More money is always good
I’ve always liked extra little bonus features in online poker cash games. I remember the old Cake Poker had thing where gold cards would randomly appear and if you won the pot, you added the gold card to your collection. Collect certain groupings and you could cash them in for prizes. Just a fun little add-on.
BetRivers seems to think so, too, as it has launched the “Splash the Pot” feature to its cash games, giving players the opportunity to win extra money on top of the regular pot. It’s a simple concept: BetRivers will randomly add money to the pot before the flop and whoever wins the pot gets the full splash amount. The money does not come out of anyone’s stack – it’s just a bonus provided by the poker room. And the splash is not raked.
The probability of a splashed pot corresponds to the previous hand’s rake contribution. We won’t go through the math here, but BetRivers provides the formula on its website.
It shouldn’t be difficult to know when there is a splash. Aside from the increased pot, there will be visual cues: the color of the pot amount will change to gold and, depending on how big the splash is, the chips and table graphics could change, as well.
An even bigger splash
Interestingly, BetRivers’ Splash the Pot details page does not specify how much the splash will be, it looks like it can range from one extra big blind to 100 big blinds.
There is a special, extremely rare circumstance, though, called the “Big Splash.” The Big Splash event adds as much as 1,000 big blinds to the pot, up to a maximum of $10,000. There will be no missing this one, as it is accompanied by an intro animation and celebration effects.
And even if a player isn’t paying attention (provided they are still dealt into the hand), it doesn’t matter, as when a Big Splash occurs, the software takes over, turns everyone’s hole cards face up, and deals the entire board. No betting is allowed. Just flip the cards over and see who wins.
The Big Splash is not a winner-take-all hand, either. The winner of the hand receives 70% of the pot, while the rest of the players split the remaining 30% equally. So if a Big Splash event appears, everybody wins.
There is no need to opt-in to Splash the Pot, as it is an automatic, built-in feature active for everyone.
