DOING BUSINESS IN A HUGE POT

[riverboatking]

10-20 NL at commerce. i have ~800, BB has ~1000, MP has ~650.
i have AJ w/ A of spades on the button and MP me and the BB see a flop of J rag rag all spades. spare you all the details of how it got in because its not relevant to the post but basically all the money goes in on the flop (i put the final raise in) so now we have ~2400 in the pot, and the MP asks if we want to do business.
we flip our cards and the BB has 34 spades, the MP has 78 spades and I have the nut flush draw albiet with only 5 outs left.
suprisingly the MP asks me if i want to run it three times. he says either three or one.
basically he was guarenteed 2/3 of the pot and didn't want to lose the whole thing to a five outer.
my question is should i take my longshot chance at winning the whole pot or try and salvage 1/3?

[DrPublo]

I'd run it 3 times. Because you've now seen 8 spades, you're worse than 2:1 against to make your draw. Moreover, if the opponents hands are 78s and 34s and the flop is J high in spades, then one of them has at least a gutshot straight flush, right? That leaves you 4 outs, and possibly even 3 if the flop is 6s 9s Js.

Twodimes has you listed at 20% to win...not good for you. Since your play was so horrendously -EV, definitely run it 3x to reduce your variance.

Someone else can do the math as I left my calculator in my office...

The Doc

Edit: Your EV should be the same if you run it 3x or 1x (unless you account for the small correction added by knowing what card it WON'T be for the 2nd and 3rd legs), but since you're in such a -EV situation here might as well try and get some money back.

[danuts]

you mention you only have 5 outs. really, you have more. 5 spade outs, plus a bunch of runner-runner full houses.

anyways, in terms of your choice regarding running things once, 3 times, or a 100, your expected value is the same regardless of what you choose, so there is no actual benefit. having said that, running things multiple times is a dangerous proposition as 'fish' will realize a lot quicker that they are dead.

[turnipmonster]

you're almost exactly a 3 to 1 dog to hit, but for the purposes of doing buisness it doesn't really matter from an EV perspective, i.e. your EV does not change if you run it 3 times rather than once. I like running it once because I like to gamble.

as a side note, I am surprised that game was that shortstacked. usually those games play a hell of a lot deeper.

--turnipmonster

[Ulysses]

Well, you're more likely to get some money back if you run it three times. You're more likely to win the whole pot if you run it once. EV-wise it doesn't matter. Is 800 really important to you? If so, run it three times. If I were you, I'd run it three times if I didn't have any more money to play with and wanted to play longer. Otherwise I'd just run it once.

I'm actually quite surprised these guys bothered to talk deal in a 3-way 2400 pot in that game.

[riverboatking]

yeah it was late and we were all stuck.
and no the money wasn't what was important but i was just curious what was the right decision, since i don't have alot of experience doing business.
my intial reaction was sure run it three times because i'll be lucky to get anything back...
so we ran it three times...and the first time i spike the spade right on the turn so i got the side pot plus 1/3 of the pot back.

[Ulysses]

OK, if it's late and you're stuck, run it once and leave after the hand. You'll either leave down another $800 or with $2400.