Variance

[depaolilover]

How much variance can one expect at 100NL - 200NL?

I really just started playing seriously, but so far I've been going through ridiculous swings. Last month I thought I was the greatest poker player in the world when i ran at 10ptbb over 20k hands at 1/2. This month I have been getting absolutely crushed and lost 20 buyins in the last 15k hands.

I know lots of others have experienced the same or worse, and this is not a feel bad for me post. I'd just like to know how variance typically hits other people who play at this level. Is my case EXTREMELY normal and I should just learn to deal with it? or am I actually experiencing a lot more variance than the normal player?

[fitnessfreak]

variance is a part of poker, and its possible to play well and still encounter sickening swings. however, in absence of any of your stats or some eg hands that you have played its hard to give much feedback.

fwiw, i have played 210k hands since i got my new computer and PT in march, mostly at 1/2 and 2/4. i have had some pretty big swings, but i think the biggest so far is a 14 BI downswing. i think a 20 BI downswing is very possible even at 1/2, but you would have to have run exceptionally bad assuming that you were playing optimally most of the time. I do have 6 to 10 BI downswings fairly often, but anything beyond that to date has been a rarity.

[Hince]

I dropped 10K in 0.5-1 to 2-4NL this year. Most of it was at 1-2NL.

I dropped from taking shots at 3-6NL to 0.25-.50NL. It would be easy to blame it on variance but it's not. It's bad play. Period.

Here is a general rule. If you have to ask if it variance, it's not.

You know when you are running bad.

[Clever Nickname]

I'm a fairly solid winner and I've had three downswings of at least ten buyins in the last few months. My worst was 14 buyins in about a three day span (luckily followed by a ~40 buyin upswing), plus several break-even stretches. Poker is pretty swingy even for winning players. That said, you really need to look over your hands after the session is over and see whether your losses are coming from bad beats or bad play. If you just keep getting stuck on the wrong end of set-over-set, can't win an all-in as the favorite to save your life, etc, then yeah, it's probably variance, but really, really, really be on the look out for genuine leaks in your game.

[ua1176]

i've found my time at the FT $1/2 to be VERY swingy, and also full of some serious breakeven stretches.

granted i'm not the biggest winner in the games....but still.

[Vegas_VIP]

I agree most of it can be attributed to bad play.

[depaolilover]

I agree that most of the time a downswing can be attributed to bad play. My stats are about 25/19 for the record.

I had a 15- buyin downswing at .25/.50 NL just about a month ago, and looking at it honestly i think i can say about 5 of those BI's were due to bad play/ tilt. This one, however, I really don't feel like i've done much wrong. I've been starting each day fresh, but I find it difficult to keep playing hands when I'm being beaten down.

Anyway, thanks for replies and Ill just try and work through this downswing.

[Mossberg]

i hate variance. I crushed 100NL, but since moving up to 200, I've been struggling. I've had to deal with the fact that being a small winner in these games means dealing with some really ugly variance. Here's a little graph of my results since the beginning of May (just to make you feel better [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]).

[depaolilover]

how do i add an image

[Mossberg]

go make an account at photobucket.com, use poker patterns or pokergrapher and right click on the graph to save image.. Upload it to your photobucket account and that's that.