Poker Psychology – Understanding Variance

Once you have the fundamentals of poker theory in place, you have all the information to start playing a solid, winning strategy on the smaller stakes of online poker. However, you should first understand just how large the role of luck is in short term poker results. This is absolutely vital for beginners to understand, as the role of chance in poker is constantly underestimated by inexperienced players.

Simply put, variance is the difference between your long term expected results and your short term actual results.

What is an Example of Variance?

The easiest example of variance in poker is the age old example of going all-in preflop with the best hand available, AA, against KK. In this situation we have an 82% chance of winning the hand; you can rarely hope to have better equity in a hand. But this means that one in every five times, we can expect to lose the hand. It can happen more than one in every five times as well, that is variance.

How Bad Can Variance Get?

Variance can be brutal, but it can also be brilliant. Variance doesn’t just apply to the bad side of luck; it can also cause huge upswings that make you feel like you can never be beaten. Using a simulator, you can find out just how good or bad variance can get. If you simulate 100,000 hands of poker at the Fullring cash tables, with a winrate of 7bb/100 (which is quite good), and running 20 simulations of this setup you can find that one sample has your actual results as just below breakeven, despite the fact your expected winnings are 7,000BB. On the other side of things, one sample has results of around +15,000BB.

The reason I tell you this isn’t to scare you off, it is to inform you of the nature of the game, something that many players, even experienced ones, still struggle to get their head around. It is very important to understand the nature of variance, otherwise your bad luck can start to affect your playing style which, in turn, makes you play badly and lose more. It is a vicious cycle.

To ease your mind, there are a few ways that you can lower variance, and most of these are things that are already implemented into your game. Fullring cash games are known as the lowest variance cash games you can play, and a tighter style is much lower variance than a looser playing style (because you find yourself in less marginal situations).

Summary

• Variance is the term used to describe the role of luck in a poker players short term results
• Variance can be good or bad, and is the reason behind downswings and upswings
• Playing a tight style on Hold’Em Fullring tables allows you to experience less variance than playing a loose style at an Omaha Heads-Up table
• It is essential to understand the nature of variance, otherwise you may find yourself confused as to why you’re losing when you feel like you’re playing well