Protection Poker

I new addition to regular hold'em just started trial in the Aria Poker room... I wont butcher the specifics and will leave them to the article linked below. Any poker players have thoughts on this? There seems to be a few articles on it, but am not 100% sure of the specifics of the game.

Protection Poker Article

Does anyone have any more information on how this changes the game of hold'em other than the 20% going to the bad beatee (e.g. a higher rake to pay for the system or extra bet...)?

Edit: removed. I misinterpreted the rules.

Quote: Joeshlabotnik

Quote: mrsuit31

I new addition to regular hold'em just started trial in the Aria Poker room... I wont butcher the specifics and will leave them to the article linked below. Any poker players have thoughts on this? There seems to be a few articles on it, but am not 100% sure of the specifics of the game.

Protection Poker Article

Does anyone have any more information on how this changes the game of hold'em other than the 20% going to the bad beatee (e.g. a higher rake to pay for the system or extra bet...)?

It will definitely slow the game down.

That aside, it actually takes away money from the good player's pocket. When a good player and a fish get all the money in, the good player is usually the favorite. So the good player would like that pot to be as large as possible. Protection Poker artificially reduces the size of such pots (most of them) to 80%. For instance, let's take the classic case of Ploppy=55, Pro=AA. There is $500 in the pot; both players are all in preflop. Using the rough 80% chance a pair has over a smaller pair, the pro's equity in the pot is $400. Now, with the protection nonsense, you're essentially transferring $100 of the pot from the 80% winning side to the 20% losing side. The winner now gets $400, not $500.

80% of the time, the pro gets $400, and the ploppy gets $100.
20% of the time, the pro gets $100, and the ploppy gets $400.

The pro's equity is (.8 x 400) + (.2 x 100), or $340. The ploppy's equity is $160. This, compared to the $400/$100 split in a normal pot, screws over the pro big time.

Of course, the reason for this promo is to make the ploppies last longer, thereby churning the money that much more, thereby increasing the rake. You'll observe, in fact, that virtually EVERY poker room promo involves taking money out of the hands of good players and putting it into the hands of bad ones. It keeps the player base alive, increasing the rake.

The only benefit to pros that I can see is that a ploppy might be more willing to go all in if he knows that he'll get at least 20% back, no matter what. However, that's balanced by the fact that going all in with what might be the worst hand is now less of a mistake!

This is not how I read it. The favorite gets 100% of the pot if he wins, and 20% when he loses. So the person sucking out only wins 80% of the pot and loses it all when they lose. This is terrible for the poorer players because they are the ones that more often get their money in bad and now will only get 80% of the pot when they get lucky with a bad all in.

Quote: tringlomane

This is not how I read it. The favorite gets 100% of the pot if he wins, and 20% when he loses. So the person sucking out only wins 80% of the pot and loses it all when they lose. This is terrible for the poorer players because they are the ones that more often get their money in bad and now will only get 80% of the pot when they get lucky with a bad all in.

Yes, you're right, I misread the rules. I was confusing this with a similar promo I saw in California. Yeah, this is awful for the ploppy.

My, the dealers will love this. According to website, they will be provided a calculator to do the math ??? is that 65% edge or 65% chance of winning? Are split pots taken into consideration ? Great that a player will have 2 sets of pots odds to consider before calling an all-in bet. And dealers will get to actually count the resulting big pot and send 20% to the bad beat bettor. Surely the winner of the pot will just love watching that ? Sort of a LUCKY tax. Plus this will surely speed up the game.
Maybe the distributor hopes to speed up sales of their other product " Action Clock "

Mike Sexton loves this game. Same Mike who sair POKERTEK tables were wave of the future in 2005 and soon no low limit poker games will have a dealer. He also hated the Action Clock on WPT. But now he Loves IT.

Quote: mrsuit31

Does anyone have any more information on how this changes the game of hold'em other than the 20% going to the bad beatee (e.g. a higher rake to pay for the system or extra bet...)?

My impression is that the house anticipates drawing a higher rake, at least the max rake. One of the players has to be all-in before the river, so I think this may encourage players to go all-in rather than trying to slow play or make a value bet. Thus, the pot is bigger, and the house gets the maximum rake.

I don't anticipate Protection Poker lasting very long. Regarding the down sides that have been mentioned here and in the article, remember that players have to choose to play at these tables (I assume.) If the players find that they don't like it, they can (and likely will) move to another table that doesn't have Protection Poker.

Quote: FDEAD3709

My, the dealers will love this. According to website, they will be provided a calculator to do the math ???

They install an iPad on the table just the the left or right of the built in shuffler. I also find it very odd to think how they can increase revenue this way. Any cash game I've ever played in, 95% of the time, we hit the rake max. How will this increase the overall win in order to pay the leasing fee to the distributor? I wonder what the catch is...

Been my experience that in most poker rooms, a few players have management's ear. That's why I know of no one that has ever been asked their opinion or to vote for tournament games, structure, etc. Usually the insiders are rocks. This is a ROCK OF AGES
feature. Even if the chump gets lucky, I should get 20% of the pot !!!

What input will the dealers have to put in after an all in bet on the flop. With straight, flush, runner runner set, split pot, etc. Will they have to put in players hands with rank and suits, same for the flop??? WTF

My knee-jerk reaction is that I don't like the idea.

But I'll be in town in three weeks, so I guess I'll go over to the Aria and check it out…

Quote: FDEAD3709

What input will the dealers have to put in after an all in bet on the flop. With straight, flush, runner runner set, split pot, etc. Will they have to put in players hands with rank and suits, same for the flop??? WTF

Yes, as shown in the photo in the article.

Quote: tringlomane

This is terrible for the poorer players because they are the ones that more often get their money in bad and now will only get 80% of the pot when they get lucky with a bad all in.

This, so much this.

Fish love to call off bare flush draws on the turn even though they've only got 20% equity. Once they do that a few times and have to give 20% of the pot to the other guy they're going to think twice about it the next time.

Quote: BTLWI

This, so much this.

Fish love to call off bare flush draws on the turn even though they've only got 20% equity. Once they do that a few times and have to give 20% of the pot to the other guy they're going to think twice about it the next time.

Fish = think???

Naah!

But they WILL go broke faster. That's why this is an idiotic promo. The house will lose rake if the dumdums bust out sooner.

Quote: Joeshlabotnik

Fish = think???

Naah!

But they WILL go broke faster. That's why this is an idiotic promo. The house will lose rake if the dumdums bust out sooner.

I don't believe with is a promo. It's a 30 day trial according to the Ngcb trial website.

DJ, let me know what you think and what the players think when you give it a spin.

This is an interesting concept that many players might claim over the years they wished they had, but is really going to be horrible for the poker community for several reasons, in my opinion:

1) It teaches the fish the math. I know the math. I know pair over pair preflop is 4-1, dominated hands are 3-1, etc, etc, etc. I don't need the fish to know just how bad they got it in. I learned this the old fashioned hard way. I played tons and tons and tons of poker hands and after nearly EVERY SINGLE HAND I would go plug the hand in to an online calculator to see the real odds/math. I learned slowly but surely what hands equated to what percentages/etc. I did that through my own drive and determination to learn the game, and now it seems it'll be a byproduct of simply sitting at one of these tables because the dealer basically will have to look up every hand on an all in.

2) Bad beats are bad beats. Successful players are AP's all the same in the fact that they build a bankroll that can handle them, and they understand RoR. Bad beats are like getting a monster count in blackjack, betting 3 hands table max, and having the dealer get the blackjack while you get all 20's. It's just part of the game and that "one" hand has relatively little outcome on anything in the long run. You're playing for the EV you've earned from the hand, just like a poker player. They play for the edge they get their money in good with. If you can't handle bad beats and think you need something like this to help fleece the fish, then you probably are a fish.

3) This will undoubtedly cause table bickering and confusion with players who either don't know the math, half know the math, or the ones that do know the math (who will hopefully remain silent) shouting at the dealer "Yep, that's 65%", etc. Why? Because we want to move the game along and get more hands. This is going to slow the hands per hour because it's going to take additional dealer action to determine, stopping the game in the meantime. Thus, you're really COSTING professionals/good players money by dealing them less hands per hour.

It's a sunny thought to think "Oh, when I have the nuts and get outdrawn with 1 card to come I'll get 20% of the pot anyways" which is really 40% of your total commitment to the pot... but I just don't see it helping the game in the long run.

Would I play at a table like this? Sure. I think there's particular ways good players could even more leverage these rules... But perhaps after that experiment I'd learn a bit more and for the reasons above probably not like it.

I'm heading over there now...

I went over there and played for a little over two hours. There was a list for people waiting for regular tables, and two open seats at this table, so I grabbed a seat.

There was a guy there that was very familiar with this thing. I thought he might've been part of the company behind it. But he said he was just friends with the people that are behind it.

Anyway there was lots of discussions about the thing and he said that he was in a hand earlier that day where it was used and it cost him part of the pot. He had a whatever kind of attitude.

After a while, I got into a hand where I went all in on the turn, and said "OK let's see how this stupid thing works." After some delay, the guy I was up against folded.

A little while later, another guy went all in on the flop and got called. Cool, now we can see how it works. They turned over the cards, one guy had pocket aces the other guy had pocket nines and flopped top set.

The dealer punched the info into the iPad, and then took a button that said "Protected" and put it next to the nines. Turn and river were blanks, so he shoved the pot.

I asked, and was told that if an ace came out, the guy with the nines would get 20%.

Discussion then turned to, how does the developer get paid? For now, it's a free field trial. Afterwards, maybe a couple bucks extra are raked when it gets used. Maybe just a higher rake. Don't know yet.

Bottom line, I'm concerned about how it's gonna get paid for, but if using it once in two hours is typical, then I have no other objection.

It will fail miserably if the rake is higher. Probably will fail even with the rake being the same.

So if I make a huge bluff and get called then the other player is guaranteed 20%. I don't like that. It is going to turn the game into everyone playing ABC.

Some times people just make stupid calls which sucks when you get sucked out on but I don't like the bluff protection.

Bluff protection? You got that backwards. Only the hand that it a 65% favorite gets protected. If the hand in the lead is less than 65%, there's no protection for anyone.

If anything, this can be considered protection AGAINST an all-in bluff...

As a poker pro I hate this idea. There is an old saying in poker "don't tap the fish tank". This is tapping the fish tank big time, there is a machine on the table telling the fish that they got it in terrible. Some won't care and will continue to get it in bad but if even one fish learns and therefore plays better in the future that is directly taking money out of my pocket.

Also this will slow the down the game if used a decent amount which accounts to less hands. I don't see this being a big issue as the machine won't be used that often but still I want all the hands per hour I can get.

Higher rake? Ya good luck ever getting me or any other serious player to pay extra rake for this machine to be on the table.

Overall I think this idea will fall on its ass hard and we will never hear from it again.