Insurance or running it twice?

[donpeters]

When you're ahead in a hand and a player wants to run it twice, is it better to take insurance on the hand or run it twice?

[Red_Diamond]

Questions like this, keep bringing me memories of Ace on the River...

[pzhon]

Running it twice gives you the same EV as if you run it once. Running it n times cuts the variance by a factor of n. It's very easy to do, and doesn't require trusting someone.

Taking insurance usually harms your EV. Usually, you are paying a significant amount, e.g., you might pay 1/4 of the pot to avoid something that happens 1/5 of the time or less. However, you might reduce your variance more than by a factor of 2.