A Long Post About Variance (Example, LONG)

[ZBTHorton]

I meant for this to be my 5000th post, but some other things came up and I blew by it.

I've wanted to talk about variance, in a non-bbv style post for a long time, because I don't think most of you guys really fathom what it's all about. It seems that everyone always seems to associate a downswing with bad play, or tilt.

Anytime a player comes to SSNL or BBV with a big downswing, we immediately begin to list off any negative characteristic they have as a player. We forget any good things they do, find some hand where they made a bad play, mock them, and move on in our poker careers because it isn't happening to us. The best example I can think of is FGators, who had a HUGE downswing about a month ago, that I'm not sure he's crawled out of yet.

Now, I'm in no way stating that I think FGators is the best NL200 regular, or that I don't think he has his faults. Obviously he does. However, I don't think his game deserved a 45 buyin downswing. He's way more solid than that.

Which brings us to my current situation. As most of you know, I made the switch over to Stars when Party shut down. I was a regular at NL200 on Party, and had a pretty decent win rate over a ridiculous amount of hands over there. (4.8ptbb/100 over like 400K hands)

Before I show a couple of graphs to try and show what variance is all about, I would like to say that this isn't a strategy post. I don't need some random guys pulling a hand out from last week where I did something stupid. That's not the purpose of the thread. We've all made bad moves against each other, and we all make mistakes. I don't in anyway think that I am the best NL200 regular, or even possibly one of the best. What I do know, is that when the thread was mentioned last week with the "best 1/2 regulars" my name was at least mentioned several times, and some of the other regulars in the game have told me that they at least respect my play. Throughout the downswing I've had recently, I've probably had half of the board at one time or another look at hands, groups of hands, and thousands of hands; depending on who they are. Whether or not I was playing the hands perfectly, isn't the point of this post. What is important, is that I was not playing differently than I was previously. I wasn't tilting, I wasn't calling down way more, or pushing too much. It was all just variance.

When I moved over to Stars, I started at NL100 because I wanted to get used to the software and because the bet pot script wasn't done yet.





For the sake or argument. I'll give my important stats for that period.

VPIP: 20.10
PFR: 16.7
Total Agg: 3.91
W$@SD: 48.8%
Went to SD: 24.2

Obviously I moved up to 200 at this point. Here is my initial graph from nl200.



VPIP: 19.99
PFR: 16.8
Total Agg: 3.5
W$@SD: 49.5
Went to SD: 24.5

Here is what followed:



VPIP: 20.28
PFR: 17.0
Total Agg: 3.59
w$@SD: 45.8
WTSD: 23.88


Followed by:



VPIP: 19.8
PFR: 16.4
Total Agg: 3.70
W$@SD: 45.7
WTSD: 25.2

------------------------------------------------------------------------

I show all of this because I want to show some of you guys that this indeed can happen to just about anyone. It's not always bad play, it's not always tilt, and the OP does not ALWAYS suck at poker in comparison to you. It is very important in your development as a player for you to be able to withstand things like this.

I say this because, being honest, I haven't been able to handle it. I've been playing with no other income source for almost 2 years now, and as you can see. I play a TON of hands. I've gone through big swings, I've played MTT's, SNG's, Limit, NL, NL6M, LHE6M. I've done it all. I thought I was prepared for all of it. But I wasn't.

When your game takes a sudden turn for the worse, and you can't figure out what's wrong, and your friends can't figure out what's wrong, it is the absolute worse feeling in the world. I've been physically ill for the past week, at the end of every session I have played. I've taken time off,I've played at different times, I've moved down, I've received coachings, I've played with music, without music, with TV, without TV, hungry, full, thirsty, needing to piss, ANYTHING I could think of to cause me to play/run better...but it just hasn't happened yet.

I feel like I'm rambling, so I just want to offer a piece of advice for all of you. Don't always assume that you are good enough for this kind of thing to not happen to you. I'm a pretty cocky player, but not half as cocky as some of you guys are. :-) Play overrolled for whatever game it is that you are playing. Surround yourself with good poker friends who understand what it is like to run bad. Who won't always respond when you type them an incomprehensible IM, but will respond when you send them a hand to comment on. At some point in your poker career you will need it, and I hope you handle it better than me.

- ZBT

[bobman0330]

All of a sudden I feel infinitely better about being stuck 4 buyins tonight.

Good, but scary post.

[goofyballer]

[ QUOTE ]
Surround yourself with good poker friends who understand what it is like to run bad. Who won't always respond when you type them an incomprehensible IM, but will respond when you send them a hand to comment on.

[/ QUOTE ]

The friends that respond to the ASOIDPAIOPDSSDFKLA AIOSPDI SG IOAPFJ SDG89QX,CA IMs are by far the best kind, though.

[viper930]

Awesome post, good read.

[jetsetboy]

Great post. I hope you'll run better soon.

The only thing I would add is this :

I have never improved my game during/after an upswing. I have allways improved my game during/after a downswing. Each time I have been in a downswing I have followed the same cycle :
_ Step 1 is the initial downswing, for several days I run bad and while I simply play as usual.
_ Step 2 I win a few hands and feel that "It's coming back !"
_ Step 3 I want to win back the amount I've lost quick and I play more agressively than I should (You know when you 4bet AI with AK the stupid moron who has openlimp in Co/button then reraised you raise from SB/BB and who is a 15/3/2 over 2k+ hands because he "can't" have AA/KK). I play bad, lose more, nearly allways scare the second best hand out of the hand and get stacked each time i hold the second best hand (even if vilain is really bad at extracting because he allways slowplays)
_ Step 4 I try to correct this and play weak which is bad too.
_ Step 5 I take a break and think about my game. I usually find one or two big leaks in my game and I try to correct them. That's when I really improve my game.

Hopefully the more I play this game (I'm playing seriously since only july) the more the initial period must be long to through me in this infernal cycle.

Since I figured that each time I'm in downswing I improve my game, downswing have become a little less tough to bear. It might be because of my personality but maybe it's your case too and that makes those sad downsing a little Ev+ in the long run [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img].

[2mb]

I think you should crosspost/link this in uNL. Thanks for posting.

[bonds25]

Nice post dude. Anytime you want to discuss hands or whatever just message me.

[thedustbustr]

post your 400k graph please?

[ImsaKidd]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Surround yourself with good poker friends who understand what it is like to run bad. Who won't always respond when you type them an incomprehensible IM, but will respond when you send them a hand to comment on.

[/ QUOTE ]

The friends that respond to the ASOIDPAIOPDSSDFKLA AIOSPDI SG IOAPFJ SDG89QX,CA IMs are by far the best kind, though.

[/ QUOTE ]

I send/reply to these far too often...

[BearHustler]

[ QUOTE ]
post your 400k graph please?

[/ QUOTE ]