VARIANCE

[N88DH8LP]

I'm trying to wrap my head around this variance thing. I've been playing poker for about 13 years now. I play about 30 hrs a week and see aboout 25 hand per hour (slow dealers), 750 hands per week, 37,500 hands per year, 487,500 hands in my lifetime.

It seems that some internet players will hit this number in less than a year. From what I've seen many of the posters will have losing months after about 40,000 hands. This is more hands than I normally play in a year, and I must say that I have never had a losing year. I have never had a losing month for that matter.

The point isn't to pat myself on the back it is to ask the winning players why the huge variance. Is this what I can expect from switching my game from the B&M casinos to online? [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

[jzpiano]

Live players suck compared to the internet which could be a factor in that

[AncientPC]

Your edge in online games will be smaller, and when you have a smaller advantage over your opponents the variance will be greater.

For instance, I could play micro NL and never have a losing day. However if I played high stakes NL my edge is much smaller and my swings will be much bigger.

[TStoneMBD]

your edge online is smaller than your live edge if you compare specific limits. a higher winrate means less downswings and breakeven stretches.

also, online players are much more aggressive than live players. aggressive games have substantially more variance than passive games and therefore the swings and stretches are luck are more severe.

i find it surprising that youve never had a losing month after 487,500 hands in youre lifetime. i imagine that youve run well over that stretch to be blessed with little fluctuations. you may think that 487,500 hands is really enough to determine the long run, and it is to some extent, but there are many equally skilled players who will play 487k hands and some will have 30k breakeven stretches while others wont.

you also didnt specify whether you play nl for a living or not. winrates in nl are far greater than limit and again, larger winrates make it less likely youll have breakeven stretches and downswings.

if its important to you to avoid fluctuations and variance, you might find internet poker stressful. however, hourly rates are substantially larger for internet players than for just about any live players of comparable skill levels because of the ability to get many more hands in per hour. when youre making 1000BBs per month playing internet poker, 300BB downswings dont hurt so bad and you arent having trouble feeding yourself during losing months as youre stocking away so much money. alot of us online players complain about variance, including me, but we definitely got it good. 30k breakeven stretches shouldnt be that common, although they do happen. for most people, thats a months worth of playing. if you have 1 breakeven month for the year im sure youll be ok. im sure as a live player there have been months where youve barely made anything at all.

[_TKO_]

[ QUOTE ]
you also didnt specify whether you play nl for a living or not.

[/ QUOTE ]

13 years of poker suggest a limit player. Good post, though.

[N88DH8LP]

Thanks for the responses everybody. Your post was paricularly helpful Tstone. TKO is right, I have played all limit over the years. I'm very serious about the lack of variance in the live games that I have played (maybe I'm just lucky). I guess this is why I am strugling so much with online.

I would like to play 20-40 and up on the internet as these games look to be pretty juicy to me. My mental psyche has been seriously damaged by the swings that I have experienced thus far. I'm all over the place I'll go on a good run at 15-30, then I'll have a couple of losing sessions, get mad, and drop down to 2-4.

I believe the reason for this is that, in my mind I have little control over how I'm going to do on the internet, which worries me that I will blow my whole role. It is like you have read my mind, because this has been an extremely stressful experience for me (not being used to the variance). I almost feel like I am starting over from scratch.

[TStoneMBD]

one thing that i was going to mention that i forgot to is that if youre concerned about the variance you might want to consider playing lower limits where your BB/100 is higher. with a higher BB/100 your fluctuations will be less. of course this will likely sacrifice some hourly rate but if it helps keep your sanity it might be necessary. as a 13 year live pro im sure youve gotten used to the ups and downs of poker, but internet variance can be a whole new animal and you might need some time to adjust.

[Mr_Donktastic]

Alot of this might have to do with the fact that through all of your years of playing live, you've developed good tell reading skills, and at the same time have learned to hide your tells. If this is true it has certainly helped you win more in your live games.

Online you obviously can't benefit from these skills, so you're losing an edge you have over other players.

I personally think I am good at reading/hiding tells, and I know that I'm nowhere near as good online as I am live because of it.

[bobbyi]

I agree with most of what has been said in this thread. Tells can be huge. There are tons of times in a live game when you get raised and know you can fold. This isn't just from a direct physical tell that you consciously observe, but also just generally from being able to see the guy and his demeanor and knowing how he views the game. You can't completely rule out of a bluff raise or him misreading his cards, but you can easily be sure enough to fold, especially since you probably play with the same players a lot. Online, you have no information and are often forced to say "[censored] it" and calldown, even though your hand is usually no good. These situations are very thin EV and are almost pure variance. This is magnified by the fact that a lot of people here play multiple tables so they are not watching their opponents tendencies as closely as you are.

In addition, as others said, the online games are much more aggressive. This greatly increases variance and also reinforces the above phenomen of being forced to play in lots of spots where you could safely fold live.

Also, you are probably mainly playing at a full table or close to it. Online, a lot of people mainly play shorthanded which is much higher variance.

If you are keeping good records (which I assume you are doing since you are required to for tax purposes if you are in the US), you can calculate your hourly standard deviation in the games you are playing. Using that and your win rate (which of course may not be completely accurate), you can figure out statstically how well you have run. For example, you can calculate the likelihood of having a losing month.