English

Variance reduction in Texas hold'em and in video poker

Probability 2024-09-20 v2 Computer Science and Game Theory

Abstract

In Texas hold'em, after an all-in bet is made and called before the flop, the turn, or the river, the two players sometimes agree to run it nn times, meaning that the remaining five, two, or one cards are dealt out not just once but nn times successively without replacement, with 1/n1/n of the pot attached to each run. In nn-play video poker, five cards are dealt exactly as in the conventional single-play game. After the player chooses which cards to hold, new cards are drawn to replace the discards, not just once but nn times independently, with 1/n1/n of the bet attached to each draw. In both scenarios the players are attempting to reduce the variance of the return without changing the mean. We quantify the extent to which the variance is reduced.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2409.03607,
  title  = {Variance reduction in Texas hold'em and in video poker},
  author = {Stewart N. Ethier},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2409.03607},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

15 pages, 0 figures