reducing variance: the sklansky bux swap

[stinkypete]

these EV calculator programs are popping up all over the place, and even though nobody has managed to publicly implement a good one yet (it's a ridiculously easy task), the concept is extremely awesome.

people tend to say crap like "THATS NICE THAT YOU RAN BAD BUT HOW DOES THAT HELP YOUR GAME???" but that's actually the wrong question to be asking.

the correct question of course, is "how can you use these programs to increase your reward/risk ratio as a poker player?" and the answer is the online poker equivalent of running it multiple times, the sklansky bux swap:

1) get a group of players together and agree to swap sklansky bux
2) figure out how your group has run on all ins as a whole
3) figure out how you've been running individually compared to the group, and either pay the others or get paid so you're at the group average

the net result is that you reduce your variance significantly without changing your EV. it's a win-win situation for all involved, unless you're sick and you like variance.

the only catch is that you have to do it with people you trust to pay up and to report their hand histories/results accurately.

especially for high stakes players who play heads up or super short in highly aggressive games, it would reduce variance by a ton.

to understand how powerful this is, consider a player who gets all in coinflipping once every 100 hands. that's a standard deviation of (almost) one buyin per 100 hands that could be hedged away for the most part.

so the question is, why aren't people doing this?

[greg nice]

because i think youre too loose as a shortstcker and my EV is greater

[stinkypete]

[ QUOTE ]
because i think youre too loose as a shortstcker and my EV is greater

[/ QUOTE ]

a) i win more than you
b) winrate doesn't matter. you could have a 5BB/100 winner and a 5BB/100 loser do this, and their EVs would not change. they would just reach their respective winrates in a smaller number of hands.

[greg nice]

c.) im better than you at limited

[Cornell Fiji]

Pete,
I think that your concept would greatly benefit people who go all in before the river rather than those who try to hit their hand and then get paid off. Waiting until you hit your hand could be very beneficial in games where the opponent is loose-passive.

Consider the following example hand (this was done quickly, if the math is slightly off or if you debate the way that the 'hero' plays this hand then my bad, lets not that take away from the theory behind this argument)

Imagine a heads up 25/50 game where effective stacks are $7,500

Suppose that the villain is somewhat fishy does not like to ever fold TPNK+

SB raises to 150 and Hero makes it 450 with 6[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]7[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img], villain calls.

Flop ($900) comes 5[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 6[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] A[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]
Hero bets 750, Villain calls

Turn ($2400) is the money card, the 4[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] earning you a ton of Sklansky bux. If someone was doing a variance swap it would benefit him to check-shove or bet-call the turn even if he thinks that the villain will call with all Ax. This is because your calculator would only kick into place in all in pots.

If someone was not doing a variance swap it would make sense to check call the turn (especially against a loose-passive player who might check behind with AJs here when he would be willing to get it all in if you bet out) and get the money in if he hits the river.

In the above example, doing a variance swap would make it so that -EV plays (or plays that are less +EV) are encouraged
if they allow the hero to get his money in and take advantage of the Sklansky bux equalizer.

In order to compensate for this you would have to create a really sophisticated Sklansky bux calculator that takes into account the times that you brick on the river and there is still money behind that you would have won had you hit. In my opinion, the absence of such a calculator would make it more profitable for players in the group swapping sklansky bux to become all-in monkeys even when they would normally take a more conservative and more profitable approach to their play.

-Steve

[bottomset]

cornell,

stinkypete never has money left to bet on the turn

[stinkypete]

[ QUOTE ]

Turn ($2400) is the money card, the 4[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] earning you a ton of Sklansky bux. If someone was doing a variance swap it would benefit him to check-shove or bet-call the turn even if he thinks that the villain will call with all Ax. This is because your calculator would only kick into place
in all in pots.

If someone was not doing a variance swap it would make sense to check call the turn (especially against a loose-passive player who might check behind with AJs here when he would be willing to get it all in if you bet out) and get the money in if he hits the river.

In the above example, doing a variance swap would make it so that -EV plays (or plays that are less +EV) are encouraged
if they allow the hero to get his money in and take advantage of the Sklansky bux equalizer.

[/ QUOTE ]

it does not magically turn -EV plays into +EV plays. try to come up with an example, using numbers.

what it allows you to do is to play the hand to maximize EV, without worrying about variance.

if you deliberately reduce your EV, you're only costing yourself EV, not the people you're hedging with. your EV doesn't affect them. only your variance does.

[stinkypete]

[ QUOTE ]
In my opinion, the absence of such a calculator would make it more profitable for players in the group swapping sklansky bux to become all-in monkeys even when they would normally take a more conservative and more profitable approach to their play.

[/ QUOTE ]

to say it another way, reducing variance by playing conservatively isn't profitable. it costs you money. if the conservative way is the more profitable way, you can't magically make another line more profitable through neutral EV hedging.

the swap is a neutral EV hedge. in other words, a neutral EV gamble with perfect inverse correlation to your results.

[TheWorstPlayer]

[ QUOTE ]
the only catch is that you have to do it with people you trust to pay up and to report their hand histories/results accurately.


[/ QUOTE ]
Wow, that's the only catch? In that case, I also can't understand why people aren't jumping all over this!

[jj12]

stinky, the way to implement this is pretty simple. Simply have the poker software have a setting whether you want the money to be awarded according to all-in equity. Whenever all the players in an all in situation have turned on the setting, they split according to equity. I am sure a lot of higher stakes regulars would welcome such a feature (especially those playing heads up). On the other hand it would ruin the high stakes games for the donks that rail them.