I was playing this hand today, and after I lost, I noticed my opponent had like 12 big blinds, despite winning a pot of 100+ bigs. The only way this could be the case is if villian "played it safe" and cashed out his equity on the turn when we were all-in (9% equity x 116 bb is a little over 11 big blinds.) Then it also got me thinking that ACR must pocket the entire pot less what villian cashed out. Does this seem incredibly scummy to anyone else? I don't know what a great alternative would be, but pocketing the rake, plus a 1% fee, plus the net pot, is a very scummy way to make more money as a poker site. Of course nothing will change, and everyone will have to take it or leave it. But still, I didn't realize this was even a thing until today.

Yatahay Network - $0.02 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 4 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: 74 BB
SB: 114 BB
BB: 82 BB
Hero (CO): 169 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has 7 7

Hero raises to 2.5 BB, fold, fold, BB calls 1.5 BB

Flop: (5.5 BB, 2 players) 5 6 J
BB bets 2 BB, Hero calls 2 BB

Turn: (9.5 BB, 2 players) 7
BB bets 4.5 BB, Hero raises to 12 BB, BB raises to 19.5 BB, Hero raises to 164.5 BB and is all-in, BB calls 58 BB and is all-in

River: (164.5 BB, 2 players) 8
BB cashed out 14.5 BB for a fee of 0 BB

BB shows 9 J (Straight, Nine High)
(Pre 47%, Flop 88%, Turn 9%)
Hero shows 7 7 (Three of a Kind, Sevens)
(Pre 53%, Flop 12%, Turn 91%)

I don't think it's scummy, they're just giving you a -EV option cause some people really like to take -EV options. Doesn't affect people who don't use it at all

Fair enough. I think rake is already way too high at the micros, and the house doesn't need to be taking away the other portion of equity cash outs. Also offering a -EV play has such snakeoil salemsmen vibes lol.

That's literally the foundation of the entire gambling industry

Indeed, all poker rooms offer an EV- game to the players, due to the rake

Don't be stupid enough to take it. Problem solved.

I don't take it, so it's not a problem for me personally. I just have a problem with how much money these sites can take off the table, especially at the micro level.

They don't force you to take it and if you don't mind losing bit of ev to lower variance you can take it.

Yeah, I get that much of it. But if a pot is $100, and player A takes their 10% equity ($10), and player B ends up losing the pot on the the river, the site just keeps $90? I guess it probably works the other way, where player A takes their money, player B wins, and the site has to pay out more than the pot. And at the end of the day the site takes their 1%. So yeah, I guess it's maybe not as egregious as I initially thought.

But the site can easily rig it so playing it safe effects the next card a percentage of the time in favor of the house as the house now has a vested interest in who wins.

How is getting paid 9% of the pot when you have 9% equity a -EV option? That would be an EV neutral option. The -EV part came from getting all in with 9% equity, not from the play it safe payout. (unless the play it safe payout is less than 9% of the pot - that would certainly be -EV).

Unless the site does rig the runout (and I would not believe they are doing so absent some evidence to suggest this) the play it safe would be completely neutral EV-wise for the site. If both players opt to play it safe the pot is split according to equities and the site only keeps its rake. If one player plays it safe and the other does not then for a pot size X and a PIS equity p the site plays the PIS player pX regardless of who wins. The site pays out only this amount when the PIS player wins, and pays out X + pX when he loses. The sites EV is then p(pX) + (1-p)(X+pX). Algebraically the first term is just X(p^2). The second is X(1-p)(1+p) which equals X(1-p^2). Adding the two gives X(p^2) + X - Xp^2 which is just X, the value of the pot.

ACR takes 1% of your play it safe money when you decide to take it.

So x+z equals q x 4 58% of the time. It's science.

Tell me you click play it safe without telling me you click play it safe

This is the same concept as insurance in real life. Individuals are less capable of withstanding financial variance than insurance companies, so the insurance companies offer a product that takes on the consumer's risk at a premium.

Life tip: Only buy insurance when it protects against realistic worst case scenarios that would financially ruin you or others (i.e. uncapped risks). That means don't buy insurance for your phone or random appliances or poker flips.

Ned Flanders got financially ruined when his house was hit by a hurricane and had no homeowners insurance because he was worried insurance was a form of gambling and therefore a sin. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

I don’t play on ACR so I neither click play it safe nor fail to do so. My interest was entirely theoretical. Another poster indicated that ACR charges 1% to play it safe. Given that, the obviously correct action is to run out hands normally since that 1% fee represents lost EV. Without that fee, both choices are EV neutral, both for the site and the players involved.

Unless you are playing with an inadequate bankroll, and cannot afford to lose a buy in, play it safe is a bad option due to the fee charged. Without that fee, it would be purely a matter of personal preference.

It does screw the other players when somebody wins a huge pot and clicked "Play it Safe", as that money leaves the table instead of remaining in play as it normally would. Sure, it was always a risk that player would rat hole the pot, but now it's guaranteed. Play-it-safers get the poop gun, repeatedly.

This seems like an appropriate thread for something I have been wonder. Is the Run it Twice feature offered by various sites basically 0EV?

I understand that it reduces variance but I have not got it switched on because I wasn't sure if there was an additional charge for it

Some posters above say ACR takes 1% of your share of the pot when you "play it safe". Pretty sure this is a feature the rooms introduced to make more $, I would be surprised if the option is free: "you are risk averse and you want to buy reduced variance? look no further, we have what you need, an the price is good"

I haven't seen any evidence of additional rake to Run it Twice. Another difference from Play it Safe is that it's only enabled by mutual agreement.

Run it twice doesn't affect rake. You should have it turned on as default because why not; it's free and reduces anxiety.

Run it three or four times though and they start getting twitchy

it may affect reduce rake but it absolutely cost you money.

Run it twice and play it safe are not the same, but absent any additional fees collected, neither has any effect on your long term winnings. Bothe are EV neutral. Both reduce variance. In fact PIS is mathematically equivalent to running it 44 times for a heads up holdem spot on the turn.

ItÂ’s been done to death on here - RIT has the same EV as running it out normally. This is mathematically proven. ItÂ’s pretty simple for HU NLHE all in on the turn. If the pot size is P and you have x outs, your expected share from the pot is simply your win probability multiplied by the pot size or P(x/44).

Running it twice does not change this. You either lose the whole pot, win half, or win it all. Since our pot share is zero in the first case we can ignore that case. We win the whole pot when we hit our outs on both run outs. This happens with probability x/44 * (x-1)/43 or (x^2-x)/1892. We win half when we hit an out on the first river and not the second or if we miss the first and hit the second. The first of these has probability x/44 * (43-(x-1)/43 which simplifies to (44x-x^2)/1892. The second case has probability (44-x)/44 * x/43, which also simplifies to (44x-x^2)/1892. Thus our chop probability is twice this value. However we win half the pot so this case contributes P * (44x-x^2)/1892 to our expected winnings. Adding
P*(x^2-x)/1892 (our expected share from scooping) gives a total share of P * 43x/1892, which is exactly equal to our expected winning when running normally - P * x/44.

Sorry didn't notice you were talking about running it twice