WTF variance overview help plz - Page 2

On September 04 2008 15:57 Baal wrote: Show nested quote + On September 04 2008 11:39 Joe wrote:   On September 04 2008 10:12 CCMoz wrote: just curious - what is a 'standard' / 'longest' downswing you can expect to face in your career... It depends a lot on how big your edge is. If you are an 8ptbb/100 winner, then you will probably have very few (if any) downswings over more than 10k hands. However, if your edge is only like 0.5ptbb/100, then you are probably gonna experience downswings lasting more than 100k hands from time to time. this is overlooked by many, variance comes in direct proportion to your edge, if u are getting massive swings ur edge is very small so focus on improving.

this is COMPLETELY untrue and is absolute NON-SENSE

you will have bigger swings if you play bigger pots. you will have smaller swings if you play smaller pots. if you're a really passive tight nit then you'll have smaller swings. if you're a monster player who is constantly hammering POT POT SHOVE every hand then you'll have smaller swings.

you can have a huge edge with huge variance, but since you have such a huge edge you'll rarely "feel" the swings because even though you lost 10k at 5/10 today you won 50k at 5/10 last week.

if you are a bad player you will have losing streaks more often, and that's because you're not good.

long-term breakeven or losing stretches are NOT "massive swings"

massive swings are like +20bi in 1k hands

hope this is helpful to someone

On September 04 2008 10:18 capaneo wrote: Show nested quote + On September 04 2008 10:14 SakiSaki wrote: 200k hands come on 200k is not all about variance. Its more about a HUGE downswing that affected ur ABC game and now u are struggling to get back to your normal game.

mb playin abc (mechanich-not thinking mode) poker is the reason for that

lol lachlan i love ur graphic :D

On September 05 2008 01:18 [vital]Myth wrote: Show nested quote + On September 04 2008 15:57 Baal wrote:   On September 04 2008 11:39 Joe wrote:   On September 04 2008 10:12 CCMoz wrote: just curious - what is a 'standard' / 'longest' downswing you can expect to face in your career... It depends a lot on how big your edge is. If you are an 8ptbb/100 winner, then you will probably have very few (if any) downswings over more than 10k hands. However, if your edge is only like 0.5ptbb/100, then you are probably gonna experience downswings lasting more than 100k hands from time to time. this is overlooked by many, variance comes in direct proportion to your edge, if u are getting massive swings ur edge is very small so focus on improving. this is COMPLETELY untrue and is absolute NON-SENSE you will have bigger swings if you play bigger pots. you will have smaller swings if you play smaller pots. if you're a really passive tight nit then you'll have smaller swings. if you're a monster player who is constantly hammering POT POT SHOVE every hand then you'll have smaller swings. you can have a huge edge with huge variance, but since you have such a huge edge you'll rarely "feel" the swings because even though you lost 10k at 5/10 today you won 50k at 5/10 last week. if you are a bad player you will have losing streaks more often, and that's because you're not good. long-term breakeven or losing stretches are NOT "massive swings" massive swings are like +20bi in 1k hands

Well the "explosive" downswings are rarely talked about, the ones are the long stretches and massive long swings, thats where people started to think 100k break even or loosing stretches were "normal" and ITS NOT. if u have a 100k break even stretch ur edge is very small, and ive had one and i didnt know this and knowing it would have helped me.

and no sir, i am correct i said variance is in inverse proportion to your edge, and that is a 100% true statement.

here are a couple of graphs that might help ilustrate to some of you how its this co-relation, in an old post i think made by lyric:

Graphs are of slightly favourite flips, for example a 55 to 45 flip would be a 5% edge in ur favor...


These are different players with a 0.5% edge




These are players with a 1% edge (51% over 49%)



2% edge


3% edge





and a 0.25% edge for the lulz


as u can see with as little as a 3% edge variance seems non-existant

+ Show Spoiler +

beat that haha

and baal why you used 30k sample, make it half mln or sth

i didnt make the graphs, it was lyric and look at the 3% edge graph, do you believe ur going to see any kind of fluctation there? clearly u wont

well im a little bit confused, because variancedemo.xls shows that you can easily have 30k BE while being 5ptbb winner with 40PTBB/100 st.dev. over 100k sample.
so 5ptbb needs to be a <1%-2% edge? seems brutal to me

i just looked up that variance demo file and its pretty neat

anyone else who wants to check it out, right click, save as, and open this file with excel (its an excel doc disguised as a picture so i could upload it here)

http://www.liquidpoker.net/user_pictures/280d56783899adffb14944d42cf59476.png

Myth is right in the sense that variance in the mathematical sense has nothing to do with your edge, more to your play style. It's the square of the Standard Deviation (SD) you see in PT/HEM.

Variance in the poker sense is usually meant as "swinginess". The swinginess you feel is directly proportional to (variance / winrate). So if you keep your variance constant and increase your winrate, you'll feel less swings. If, for the same variance, your edge is very small then your swings will be bigger.

semantics, the thing we are talking in this thread is what those graphs are for.

On September 05 2008 03:50 Catul wrote: Myth is right in the sense that variance in the mathematical sense has nothing to do with your edge, more to your play style. It's the square of the Standard Deviation (SD) you see in PT/HEM. Variance in the poker sense is usually meant as "swinginess". The swinginess you feel is directly proportional to (variance / winrate). So if you keep your variance constant and increase your winrate, you'll feel less swings. If, for the same variance, your edge is very small then your swings will be bigger.

Well obviously if you play with a lot of variance but your winrate stays huge over a big sample your edge is huge. If you play the same way but your edge is lower thus your winrate is lower you'll experience more massive downswings.

I just like to think of it this way: if you are a 5 ptbb winner when you're going through tough times you might still be winning at 0.5 ptbb at those limits. If you are a 2,5 ptbb winner though you go down to -2ptbb loser for the period in which you are running 'bad' and maybe when you are running mediocre you're only running at 1 ptbb hence you're not winning much at all.

Obviously that analogy is not entirely correct but it is a way of looking at it that might be simple.

this is such a neat thread.

I have come to conclusion that 90% of the time the term "variance" is used it really just means "losing" ^.^

Edit : which doesn't mean losing isnt caused by variance , theyre just two seperate terms that are used like synonyms because of denial or something....i dont remember a "variance" post with anyone ever running hot

Minsk