In our invented hand, B wins $70 from the first board and nothing from the second. B put in $110. Winning one of two runouts has not returned the whole stake.
Run It Twice completes the remaining community cards twice and allocates an agreed share of the existing pot to each result. It creates two awards from money already committed. Unequal contributions and side pots can make those awards very different from a simple refund to everyone.
Agreement comes after the betting decisions
The 2026 WSOP Official Live Action Rules, rules 208 to 213, describe the procedure for their named Paris Las Vegas cash games. Rule 210 permits it in time-raked flop games and $5/$10 No-Limit Hold'em with all remaining participants agreeing. Rule 211 requires at least one all-in and no pending action. Players cannot arrange to stop betting on the first board just to obtain a second.
The cards already dealt matter. Rule 208 allows a second complete board, a second turn and river, or a second river. If the hand stopped on the turn, running it twice does not require replacing the existing four community cards with two unrelated five-card boards.
PokerStars' UK software guide, under Run It Twice, separately describes cash pots with betting closed and all remaining players opted in. It awards one half on each board. That is an operator's published feature description, not confirmation of availability in every client or country.
$260, with two different eligibility groups
Take a fictional cash hand in an eligible $5/$10 No-Limit Hold'em setting. A has committed $40, B $110 and C $110, and all three are all-in before the river. Betting is finished, all three agree to two runouts for both pots, and no contribution is unmatched. No fee is taken in this teaching ledger; it does not quote a room's actual charges.
The main pot is $120, made from $40 apiece. B and C have another $70 each in a $140 side pot. Our side-pot explainer supplies the underlying eligibility calculation. Here the new task is to apply two board results separately to each pot.
For this example, divide each pot equally between the two runouts. Suppose A has the best hand on the first board, B the next best and C the weakest. On the second, C has the best hand. These are stipulated results, not quoted hands or a prediction from particular cards.
| Pot and eligible hands | First board | Second board |
|---|---|---|
| Main pot: $120; A, B and C eligible | A receives $60 | C receives $60 |
| Side pot: $140; only B and C eligible | B receives $70 | C receives $70 |
A's first-board win has no claim on the $70 side-pot share. Within that separate contest, B beats C and collects it. C wins both shares available on the second board.
The final receipts are A $60, B $70 and C $130. They add up to the original $260. Against contributions of $40, $110 and $110, the respective changes are plus $20, minus $40 and plus $20. The changes sum to zero in this fee-free example.
There is no second $260 contribution. Nor has everyone received half of what they paid. If C instead had the best hand on both boards, C would take both pots in full: $260. Two runs still allow a player to receive nothing.
Consent and odd chips belong to particular pots
An agreement need not have the same scope in every room. PokerStars Live's cash-game rule 45 permits the side-pot participants to run their pot twice while the main pot goes to the first board's winner. That is a separate named procedure. It must not silently replace the all-participants, both-pots agreement used in our ledger.
Indivisible chips add another allocation step. In the WSOP cash document's rule 217, an extra chip when splitting the pot between runs goes to the main board. With a separate invented $105 pot and $5 as the smallest permitted unit, two equal $50 portions leave $5. Applying that rule gives $55 to the first board and $50 to the second.
If players then tie for one board's share, dividing that share between hands is a further question. The applicable odd-chip procedure decides its remainder; our odd-chip article explains why denominations and eligible positions matter. A board's allocation and a tied player's award must not be collapsed into one rounding operation.
These are cash-game procedures from named sources, not a general tournament entitlement. The room's permission, the pots covered by consent and any deductions remain part of the record.
For B, the $70 receipt is correct even though it is $40 below the amount committed. The first board supplied a win in the side pot, not a replacement for B's whole-hand account.
