Online poker room clients have progressed a long way since their 1998 launch. From their simple and unpretentious origins to the modern day applications that come with a huge number of settings such as choosing a layout, an avatar, card backs, and disabling chat, all of which improved player experience without impacting negatively on the gameplay.
Preferred location, auto buy and bet profiles have made multi tabling far easier and made the game more profitable than ever before. But, the latest innovation – all in cash out – directly affects the results of each hand. So, what is it?
What Is All In Cash Out?
All in cash out was launched in 2019 and is offered by most of the top online casino rooms and works on a similar line as cashing out when betting. This is an option in your poker room client that allows you to claim your portion of the pot according to equity when playing for the stack and it can be used on any street except the river.
The size of the pot that the player will receive when using all in cash out is determined by the likelihood of the hand winning.
Essentially, the all in cash out feature allows cash game players who are in an all in situation and have no more action pending to opt out of playing out the rest of the hand in return for a cash pay out. This pay out is equal to their equity in the pot but minus an administrative fee that is equal to 1% of that equity.
For example, let’s say you are sitting at a NL500 table and call your opponent all in pre flop and are holding QQ and your opponent has JJ. There is $1,000 in the pot and your odds of winning the pot are 80.77%. With insurance, according to the poker calculation (80.77 x 1000) – (8.08), you are guaranteed to receive $799.62.
How Does All In Cash Out Work?
The all in cash out insurance option is only available in a situation when two or more players have gone all in and shown their cards. The poker calculator then works out the odds of each hand winning. Players have a button that will appear whenever all in cash out is available. This is usually found in the lower right corner of the table. This offers to bring the hand to a close ahead of schedule and take the bank’s share.
If an all in player does opt to cash out their equity and their hand goes on to beat the other hands in the pot, then the proceeds of the pot will be raked in by the house. Players also have the option to stay in and continue to play out the hand as normal regardless of their opponent’s decision to cash out of the hand.
If one player does decide to choose this new option and the other does not, the player who has not chosen it will play the remainder of the hand against the poker room, who keep the money if they win.
A player’s decision on whether or not to cash out will be displayed in real time at the tables for all opponents to see. Also, choosing the cash out option does not affect the outcome of the hand itself and the probabilities of each hand winning the pot does not change.
A button will appear on your table whenever the all in cash out option is available to use. If you choose to use it, your winnings will be instantly locked in and you will receive your return even in a case where you would have gone on to lose the hand.
The feature is available across all No Limit Hold’em, Pot Limit Omaha and No Limit 6+ Hold’em cash games.
Is It Good To Use All In Cash Out Insurance?
Is all in cash out insurance worth it from a positive return perspective? From a mathematics point of view, the answer is an unequivocal no, it is not valuable.
Why? Because you will end up paying a lot more rake over time than you would playing with insurance disabled. It is a pretty sweet deal for the online poker room, however. They take a cut if players cash out, and take the free equity if one player runs the remainder against them.
In poker, addition to mathematics, there is also psychology meaning that with all in cash out enabled not everything is so simple. While it may not be profitable over a long term, all in cash out can still be useful.
Nobody likes a bad beat and the all in cash out feature can help you avoid the next one. This is a feature that allows you to end your part in the hand early and lock in returns based on their odds of winning the pot at the time. But, it does come at a cost, usually around 1% which is charged on top of the standard rake.
What About Dead Cards?
Online poker rooms know which cards are dead and limit their equity calculation to publicly available information to those who have gone all in and not to those who have folded their hands. This is a deliberate feature designed to avoid leaking information on cards that were held by players no longer in the hand and also to better simulate a live poker game.
Dead cards are simply cards that have been folded by non all in players during the hand. These cards are not taken into consideration when an all in cash out amount is calculated. Only the cards that are known to the players at the time of the cash out are considered when calculating equity and the cash out value.
These are your own cards, your opponent’s cards and the community cards. Your edge is a direct result of the additional information you have on dead cards, that online poker rooms don’t use. All in all, if deployed properly, this can be a useful feature for online poker players.