[Eric Stoner]

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Here's the question: variance obviously plays a big part in texas hold'em, with players getting "hot" or "cold" for periods of time, but I haven't seen much talk about the maximum number of hands that anyone can honestly attribute to variance.

For example, if someone gets "hot" for 100 hands, that's clearly variance and cannot be attributed to that poker player's skill - clearly anyone can get a good run of cards over only 100 hands. Similarly, if a player's profit graph is straight down for 100,000 hands, that is clearly more than just "bad luck" or variance - if someone is going straight down for that many hands, it's because they are not playing the proper strategy or don't know how to play.

So the question is, at what point (in terms of number of hands) can we say that a player's skill truly starts to show and that the slope of the graph is not due to variance? Similarly, how many hands would constitute the maximum reasonable run of "abnormal" good (or bad) luck that a player can expect to see from time to time due to variance?

I'm interested to hear any stories...

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Because we don't know.

Not to be flip about it, but the reason why variance is not written about (with regards to your specific question) is that we can't go back in time to analyze over a x number of hand sample what is "variance" or "bad luck" (or good luck) or what is bad play or what player is going to lose.

Similarly, we can't surmise that well since I have had a 10,000 swing downward of 300BB, I figure I am "due" for an upswing just as we can't surmise that I have not had pocket Aces in 219 hands so therefore that next hand will be aces.

That introspection is left for each individual player.

With that said, I've had two instances of 10,000 hands where I have swung downward of 150BB. However, over 50,000 hands I have been a 1BB/100 winner - not great but not bad. There may have been instances within both of those downswings where I've played poorly and where luck did not go my way.

In either case, it still was not fun.

There have been players who have endured a 500 + downswing - solid, professional players with lots of experience as well as others who have had multiple drops of 300BB. From reading their posts in the other forums, they were/are solid players, but only they can tell you if the downswing was purely variance purely bad play, or a combination of both.

And even then, it's still not that cut and dry.

It is understood though that if a player has a 3BB+/100 hand sample over a short period of time (up or down) that luck possibly played a factor in those results.

It's far better to focus on the hand-by-hand decisions at the table(s) without worrying about the fluctuations of variance. It's a very deadly and delusional trap.