WSOP Runner-Up Invents Bad Beat Insurance. Worst Idea Ever?

Former 2005 World Series of Poker runner-up Steve Dannenmann has filed a patent for “Wager insurance for a no-limit texas hold’em poker game.”

He and two other men filed a patent on April 17th, 2008 that allows for a player to take out an insurance policy while in the middle of playing a hand of No-Limit Texas Holdem to protect against the financial loss of losing that hand.

Essentially, when two players are all in, the player with the mathematical edge to win the hand can take out an insurance policy from the house to cover him/her in the event of a bad beat.

Here is the full abstract that describes the patent:

Wager insurance for a game of No-Limit Texas Hold’Em poker is provided to allow players to “hedge their bets” to limit the downside of losing a large bet through the provision of the ability to purchase, from the house, an insurance policy. The “premium” paid for the insurance policy is calculated by the house taking into account such factors as (a) the amount bet, (b) the strength of the hand, and (c) the status of the game, that is, how far along in the game the insurance is requested, in terms of how many of the sequence of steps in playing the game have occurred. Players may obtain insurance at any step along the way of the playing of the game. This permits a player to limit their potential loss, particularly where the player has the strongest hand to that point in the sequence of steps by which the game is played. In order to avoid undue complication, once a player becomes a policy holder and purchases an insurance policy from the house, that player may not take out another policy during the remainder of the same hand.

Here is a link to the full patent.

I am assuming by the wording (point “c”) that Dannenmann means for this to be used during tournaments, but wouldn’t that just make the insurance calculation nearly impossible unless there are only two players left playing heads up? You would have to take the skill of each player into account, maybe even using an ICM calculation. This whole idea seems like a joke to me. Apparently Steve is pretty serious about it though.

While I am all for innovation and thinking of new ideas, this is just plain ridiculous. This seems like a joke to me. Bad beat insurance is the type of thing that you joke around about or an errant thought that spews from you after a particularly bad beat. Nobody is going to patent the idea right? Wrong. Maybe you guys think this is a great idea though. Who knows?

There are two other applicants on the patent – Justin Weitzman and Raymond Schlisser. Apparently they all think that bad beats are unfair.