Starting Bankroll for Kill Games

[jason1990]

I have also posted this in the Probability forum. For those who do not know what a kill game is, let me explain by example. I have played in a $2/$4 kill game in my local B&M casino. It plays like a standard $2/$4 limit holdem game with one exception. If a player wins two pots in a row, then the game becomes a $4/$8 game until a different player wins the pot. During this time, the blinds remain $1/$2, but the player who has won the consecutive pots must post a blind of $4. He will post this blind every hand until someone else wins the pot, at which point the game reverts to a normal $2/$4 game.

Using the recommended starting bankroll of 300 BBs, I should have $1200 to play in an ordinary $2/$4 game and $2400 to play in an ordinary $4/$8 game. So my starting bankroll to play in this kill game should be somewhere between the two. How much should it be?

As a related question, what is the long term ratio of kill pots to all pots? Or put another way, if I walk up to a 10-handed kill game at some random time, what is the probability that I will find a kill pot in progress?

And finally, how much should I buy in for when I sit down at a kill game?

[M.B.E.]

In theory, the number of kill pots should be more than 10%, for two reasons:

(a) some players are looser than others, and in general a looser player has a greater probability of winning a pot;

(b) the players in the blinds, the button, and the cutoff all have a greater probability of winning the pot, since they are more likely to see the flop. Since those positions are next to each other, it increases the probability of the same individual winning two in a row.

I'd guess that in a 2/4 kill game, about 15-20% of the pots would be killed to 4/8. So the size of the game would be comparable to $2.35/$4.70 unkilled.