another view on variance

[mythrilfox]

this is just something i thought of. the way we make most of our money is from the fish/weaker players. how do they have money?

one reason there are fish with money around is that they get lucky against the better players. when i play a better play it is very difficult to pry money out of his hands unless i get lucky, and then i'm still going to lose in the long run so it's stupid to try. but when 1 fish out of 5 gets lucky against him and gets a big score, now i can get money from the fish instead of the good player.

if there weren't variance like this, the pool of online poker money would go to the best players much, much quicker than it does. variance like this is part of a larger mechanism at work - one that appropriates some money from the top players to the poor players and, in turn, to the less-than-top players. it might suck short-term for you to be on the short end of the stick, but you're just part of a greater system that is responsible, in part, for your success.

of course if you're the top player in the world this will just make you depressed. but for the rest of us i think that should be some consolation =)

[Innocentius]

Quite right. And even more: without variance there would be no poker for money. If the bad players never won, they would never play. Total donkeys are prepared to pay $10.000 to play in tournaments with top players. Why? Because they still have a reasonable chance to win. In a game with much less variance, such as chess, this would be impossible. Which amateur would pay $10.000 to play in a tournament where the elite players are almost 100 per cent certain to lay claim to all the money positions?

And apart from variance making it possible for the worse player to win, it also makes it much easier to think that you're better than you are.

[jk3a]

good point - it's still annoying [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[reddred]

great points. I'll try to remember that the next time I want to put my fist thru my monitor.

[omaha]

Good point.

At pub poker the other night, i was on a table, in position against two of the worst donkeys ever seen 25 buck entry.

They were hitting, and busting everyone, with their soooted hands and all sorts of crud.

Then, i get it all in pf with kk vs a2 and 45s. Then, they have even more money after i am busted!

Truth is, i think only poor, immature poker players unable to deal with adapting to different playing styles complain about donkey calls.

With donkey calls, the money we LOSE, but 'should' win is really, really obvious. ie we lose the whole pot

However, when donkeys call, the money we win, but 'shouldnt' (due to their cruddy calls) is not really visible. We had the best hand, and we win a pot that is a bit bigger than it should be

After you play against a tougher crowd, it sucks to get no action.

I moved up on mtts on stars, and, i swear, i had five sets. The first four i made a half pot bet, and all folded. On the fifth, a moron called and went runner runner st8 to beat top set!

Truth is, i would much much much rather be playing against the player who BEAT me, and sucked out on me, than the first contingent who dropped on the flop when they 'should have'

[Frond]

I too would rather play with worse players who get lucky than solid players who are tougher to play against, and the pots with tougher players tend to be on the smaller side.

Example: Wev'e all been sucked out on the river before right? Happens all the time. It happened to me live about a month ago when some guy called my all-in bet on the turn when I was holding Aces up, he paused right before he called and said the typical "I gotta call you dude, I'm open ended". He had no where near the odds(didn't know what they were either) to call but he did, made his str8 and that was that. I said nice hand to him and he replied, sorry but I had to call. At first I thought "what an idiot", but then quickly realized that even though I lost my stack, this was exactly the kind of a call that I wanted from a player like this: Getting all my $ in when I had the best of it. Bad short term results but isn't this where we make our most money in the long run, from other players bad decisions and our correct decisions?

[omgwtfnoway]

op's point that variance appropriates some of the money to the less skilled but still talented players emphasizes the importance of game selection.
variance gives some money from good players to bad players, you take that money readily. that money would go back to the best players if you played them frequently. but if you only play in soft games the best players never get that chance.