WTF variance overview help plz

This is something I have struggled with for so long now, I have made decent money from poker for my abilities (which is not saying much lol). I want to hear from people who really have been playing a long time, winning consistently and playing through variance and downswings, how they cope with this all these years. Up to now downswings really affect the way I play, the length of sessions, limits I play and just life in general. I'm happy with my poker progress this year but that aspect of my poker life really really needs some work, I just hope successful players share their secrets in dealing with short or long term variance. Thanks in advance. gl.

A lot of people would benefit from any good advice, and what's even better is people who share their "secrets" won't give out pertinent game info against them lol.

it you use a stop loss it will soften the blow of losing days.

if you need a confidence boost play a session with very few tables or do a detailed review, looking at how many leaks the other players have and try hard to define where you feel your edge lies
if youre moving down to rebuild dont be arrogant and assume you can open twice as many tables at the lower stake etc

i wont pretend to have felt a real downswing but just a couple of things I think are solid advice

you just need to realise that other people got suckouts too
everyone got the same number of badbeats in their life

probably play less poker when you are runing bad.. try woriking on your game and reviewing the sessions
forgot your ego and just move down when you are running bad...
having a good discipline, no mather what..
also try having healthy life and work on it... dont just be a jerk who only have online "friends" etc..

On September 04 2008 09:28 morph1 wrote: you just need to realise that other people got suckouts too everyone got the same number of badbeats in their life probably play less poker when you are runing bad.. try woriking on your game and reviewing the sessions forgot your ego and just move down when you are running bad... having a good discipline, no mather what.. also try having healthy life and work on it... dont just be a jerk who only have online "friends" etc..

everyone who only has online friends is a jerk?

I think most people quit poker because of this bitch we call variance, even if you make good plays you can still lose consistantly for long periods of time and this is how you handle such variance that makes you fit or not for poker. If you lose for months and you have huge leaks this is a different story, i think the only way to get over a big downsing is either to play more if you think it doesn't affect you or stop playing for a while if it tilts you...

But overall i think people underestimate the variance in this game, and all they remember is this sick graph they saw on 2+2 where the guy was on god mode and think this is standard, no it's not. Std deviation in this game will show you these people actually are running hotter than the sun and the vast majority of the players experience huge downsings, now if you can handle them and keep playing good, you'll sure show profit on the long run.

It has been said here before, but variance is a positive term and not a negative. Variance is the reason bad players keep playing the game and is the base for your long term wins. Accept variance and dont make unrealistic expectations for your win rate and you will be fine.
Obviously you should be always working on your game and trying to plug leaks so dont just use variance to justify your loses.

just curious - what is a 'standard' / 'longest' downswing you can expect to face in your career...

200k hands

On September 04 2008 10:12 CCMoz wrote: just curious - what is a 'standard' / 'longest' downswing you can expect to face in your career...

a downswing bigger than you ever could have expect!

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.

im really interested - was winning over 100k hands now i think im playing the same but running at -2BB/100 over 20k... long way off panicing i guess then!

On September 04 2008 09:43 fenner wrote: Show nested quote + On September 04 2008 09:28 morph1 wrote: you just need to realise that other people got suckouts too everyone got the same number of badbeats in their life probably play less poker when you are runing bad.. try woriking on your game and reviewing the sessions forgot your ego and just move down when you are running bad... having a good discipline, no mather what.. also try having healthy life and work on it... dont just be a jerk who only have online "friends" etc.. everyone who only has online friends is a jerk?

probably yes
you have to be social in your real life.. without internet.. some ppl that are "not in that world"
btw.. when i say jerk = i mean ppl without real life.. aka let's play wow/what ever , for all fucking day and my friend aka Legolas have big damage!

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.

On September 04 2008 10:23 CCMoz wrote: im really interested - was winning over 100k hands now i think im playing the same but running at -2BB/100 over 20k... long way off panicing i guess then!

20k downswing is totally nothing

On September 04 2008 11:39 Joe wrote: Show nested quote + 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.

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 exactly the concept i was hoping to see here. this helps clear my confusion alot. maybe i do have a very small edge in my limit and game.

i agreee
i was breakeven at nl25 then i stopped beign so hyper aggresive and taking so many flips and my winrate drastically improved and variance was minimised

these are the biggest breakeven stretches i've had since nl50, measured in BB for consistency

+ Show Spoiler +

i run pretty standardly and that 32k breakeven stretch/downswing is the worst ive faced and it really wasnt too bad, just don't let it affect how you play and of course don't ever tilt or get emo. and i run at 2bb/100 over the whole thing. just gotta grind through it

yeah when u look at such a huge sample, those "downswings" seem so laughable too. too bad i dont keep losing dbs and keep lying to mysefl that im a winning player all throughout my career lol

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