UTH: Player Banking

First off, I want to thank the Wizard for the wealth of info on WOO...tremendous site, even for us "ploppies"!

I could possibly cross-post this question on Stephen How's site, as well, but it's more of a thought experiment since I wouldn't execute on this for a variety of reasons, mainly my interest in staying married. :-)

I've seen Ulitmate Texas Hold'em spread at a few card rooms in California and I am wondering how you would go about calculating your edge when deciding whether or not a +EV opportunity exists for banking this game.

I will try to provide as much detail as I can in terms of the parameters of the game and play:

- Table mins are $5 for Ante/Blind
- -1.9% Trips bet
- -14.8% 2-way bad beat bet
- The sum of the Trips + 2wBB cannot exceed the Ante
- House takes $1/$50 action (near as I can tell, this may be incorrect)
- Max payout per seat is $20,000
- Best case scenario for frequency is no other player bankers, so you get to bank two hands and the corporation gets two hands (you have to play the two hands the corp banks).

So you could bet $5+$5+$1 on your two hands as a player (and presumably use optimal strategy without playing any bonuses) and then bank the other players' action for two hands (while hoping to fade the Royal :-) ). The whole point of this is, in general the players play so badly and consistently bet the bonuses that it seems like your advantage while banking, especially at a full or near-full table, would more than offset what you're giving up while a player. I have no idea how to calculate this edge, however I frequently see people not betting aces preflop, not betting pairs on the flop, betting only 3x with premium hands, and calling on the end with all kinds of hopeless stuff...it's really incredible.

I'm thinking you would need to sit with ~$25k in order to ensure you would get action from the rest of the players, so there are additional risks, I suppose, but focusing on the math of the game, how good/bad would it be to bank this action?

I'm very interested in hearing the answers to this; have no idea how to answer it myself, but definitely a great question.

I don't think you can bank the bonuses. At least in PGP, the corporate player continues to bank the sidebet there. But, that might actually help you. It lowers variance for the player/banker and also eliminates one of the lower HE bets (the trips bet) from play. That just leaves you fighting with the terrible players on the base game.

Quote: rdw4potus

I don't think you can bank the bonuses. At least in PGP, the corporate player continues to bank the sidebet there. But, that might actually help you. It lowers variance for the player/banker and also eliminates one of the lower HE bets (the trips bet) from play. That just leaves you fighting with the terrible players on the base game.

FWIW, you're still looking at very high odds pays on the blind, which is mandatory (I'm sure rdw knows this), including the RF at 500:1 so I'd think you still have to have a big bankroll on the table. That payout alone would scare me out of banking; the rest are survivable.

Quote: rdw4potus

I don't think you can bank the bonuses. At least in PGP, the corporate player continues to bank the sidebet there. But, that might actually help you. It lowers variance for the player/banker and also eliminates one of the lower HE bets (the trips bet) from play. That just leaves you fighting with the terrible players on the base game.

FWIW I have seen a player banker and they did indeed book all bets.

Quote: offTopic

First off, I want to thank the Wizard for the wealth of info on WOO...tremendous site, even for us "ploppies"!

I could possibly cross-post this question on Stephen How's site, as well, but it's more of a thought experiment since I wouldn't execute on this for a variety of reasons, mainly my interest in staying married. :-)

I've seen Ulitmate Texas Hold'em spread at a few card rooms in California and I am wondering how you would go about calculating your edge when deciding whether or not a +EV opportunity exists for banking this game.

I will try to provide as much detail as I can in terms of the parameters of the game and play:

- Table mins are $5 for Ante/Blind
- -1.9% Trips bet
- -14.8% 2-way bad beat bet
- The sum of the Trips + 2wBB cannot exceed the Ante
- House takes $1/$50 action (near as I can tell, this may be incorrect)
- Max payout per seat is $20,000
- Best case scenario for frequency is no other player bankers, so you get to bank two hands and the corporation gets two hands (you have to play the two hands the corp banks).

So you could bet $5+$5+$1 on your two hands as a player (and presumably use optimal strategy without playing any bonuses) and then bank the other players' action for two hands (while hoping to fade the Royal :-) ). The whole point of this is, in general the players play so badly and consistently bet the bonuses that it seems like your advantage while banking, especially at a full or near-full table, would more than offset what you're giving up while a player. I have no idea how to calculate this edge, however I frequently see people not betting aces preflop, not betting pairs on the flop, betting only 3x with premium hands, and calling on the end with all kinds of hopeless stuff...it's really incredible.

I'm thinking you would need to sit with ~$25k in order to ensure you would get action from the rest of the players, so there are additional risks, I suppose, but focusing on the math of the game, how good/bad would it be to bank this action?

This is the best news I've ever heard. I need to see if this is at any of my local card rooms.

The best thing about UTH is that even though the house edge is fairly low with optimal play, people play TERRIBLY and mistakes are EXPENSIVE. I would suspect that most people play the main game with a double-digit house edge. A lot of people won't bet 4x with anything worse than QQ.

You will probably not be able to calculate an exact edge, because it depends on how badly the particular people at the table are playing, and how much they are betting. I would ballpark it at a 10% house edge on the ante bet though, for "average" players. The problem is that the variance is quite high (all the suckers play the trips bet -- and, in fairness, they really do do better at it than on the main game) so you need some bankroll.

I would suggest, ballpark the variance, assume 10% HE on the ante, and use that to ballpark your bankroll requirements per dollar being bet against you. The hands are correlated (big hand on the board means that everyone wins on trips) but not 100% correlated -- as a ballpark (and conservative) figure, I'd just assume that all the money being played against you is being done on a single hand. Spreading it out over multiple hands will reduce the variance somewhat, but this will (hopefully) make up for any possibility that you are overestimating your edge.

You can't always calculate exact numbers; the ability to perform back-of-the-envelope calculations quickly that are close to correct is a useful skill to have! Overall, I suspect that what I described above will give you a slightly conservative estimate (but that is just intuition; I did no actual calculations; take it with a grain of salt!)

In my experience, players don't tolerate player-bankers for long. They either sit out, leave or lower their bets when an individual is banking. Unless, of course, they are winning.

If you can find some players betting green and who don't mind you playing, it is profitable for sure. But be prepared for some serious swings. $25k would be okay for a session bankroll, but nowhere near enough for your real bankroll.

Quote: rdw4potus

I don't think you can bank the bonuses. At least in PGP, the corporate player continues to bank the sidebet there. But, that might actually help you. It lowers variance for the player/banker and also eliminates one of the lower HE bets (the trips bet) from play. That just leaves you fighting with the terrible players on the base game.

In CA, the corporation bankers are, technically, just other players. So it would be illegal for them to prevent someone from covering the bonuses. It is usually optional, so you do have to declare you are covering them and may have to provide a minimum bank amount, though.

Not to say plenty of the cardrooms don't try to tell people otherwise. If you are getting resistance, threaten to contact the DOJ.