Re: [ba-poker] multiple rivers

[Michael Hunter <mph(deleted the rest)>]

On Thu, 2004-02-05 at 18:54, James Kittock wrote:
> I was reading in Ciaffone & Ruben's big-bet poker book that PLO
> players will sometimes deal multiple rivers and split the pot
> accordingly in order to reduce variance.

In the palace 5-5 PLO/PLO8 game there is a group of 5-7 or us that
automatically deal twice (protects against over zealous dealers).  And
if somebody else in the pot doesn't agree we deal twice on the outside
pot if appropriate.  The bad side of dealing twice is having it
explained to the ignorant.  Its better (and faster) then explaining
insurance deals, but it still is a little more push in the right
direction then I'd prefer they have.
>  
> It got me to thinking--why don't they do this in NLHE tournaments?

FWIW I'm not quite so quick to deal twice in NLHE ring games as I am in
PLO games.  In NLHE I want to be feared.  Letting people think they
might get two shots at it isn't usu. the image I want to cast.  In PLO I
almost always want to get called.

>  For that matter, once all the money goes in, why not deal multiple
> boards for the rest of the hand (e.g., if all the money goes in before
> the flop, deal 2 or more complete boards). After watching WSOP, WPT,
> etc., it is amazing to me how often the outcome of a final table is
> determined by bad beats. I guess tournaments are inherently variance
> amplifiers, so it seems like it would make sense to do something to
> tone down the variance, at least at the end.

Define a bad beat.  2:1 favorite beat?  3:1 favorite beat?  Any money
dog?  Or any tournament equity dog?  How do you compute that?  Having
people get in behind and get lucky is what keeps live ones coming back
and what makes it an interesting TV show.  Turn it into some sort of
computed equity chess match and it gets pretty dull.  Making the game
slower and more complicated is also likely to make it less interesting
to the average viewer.
>  
> Has this been experimented with? Does it screw up the game somehow? Or
> just slow it down too much?

As others have stated in ring games the hand is between those left
(although you could argue that isn't always true; I almost always prefer
the live ones get lucky in big bet games) but in tournaments others at
the table have stake in the outcome.  An additional consideration is
that time is usu. fairly cheap in live games but fairly expensive in
late stages of a tournament.  How would you like to be UTG in a
tournament with a short stack and have a big pot develop and the players
want to deal as many cards as possible?

                       mph

>  
> --j
>  
>