Thoughts? Run it twice when 50/50? if we're ahead 65/35 or down 35/65 equity?

hah kind of interesting since basically all cards will be coming out right?

I would think if you're a winner in the game you want to run it twice as much as possible as it lowers variance, and if you're a losing player/gambler you probably want to run it once.

Mostly this. There are also factors involving table dynamics that might push you toward running it twice/once.

Example 1: If someone's shortstacking and you can force them to either double up or rebuy for more than their current stack, it's probably advantageous to do so. Shortstacking is inherently slightly +EV in ring games (I can go into this more but it's kind of a complex topic), so if you can force a shortstack to get deeper it's often a good thing.

Example 2: If you and a whale to your right are both sitting with a 300 bb stack and you get all in with a reg who has a 100+ bb stack, it would be a mistake to run it once if you have a choice. If you run it once and lose, you're now <200 bb effective with the whale. If you run it once and win you're still only 300 bb effective with the whale. Therefore there's an asymmetric payoff that makes losing slightly more -EV than winning is +EV, so it makes sense to minimize the possibility of losing.


(Also in case you're unaware, running it once vs twice has absolutely 0 effect on EV in a vacuum, so the only way it can be +/- EV is when factoring in table dynamics)

I rio as a favorite vs. fish. I want their money before someone else gets it and I don't mind losing. In the past people have mentioned that sometimes the fish may run if they win as a reason to run it multiple times and I think that's a pretty silly reason to not rio. I usually run it three times vs regs.

Have to factor in the happiness ev of winning it all or not losing it all.

Because of variance, I basically always run it twice in 5 card, which is what I usually play. Don't know how much it matters, but I am a tighter player and usually have a huge advantage when I gii.

That said, I can't imagine running it once in one hand and twice in another. It's all or nothing for me. If someone runs it once one time, I always run it once with them.

I mostly don't care, in live settings will generally do whatever the other person wants if they ask and rarely advocate for anything.

Online where I've played the player who calls gets to choose 1/2/3 times and the other can accept or deny if it's 2/3. At 100bb or less I usually just run click once for me, but often just accept whatever they want. At 200bb+ I'm more likely to run it 3 times, but running a big pot once with 60%+ and losing it all is _much_ less tilting than running it three times and losing it all so if it's near the start of a session I'll sometimes run it once anyway.

Honestly I find the way it works to be mostly tiring and I think it'd be better if they just stopped it or fixed it. Like the end game is if we could run it 1,000 times and I think that would obviously be worse.

That's just cashing out your equity, which is an option on most sites these days. If it didn't come with a fee and if you could pay only your proportionate amount of rake instead of the full rake, I'd personally use it almost always, so I don't think it's objectively worse in any way. One added benefit is that both players don't have to agree--any player in the pot can cash out and the other player(s) can do whatever he wants. As far as whether or not it's good for poker, I'd say it's neutral at worst. Some fish use it.

The worst players are much more likely to see that they are losing if they keep getting it in with 45% and losing a little almost every time. Like imagine if you took it even further and everytime someone 3bet an UTG open with Q882ds it just popped up a notification saying "you just lost $N".
This is a theme in game design that has been known for a long time, the best players want to change the game to make it better for them (like limiting randomness from bad plays) so the best player wins more often ... but then nobody else wants to play because they lose most/all the time, and the game dies.


Also while I think it's interesting/useful to look at AIEV given a normal game, I think if you know you'll be cashing out the AIEV at any point then it'll change how you play.

Interesting point ITT about trying to get your stack size up with whales in the game.

Do the odds ever change for running it X times? Like if you only have 2 outs, uhh, and you hit 1 of them on the first runout, well you're down to 1 on the 2nd..

To me this is one of the reasons I've heard to run it twice when ahead -- that two-outer that hits the first board is rarely going to hit the second.

(Again, I'm always or nothing w/ regard to running it twice.)

If you hit on the first run, your odds of hitting on the second go down, but if miss on the first the odds of hitting on the second go up, and these effects even out, so there is no effect on the overall EV.

Do the opposite of whatever your opponent prefers, unless they are a whale who you want to cater to. If someone wants to run it twice because they are afraid of variance, put them in high-variance spots of playing big pots running it once because they might not call a big all-in. If someone wants a chance to take down big pots, well, I guess you can't force them to run it twice, but if they give you the option, maybe too many pots that end up being an unsatisfying chop will put them on tilt.

There's no mathematical reason to run it twice, so look at the psychology of it.

I guess run it twice if you have poor tilt control when you lose a big pot, but maybe you should work on not tilting.

If everything else is equal, less variance is in fact mathematically beneficial for a winning player because it decreases the bankroll requirements to play any given stakes, which means you can play higher stakes or move up to higher stakes sooner, which means more profit.

Look at the most extreme variance situations and extrapolate: if you're a 1 BB/100 winner at every stake with a STD DEV of 0, you can play the highest stakes you can afford 1 buyin to play, which will make you very rich very quickly even with such a low winrate. If you're a 10 BB/100 winner at every stake with a STD DEV of 10,000 BB/100, you would need thousands of buyins for whatever stakes you play, and moving up would most likely take a very long time (and make your life very stressful).

There is definitely mathematical reason to run it twice. As variance goes up, your risk of ruin goes up; therefore, if you can run it twice, your variance goes down, your risk of ruin goes down. In practice this doesn't amount to being able to play higher stakes exactly, but maybe you can sell less action and have more to yourself. This is all quantifiable and calculable within the Kelly Criterion.

Don't do the opposite of what your opponent wants. That's called 'being an Ahole for the sake of it'. Some of the reasons given itt are rather spurious, about wanting to run it once when favourite and twice when behind. Lolz. Just have a policy. Running it once is good for the player who has better tilt control. Running it twice is better for the fish, who gets to stay in the game longer, which, by extension, is better for the winning player, because then you get another chance to take his money, and you get to even out the variance too. Please don't pick and choose when to run it twice. Very unclassy. Leave that sort of behaviour to the big losers in the game. They can do what they like. If you're a winner, you should accomodate them, and you get to accomodate them while reducing your variance, that's a win-win.

Agree.

Catering to recreational players preferences is probably always underrated long-term for the health of your (our) games.

And being too predatory is just unclassy and can apply to other areas: like say you are willing to chop when it's your SB vs a solid TAG in the BB, but you don't chop on your BB with the fish in the SB.

There's some argument of RIO inflicts fear and can increase fold equity, but the other side is encouraging people to get more gambly with poor equity draws.

I also think it's fine to be a "I only RIO" type, but be consistent about it. And if you do deviate then do it upon request from the other player.