reducing variance: the sklansky bux swap

[Nielsio]

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Theoretically this is a very good idea. If you had a group of like 5-6 players you would essentially eliminate your variance. Your bottom line isn't affected. People who say this is a bad idea dont understand it properly.

Practically though it would be very hard to monitor. You would need a group of close friends who wouldn't cheat each other and such.

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[Maulik]

A handful of sng kids chopped SNG x number of SNGs for several months. Aside from the trust issues it's not a bad idea if you're a professional and rely on the income for monthly nut.

[yad]

This seems like a ridiculously good idea for good players who trust each other to use privately amongst themselves. Having the sites do it is terrible for the fish-killing reasons folks have raised. fortunately it is only the former that is at all likely to happen.

[punter11235]

If the players play on Stars or FTP the could ask 3rd party dataminer for hands thus avoiding possibiilty of cheating by not reporting some hands. The issue to resolve would be payment trust and thats easier because one cant cheat without being caught (not many high stakes players would risk their reputation by not paying.. especially if the deal was somehow written down; as some examples of late showed though it may happen [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] ).

[SlowHabit]

Money has a funny way of making academic theories impractical.

[jfish]

i really like this idea.

[stigmata]

It's a great idea.

There is potenially an easy way to get round the trust problem: Only trade variance on hands mined by a trusted 3rd party (e.g. HSDB). This means only one party (the miner) really needs to be trusted. If he is taking a small cut for organisation, then there is a strong pressure to stay honest & trusted.

It could have some problems (need close to full coverage, need to trust the dataminer), but it should be the simplest implementation, and means that everyone is free to sign up, even complete unknowns.