Some Help Please

My brother emailed me and aske dme this question:

"I was watching high stakes poker last night and they did this thing where they cycled through the river card 3 times. I was so confused...is it something only particular to high stakes poker? Basically two guys went all in after the turn, and then guy leading said the #3, and then they went through 3 river cards....what's that about?"

I heard of them doing the river twice or something. Does anyone have a clear explanation on why and how this is done?

They call it "running it twice" or "running it three times"

Usually they only do it when a player's all in and there's one or more cards still to come (they could do it pre-flop if they wanted).

Basically, the pot gets divided in two, or three as the case may be. They deal out to the river once, and whoever wins gets half the pot. Then they deal out to the river again, and whoever wins gets the other half of the pot.

So say one player had AA, the other had 78, the board was reading A692, the players got all in and agreed to run it three times.

First time the river's a T - player two makes his straight and takes a third of the pot

Second time the river's a 2 - player one makes his boat and takes a third of the pot

Third time the river's a 3 - player one still has a set, and takes the final third of the pot

Only really done in cash games, not tournaments, and only if both players agree to it.

it's done simply to reduce variance.

One of the main reasons I don't watch HSP is because of the frequency they run 2 or more times.
Not really poker IMO.

Sound starnge..never even heard about it.
but I can't understand why a player that thinks he has the winning hand will allow this move ?

It doesn't affect EV at all (i.e. the player who is ahead is expected to win in the long run exactly as much as he is expected to win if the river is only 'run once'), only variance.

Because it sucks to get rivered especially if you got 300k in the pot . If the guy is ahead he is likely to be ahead in both runs, but if the other guy gets lucky on either then he wouldn't loose the whole pot.

Because they can't know that they have the winning hand - there's always at least one card to come and the hands have usually been turned face up when someone proposes this.

If it's a 55-45 type situation the person in the lead might be more inclined to take it. Maybe they're feeling charitable, maybe they can't afford to get sucked out on and are hoping for at least half the pot, maybe they own a Canadian circus, or maybe (probably the most likely reason) they just want someone to be more likely to let them run it twice on a future hand when they find themselves behind. Could be all sorts of things.

Obviously, if they've got the other player crushed, they'll turn it down most of the time. There was a hand in Season 1 of HSP where Barry Greenstein and Sam Farha got all in before the flop, Greenstein had AA and Farha had KK. Farha wanted to run it multiple times, Greenstein naturally said no, Farha flopped a king and Greenstein lost about a hundred grand.

I thought if you ran it twice its for the whole pot again?

Nope - they divide the existing pot in two.

Typically it's done when one of the players is all in, so they haven't got any more money left to add to the pot anyway.

Perfect! Thanks.