Foxwoods 5-10 w Full kill - luck aspect

[midas]

At Foxwoods, the 5-10 game is played with a full-kill (10-20) when the previous pot equals $100 or greater and then drops back to 5-10 when the pot is less than $100. Depending on table profile (over at least 5 hours of play), you may see 5% to 40% of hands played at 10-20. I have always won big (600+) or lost my down limit ($400) in this game and have never broke even or left with a small gain.

My theory is this - luck plays a larger factor in this game because of the drastically uneven pot sizes from hand to hand. For example, winning a 5-10 pot doesn't make-up for losing a 10-20 pot and vice versa. Comments?

[AaronBrown]

I'm not sure what you mean. It's true you will have more variance than a game with fixed limits equal to the average limit. For example, if 20% of the hands are 10/20, then the average hand is played at 6/12. But the standard deviation of your results will be about the same as a 6.32/12.64 game.

This assumes the changing limits do not affect anyone's play. In reality, my experience is anything unusual helps experts and hurts everyone else. The loser of a $100+ pot might go in on garbage rather than let someone take a small pot and reduce the stakes to make it harder to recoup the loss. Other players might get tight or passive at the higher limits.

It's hard to predict the effect of these changes on the standard deviation.