sites where insurance is taken. Sometimes huge amounts are added on the tables, but long term insurance always wins