Variance...

[JDMcNugent7]

I was thinking about variance and how it relates to poker. I understand and have experienced short term variance many times, and know it is very real, but I think that in normal online situations, there is less long term variance than most players claim.

I think it's getting to be an all too common excuse and an easy term for players to blame their losses on. Therefore it's getting overused. Kinda like how everyone loves to claim they have ADD now as an excuse to be dumb, or not pay any attention. Some people actually have it, but most the time it's just an excuse for people who can't be honest with themselves and work hard, just like claiming variance in poker.

Of course, the better players have a greater edge over their average opponent, and therefore will experience less variance, and the worse players will experience a greater amount of variance since they will consistently make plays with a smaller positive expected value.

I'm sure Bdawg will disagree, but does this make sense? Anyone think I just run good and havent experienced any real variance yet ?

[MAYHEM45]

I suck at poker.

[Van_Broked]

I agree JD, maybe I've been lucky as well though I don't know. I play full ring so there is less variance then the games most of you play, but I've never had a huge losing streak and I know I'm no pro. I think the worst downswing I've ever had is 5 buy ins. Seems to me a swing of 10 buy ins would be a really freak occurence for a good player.

I do know this though, when I'm getting raped in every hand I play I tend to get a little gunshy. Gotta remind myself to stay aggressive and keep making correct plays. Obviously if you stray from your game its going to be harder to pull out of a bad streak.

[BrianSwa]

I'm most likely way out of line for saying this because I'm in no way some poker expert that can comment but screw it here goes.

No I dint think you have experienced any variance, all your big loses have been self inflicted on your part by playing where you shouldn't be playing. You have run good for awhile and haven't hit any crushing swings yet unless they were caused by you. Now I can only comment on what we have seen you post on the forum so I dint know maybe you have taken swings at the levels you should be at that we haven't been able to see.

[JDMcNugent7]

ya it was kinda a joke. its impossible to tell. i can post some disgusting hands from tonight alone that would make u feel ive experienced plenty of variance im sure tho. Plus, theres a possibility ive played close to if not the most hands on this forum, so to say i havent had any varaince yet is pretty crazy.

[BrianSwa]

Like I said we can only go by what you post so if you did post those hand your right the opinion could be different.

[Kurn]

...for people who don't want to critically evaluate their own play during a downswing.

For a player to accurately attribute a downswing to variance, these things must be true.

1) He must have played a large number of hands at a specific level

2) He must have an established, stable win rate at that level. In other words, at 5/10 limit, over 200,000 hands, 3 BB/100 over the full 200,000 hands *and* over the 4 blocks of 50,000 hands.

3) After recognizing this downswing, he must evaluate hand histories, PT numbers, whatever, to verify that nothing has significantly changed in how he plays hands.

If all 3 are correct, then he can accurately attribute the downswing to variance.

For most people in a downswing, the right thing to do is not to curse "variance", but to go back over their play and figure out what they've been doing wrong.

We're not machines, after all, we tend to make mistakes.

[Boobie Lover]

I do think that people do blame variance too often and don't try to improve your own play.

Although, your argument that winning players will experience less variance is wrong IMO. Some of the highest winners who are very laggy probably have a much higher standard deviation than a less winner who is a standard tag because they are making much more high variance plays, and their swings will be much more than the person who will make less in the long run.

[Reel Deal]

I stopped reading half way through the first sentence because I have ADD.

[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.

[ashmc2]

I use this excuse all the time. Especially when I really get my ass kicked for a few days. Then I remember that my ADD was kicked in and I was calling everything down because I wasn't watching the board attentively.

No really - variance can only be noted with your normal playing style over a large set of hands. Any nontypical plays shouldn't be added to the set win or lose. But shit plays is a whole new sub-set to calculate.

[Reel Deal]

Hey, look, there goes a squirrel in my back yard...

[MAYHEM45]

AEQ needs to post his AIM buddy icon.