The venture thread showed pretty conclusively that the mean and variance of your next hand, indeed the whole distribution, remain pretty unchanged, in terms of treasure, as long as you don't reshuffle. Of course, you do reshuffle and there are action cards to work with, and so the cycling adds some variance. But risky != bad. Risky is only bad for you if you're more than likely to win to start with. And good for you if you're way behind. So you shouldn't really avoid a play because it's risky, at least out of the opening. You just want to play what's good. (Later on, if you have a big lead, you play less risky, and if you're behind, you play more risky)