ClubGG poker recently released two really cool features– the Squid Game and EV Cashouts. This post will explain how these features work.
(If you want to give ClubGG poker a try, please contact me privately.)
THE SQUID GAME
Have you ever played credit card roulette? After dinner with a group of friends, the server–eyes shut–randomly draws one person’s credit card and that person pays for the entire meal. One loser. Everyone else gets a free dinner.
The Squid Game is very similar, and patterned after the Stand Up Game made popular at The Lodge Card Club in Texas. In the Stand Up Game, players literally stand up around the table. Whoever wins each pot sits back down. The last player standing pays an agreed-upon penalty to each other player at the table. Ouch!
When a Squid Game begins on ClubGG, the penalty amount is automatically removed from each player’s stack and held in reserve. Typically this is 3 big blinds per opponent at Hold’em tables and 4 BBs at Omaha tables. Setting the funds aside prevents a player from going bust, owing the penalty, but not having an account balance sufficient to pay it off.
A small bubble appears next to each player’s screen name. To keep track of who is safe from that round’s penalty, a squid icon appears inside your bubble when you win your first pot.
In the image shown, YOURDARKNESS (at the top) has a squid in his bubble. All of the other bubbles are empty.
The Squid Game ends when only one player still has not won a pot. Winning multiple pots during the Squid Game is great for your chip stack, but doesn’t earn any additional bonus.
The table in this image has blinds of 5/10. With a penalty of 4 BBs per opponent, $120 has already been removed from each player’s stack.
If your stack is already short, I recommended topping up before the next hand begins!.
As players win pots and earn squids in their bubbles, the pressure builds rapidly on the remaining players. Overly tight or passive play gets crushed at these tables.
Once there is a single loser, each of the winning players gets his or her $120 returned to their stacks, plus a bonus of $40 from the losing player’s reserve.
On ClubGG, there will be 3 or 4 normal hands after the conclusion of each Squid Game before the next one begins, allowing players to top up their stacks, leave the table, gripe, or catch their breath.
If you like high pressure / high variance poker, the Squid Game is for you!
EV CASHOUT
While the Squid Game is designed to increase urgency and aggression, The EV Cashout feature offers to reduce short-term variance.
Tables with this feature will say EV Cashout on the virtual felt, as circled in the image above.
Whenever two players are all-in after the flop or turn card is out, ClubGG calculates each player’s Expected Value, or EV. This is the average amount you would win if the remaining cards were reshuffled and re-dealt a million times. If your EV is 60% or higher, you’ll have the option–but no obligation–to accept payment of his EV in the hand as a guaranteed win regardless of how the board runs out. ClubGG keeps 1% as a fee for providing this option.
The hand still gets played out to its full conclusion. If you take the EV Cashout and also win in the end, ClubGG keeps the difference. That’s the price you pay to eliminate the risk. If your opponent’s hand ends up best, he or she collects the entire pot. ClubGG funds the payment to both players. If their math is accurate, ClubGG should break even over the long run, plus a small profit on the accumulated 1% fees.
At left is a recent 5-card PLO hand where this came into play. Player Jeez Lweez–at the bottom–is me! On the flop, we got all-in and I had player BONE APPETIT absolutely crushed with set-over-set! Only a 1-outer to make quads could save him.
And yet, my EV was “only” 83.7%, as BONE APPETIT had backdoor straight and flush possibilities.
I declined the EV cashout and saw the turn card.
There’s no more betting–remember we were already all-in–however, I get another EV Cashout option based on an updated EV calculation of 89.5%. The backdoor straight draw was still in play, so I played it safe and took the EV Cashout for $595 from the $685 pot. Boy, was I glad when the river filled BONE APPETIT’s straight.
Note that I lost the hand, still kept $595 for a tidy profit, and BONE APPETIT also collected the entire $685 pot. As an added bonus, I avoided going on total monkey tilt for the next two hours!
Whenever players are all-in on the flop and the turn card makes the former underdog the new 60%+ favorite, that player will have an EV Cashout option before the river card comes. It’s possible for both players to take an EV Cashout in the same hand… one on the flop and the other on the turn.
The EV Cashout option is not available when players run the board out twice or three times. If keeping variance low or avoiding tilt is a priority, a default strategy is to run it twice–subject to your opponent’s agreement–when the EV Cashout isn’t available and run it once and take the EV Cashout as a sure thing when your EV is 60% or higher.
CONCLUSION
Each of these feature–Squid Games and EV Cashout–adds another dimension to online poker. It’s worth taking the time to ponder the pros and cons, and strategic consideration, before committing to a seat at these tables.
