Variance...

[Talking Poker]

It really depends on what kind of timeframe you are looking at... but if you mean over a given session or week or month, then yeah, I absolutely DO believe in variance. I've seen it enough to know it exists. By "variance," I don't just mean running cold and getting sucked out a lot on either - I also mean running hot, hitting lots of flops, and having your hands that should win 80% of the time win 100% of the time over that stretch. It goes both ways.

I do think that people are too quick to blame losing on variance and attribute winning to skill though. You never see a guy (JD included) go on a tear and chalk it up to variance and then run really cold and say that's because he sucks.

I guess for me, I've played enough that I think I have a pretty good idea of how I should be running over a particular session (or month or whatever), if there was no variance. Without having a selective memory and only thinking about the bad beats like a lot of players do, I think I can pretty accurately say if I've been running hot or cold, as compared to what "average" would be over the long run.

But back to the initial question: Yes, of course I believe in variance. I'm smart enough to know that it's more than just an excuse for losing though.