Online Poker Features and Table Rules: Run It Twice, All-In Insurance, EV Cashout, HUDs and Multi-Tabling

Run It Twice: how the board runs twice and who has to agree

Run It Twice is the feature most players meet first, because it changes the most visible part of the hand. When two or more players are all-in before the river, the site can deal the remaining community cards twice. The pot is then split between the two runouts: if you win both, you take the whole pot, and if you win one each, you split it.

The important part is who has to agree. Run It Twice only happens when every player still in the hand says yes. If one player declines, the hand runs once, exactly as it would in a live card room. There is no penalty for saying no and no way for the other players to force it through. On some tables the site removes the choice entirely: these are called forced Run It Twice tables, and the board always runs twice whether you want it or not.

If you have played live poker, the physical habits carry over. Checking is still a knock twice on the table with your fist, and the software gives you a button for it¹. The difference online is that the runout happens instantly, so you see both boards at once rather than waiting for the dealer to peel cards one at a time.

Run It Twice does not change your equity in the hand. It reduces variance: instead of one all-in deciding the whole pot, you get two chances at roughly half the pot each. Players who dislike big swings use it constantly. Players who want the full double-up when they are ahead often decline it.

Run It Twice is available in cash games, not tournaments

This is the rule that trips people up. Run It Twice is a cash game feature. It is not available in tournaments, where every hand is played out once and the result stands. If you are deep in a tournament and you want to reduce variance on a big all-in, the software will not offer you the option.

The reason is structural rather than arbitrary. In a tournament, chips are not cash: they represent a share of the prize pool, and the tournament has to produce a single result for every hand so the standings and payouts stay consistent. In a cash game, chips are money, and splitting a pot between two runouts is just a way of settling a bet.

There is one more wrinkle worth knowing. On forced Run It Twice tables, EV Cashout is not available². So if you want the option to cash out your equity before the hand ends, you need to be on a table where Run It Twice is optional, not forced. The two features do not coexist on the same table.

If you are new to the difference between the two formats, the practical version is simple: cash games let you leave whenever you like and the chips are worth what they say on them, while tournaments lock you in until you bust or win. That distinction drives most of the feature differences you will meet.

All-in insurance and what it covers

All-in insurance is the umbrella idea behind several features. When you are all-in before the river, your equity in the pot is a known number: the site can calculate exactly how often you win, lose or chop given the cards. Insurance lets you trade that uncertain equity for a certain amount, minus a fee.

What it covers is the gap between what you would win if you held and what you would lose if you got drawn out on. If you are a 90% favorite in a $1,000 pot, your equity is $900. Insurance or cashout lets you take something close to that now rather than risk the 10% chance of losing the whole thing.

The trade is straightforward. You give up a slice of your expected value in exchange for removing the swing. Over a single hand that is a real cost. Over thousands of hands, players who use it consistently are paying a fee for smoother results, which is a choice about bankroll management rather than a way to make money.

Insurance is not a bet against the house in the way a casino table game is. It is a settlement between you and the site based on the equity you already hold. The house makes its money from the fee, not from the outcome of the hand.

EV Cashout: cash out your equity before the hand ends

EV Cashout is the clearest version of this idea. It is available to all players at all cash game tables, and the rule is that you must be all-in before the river to use it². Once you are, the site offers you a cashout amount based on your equity, and you can accept it or let the hand run.

If you take it, the hand is settled immediately at the cashout figure. You do not see the runout decide your fate, because you have already been paid. If you decline, the hand plays out normally and you win or lose the full pot.

When you use it, the hand history shows it: the cashout is displayed under your username in the hand history, and you can click it for the details². That matters if you want to review later whether cashing out was the right call, or if you are tracking your results and need to know why a pot was settled for less than its full size.

The eligibility rule is worth repeating because it is the one people get wrong. You must be all-in before the river. If there is still betting to come, or if you are not all-in, the option is not there. And on forced Run It Twice tables, it is not available at all².

EV Cashout fees: 1% to 3% depending on game and stakes

The fee is the whole cost of the feature, and it is taken out of the cashout amount rather than charged separately. A small fee applies when you choose EV Cashout², and in practice it runs from about 1% to 3% depending on the game and the stakes. In the worked example the fee rate is 3%².

Higher stakes and certain game types tend to sit at the lower end, while smaller stakes and some variants sit at the higher end. The exact rate is shown to you before you confirm, so you never have to guess: the number on the screen is the number that applies to that hand.

It helps to think of the fee as the price of certainty. If you are a 90% favorite in a $1,000 pot, your equity is $900. A 3% fee on that cashout costs you roughly $27, and you walk away with $873 instead of risking the whole $900 on a 10% chance of losing it².

Whether that is worth it depends on your bankroll and your tolerance for swings, not on the math of the hand. The math is the same every time: you are paying a small percentage to remove a large, low-probability loss.

The EV Cashout formula and a worked example

The formula the site uses is simple once you see it written out:

Cashout amount = [(pot size - total rake) x equity] x (100 - cashout fee rate(%))

The worked example makes it concrete²:

Walk through it. The pot is $1,000 and the rake is 5%, or $50, so the amount actually in play is $950. Your equity is 90%, which is $855 of that. Then the 3% fee comes off, leaving $829.35².

Two things stand out. First, the rake is deducted before your equity is calculated, so you are not paying a fee on money the house already took. Second, the fee applies to your equity, not to the full pot, which is why the final number is lower than a casual estimate would suggest.

If you are comparing this to just letting the hand run, the comparison is $829.35 guaranteed against a 90% chance of $855 and a 10% chance of nothing. The guaranteed number is lower, and that is the point: you are buying certainty, and certainty has a price.

Seven Deuce: the 5BB bounty game

Seven Deuce is a different kind of feature: it is a table variant rather than a settlement option. It is built on the standard rules of Texas Hold'em with a modifier for winning with 7-2⁵, and it runs on 7-max Fast and Furious tables⁵.

The hook is the bounty. Every player pays a 5 big blind bounty as soon as they buy in to a Fast and Furious table⁵. That is on top of the normal buy-in, so your first deposit at the table is your stack plus 5BB.

From then on, the bounty is paid by every player seated at the table whenever someone wins a hand with 7-2, suited or offsuit³. The winner collects from everyone, including players who were all-in, on top of the normal pot³. The 5BB comes from the whole table rather than from individual player stacks³, and the total accumulated bounty is paid out instantly when a player wins with 7-2⁵.

If two or more players win the same round with 7-2, the bounty is split evenly between them⁵. That is rare, but it is the kind of detail that decides an argument at the table, so it is worth knowing before it happens to you.

Seven Deuce bounty rules: buy-in, payout and repayment

The mechanics of paying and reloading are where most questions come from, so here is the sequence.

1. You sit down and pay 5BB as a bounty in addition to your normal buy-in³. That bounty sits with the table, not with you.
2. When another player wins with 7-2 suited or offsuit, the bounty is automatically deducted from every player at the table³.
3. After you pay, your bounty is automatically reloaded so you are ready for the next 7-2 win³.
4. If you cannot reload, you cannot join the next Seven Deuce hand³.

The winning hand is revealed automatically immediately after the pot is awarded, even if it was won by a bluff³. That is deliberate: the table needs to see the 7-2 to know the bounty is live, and hiding it would create disputes. The same rule appears in the game's own description: winning hands are shown immediately after the pot is won, even if the hand was a bluff⁵.

Winning the bounty does not require a showdown. You win a Texas Hold'em hand holding 7-2 suited or offsuit, either by bluff or by having the strongest hand at showdown³. So a well-timed bluff with the worst starting hand in poker can collect from the whole table.

The bounty does not come out of the winner's stack, and it does not come out of the loser's stack in the usual sense. It is paid from the table's accumulated bounty pool, which every seated player has contributed to³. That is why an all-in opponent still pays: they were seated when the hand was won.

HUDs and multi-tabling

HUDs, or heads-up displays, are third-party tools that overlay statistics on your opponents: how often they raise, how often they fold to a bet, and so on. Multi-tabling is simply playing several tables at once, which most sites allow and which many regulars do as standard.

The rules on HUDs vary by site and by market, and they are enforced through the site's terms rather than through any single law. Some sites permit basic tracking software, some ban it outright, and some allow it only in certain game types. The practical move is to read the terms for the site you play on before you install anything, because a tool that is fine on one site can get your account closed on another.

Multi-tabling is more straightforward. Sites generally allow it, and the limit is usually a table cap rather than a ban. The real constraint is you: playing four tables means four sets of decisions, and the mistakes you make when you are spread thin cost more than the extra volume earns.

Both features interact with the rest of the table rules. If you are multi-tabling, you will meet Run It Twice decisions on several tables at once, and the clock does not slow down for you. If you use a HUD, you are relying on data that the site may or may not permit you to collect. Neither is a shortcut around the rules of the game itself.

Where to find these features: GGPoker and CoinPoker

These features are not universal. They appear on specific sites, and the site you can legally play on depends on where you are.

GGPoker operates under a Philippine license. Good Games Solutions Pilipinas Inc. is registered as a service provider offering online poker under the GGPOKER brand⁶. PAGCOR, the Philippine regulator, licenses and lists online poker operators, and its registers show a range of providers offering online poker games⁷. PAGCOR casinos and licensed sites are for players 21 years old and above only⁴.

CoinPoker is where the detailed rules for EV Cashout and Seven Deuce come from, and it is the site that publishes the fee rates, the cashout formula and the bounty mechanics described above². If you want to see how these features behave in practice, its help pages are the clearest public explanation of the mechanics.

If you are in Asia and trying to work out where you can play, the country guides are the place to start, and the poker section covers the rules and variants in more depth. The features on this page are the same wherever they appear, but whether you can legally use them depends on your location and your residency status.