Standard deviation high at $10-20 and low at $6-12 live poker.

steamboatin · #1 07-13-2006, 06:21 PM

The great big talking head on Statking says my standard deviation is too high at $10-20 and too low at $6-12. There is a pretty significant difference in the games, $6-12 is tighter and less aggressive so I would expect to have a lowere SD than the $10-20 which can often be a Lagfest.

The question I have is how do I lower my Standard Deviation in the $10-20 game? Is it mostly a matter of tightening up preflop? My standard Deviation at $10-20 is $231.59 per hour over 98.5 hours so far this year.

My SD at $6-12 is $92.32 over 118.25 hours this year.

Bottom line, what adjustments do you make to your play to increase or decrease your SD or is it just a reflection of the game you play and shouldn't be monkeyed with?

SixForty · #2 07-13-2006, 06:37 PM

Hmmmm - this is interesting. I've never used Statking and don't track my standard deviation.

I can however say that for the games around here, 5/10 is tighter and 10/20 is more loose aggressive.

My numbers at 10/20 do have a higher variance than 5/10 and I would expect the standard deviation to be higher (in relative terms) than it would be at 5/10.

I know that doesn't really help any - but I'm interested in what you find out!

dchz · #3 07-13-2006, 07:47 PM

hmm i think the stand Dev is most varied with pre-flop choices in Limit, but since it such a natural part of the game, i think as long as you are playing your top Limit game you shouldn't worry about Stand Dev as much as BB/100 [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

TitanFan · #4 07-13-2006, 08:07 PM

Your SD *should* increase proportionally as limits increase but yeah, your 10/20 SD seems to have grown more than the limit. SD is a mesurement of distance from the mean (rough definition) . . . so you can either change your mean (average $$ won per hour), or . . . you can bring your earnings closer to your current mean. Since you really don't have control over how close your earnings are to average, I wouldn't worry about trying to get "closer" to your average each time you play. It may be that 10/20 is a more volatile game with a greater variance. (also you have less hours logged on 10/20 . . . as you are more familiar with your level of play I expect that your SD will converge to line up with your 6/12 stats).

Off Duty · #5 07-14-2006, 10:27 AM

If you are in a more passive game, your SD will be lower. In a more agressive game, you SD will be higher. You can do NOTHING to avoid this. The reason is in an agressive game the ratio of bets in the pot/number of players in a pot will be skewed to the bets side, where in a passive game it will be skewed to the players side. All this is helpful, but the most important question is:

Where is your BB/100 highest? If your highest winrate corrlates with the highest SD, wonderful. If your highest winrate corrlates with the lowest SD, you have a problem in agressive games and might want to reevaluate your appproach to agressive tables.

I play a lot of tournaments (because I enjoy them) and don't get the luxury of chosing seats so for me I'd use the data you have as an oppourtnity to tighten up leaks in passive or agressive games rather than concentrate on picking easier games. Certainly if one were only trying to maximize winrate they'd pick the most lucrative game.

VORP · #6 07-15-2006, 03:02 AM

Probably a stupid question but, how do you figure your hourly sd for live play? Do you record your stats hour by hour or something?

steamboatin · #7 07-15-2006, 07:51 AM

Statking from Conjelco. Some just set up an Excel spreadsheet. I enter each session in Statking, location, stakes, hours played and won/loss. It keeps a running display of your results. Everyone says not to be results oriented but they are talking about short term results. Long term results are very important.

After the great big talking head tells you he knows a fast food restaurant that could use your services a few times, you start to think about your game. Also, I am guilty of having selective memory so if I didn't have Statking, I convince myself that I was a much better player that I actually am.

It is much more difficult to be in denial when you are looking at red ink, a chart diving towards the basement and being mocked by the great big talking head. Conversely, it feels pretty good when the ink changes to black and the chart starts moving up but the great big talking head is still going to mock you.

VORP · #8 07-16-2006, 02:22 AM

Oh yea, I have an excel sheet setup to add up all my hours and bb's. I'm wondering how you can specificaly get a standard deviation from this setup. If my sessions look like: 5 hours/+300, 3 hours/-400, 7 hours/+600, etc, is there a way to get a standard deviation per hour number from enough of these?

Related to this, I've been thninking it would be fun to do some monte carlo sims with limit holdem just to get a feel for what is reasonable as far as swings go but I don't know how to figure my sd.