I recently read an article in the Swedish Pokermagazine about Gus Hansen. It was an interesting article written by Murat Sahan. In the article they mostly talked about success in poker, as usual when a “star” is beeing interviewed. However, since Gus had a very bad 2009-2010 online, Murat managed to discuss some of his losses as well. One of the big changes Gus has made to his game is that he always runs it twice nowadays. For those of you who are not familiar with running it twice, it means that when all in you deal the remainder of the table twice. For exampel if you get it in on the flop you deal both the turn and the river twice. The pot is then split into two equal parts each given to the winner of each board. The reason for doing this is to lower the variance of the game. Gus also says that he would prefer to run it 100 times (which obviously isn’t possible cause there is not enough cards in the deck). Instead Gus would like it if the client calculated how much of the pot is yours in an all in situation. Of course this is great if you only consider swings, but what other effects would it have on poker?
Gus usually plays in the online high stakes games which are followed by many rail birds. These railers want to see big pots and also like when somebody wins or loses big. If the poker sites start dividing the pots after a math-equation the interest in these games among railers would decrease significantly.
Another thing to consider is that it would take away a lot of the excitment in poker. “I don’t play for kicks” you’re thinking now. Of course you’re not, but the fish does! If the fish realizes that it is beeing grinded down by always getting it in bad and getting less back from the pot he will either realize how bad he is playing and play better or quit since he no longer can hit that “one time” miracle out on the river after making a bad all in call on the turn.
A third factor to consider is that the tilt-factor will decrease significantly. Sometimes against certain opponents it is correct to make a bad call cause you know that if you suck out on that opponent he will tilt and start giving away money. If the pot was divided by % there is no longer any point in making plays like that.
To split pots in this way is therefore not only a boring alternative, it also takes away some dimensions of the game. I for one hope that it never becomes reality.
Less math more poker!
Pic from here
