Poker Variance And How To Survive It
Variance Is The Gap Between What Your Decisions Earn On Average And What Actually Happens, And It Is Large: At The Example Win Rate Below, A Winning Player Still Finishes 10,000 Hands Behind About 31% Of The Time.
Mental Game Lesson From Smarter.Poker, Updated
How Big The Swings Are
Suppose A Player Truly Wins 5 Big Blinds Per 100 Hands With A Standard Deviation Of 100 Big Blinds Per 100 Hands. Those Are Illustrative Figures For The Example, Not A Measurement Of Anyone. Over 10,000 Hands That Player Expects To Win 500 Big Blinds, But The Standard Deviation Of The Result Is 1000 Big Blinds. Ninety Five Times In A Hundred The Result Lands Somewhere Between -1460 And 2460 Big Blinds, And About 31% Of The Time It Is A Loss.
Over 100,000 Hands The Expected Result Is 5000 Big Blinds And The Chance Of Finishing Behind Falls To About 5.7%. Time Is The Only Thing That Separates Skill From Luck, And It Takes Much More Of It Than Most Players Expect.
| Hands | Expected Result | 95% Range | Chance Of Being Behind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1000 | 50 BB | -570 To 670 BB | 43.7% |
| 10000 | 500 BB | -1460 To 2460 BB | 30.9% |
| 50000 | 2500 BB | -1883 To 6883 BB | 13.2% |
| 100000 | 5000 BB | -1198 To 11198 BB | 5.7% |
What This Means For You
A Losing Month Does Not Prove You Are A Losing Player, And A Winning Month Does Not Prove You Are A Winning One. Samples Of A Few Thousand Hands Say Very Little About Your True Win Rate. Judge Your Game By The Quality Of Your Decisions, Reviewed Honestly, And By Very Large Samples When You Have Them.
Downswings Are A Normal Part Of A Winning Player's Results, Not A Sign That Something Has Broken. The Numbers Above Describe A Player Who Is Winning The Whole Time, And They Still Include Long Stretches Of Losing.
Surviving A Downswing
Keep Enough Bankroll That A Normal Downswing Does Not Force You To Change Stakes In A Panic. Review A Sample Of Your Biggest Losing Hands With A Study Partner Or A Training Tool, Looking For Real Mistakes Rather Than Bad Luck. If You Find Leaks, Fix Them. If You Do Not, Keep Playing Your Game.
Protect Your Mental State. Shorter Sessions, More Breaks And A Drop In Stakes Can All Help During A Long Downswing, Not Because The Cards Will Change But Because Your Decisions Will Stay Better. Variance Cannot Be Avoided, But Tilt Caused By Variance Can.
Keep Learning
- Risk Of Ruin: How Much Bankroll Is Enough
- How To Control Tilt At The Poker Table
- Results Oriented Thinking In Poker
- Expected Value (EV) In Poker
Poker Terms In This Lesson
Practise It On Smarter.Poker
The Answer Above Is Complete. When You Want To Drill It, These Are The Matching Training Tools.
- Play Variance Zen The Training Game For This Lesson.
- Open Jarvis Training Insights Jarvis Explains Your Training Decisions In Words.
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