Varience

[villaridge]

What does that mean to you? Luck? Sorry, but nope!

In probability theory and statistics, the variance of a random variable or distribution is the expectation, or mean, of the deviation squared of that variable from its expected value or mean. Thus the variance is a measure of the amount of variation within the values of that variable, taking account of all possible values and their probabilities or weightings.

Well, lol, thats a hard WIKI definition to wade through. Lets break it down..

probability theory. lol, this first came up in the 16th century by a gambler and mathmetician, named Gerolamo Cardano. But basically it is simple. probability is to draw conclusions about the likelihood of potential events.

well,,...how does one draw conclusions? By statistics. And that is keeping data over a long period of time, and organizing it , lol, untill we get to poker and we all know AA beats any random hand 80% of the time if playing 1 to 1. lol an if you got AA and 4 callers the odds drop down down to 53%.

So many of u folks, stop at the probability of a hand, and do not get your statistics on that hand. You get caught in the world of "Man I got bad beat" or "poker is rigged" or "I had QQ and this idiot played 72 and won" or "that river always kills me".

Varience is the way to explain and understand poker. Your AA might get cracked 100 times in a row. but if you play 10,000 hands, that AA will win about 80% of the time. But it ain't gonna win 80% everytime.

There is no "short term" in poker. You must base your play on using optimal cards in optimal circumstances. In other words, u must play where the edge is yours. And then over time you will be a winner.

So what is over time? That means lotsa hands, lotsa tournaments. like 50,000 hands or 500 tournaments

Then you look at how u are doing after that many hands. Varience is the wavy line. AA winning comes and goes. Getting cards and playing hot comes and goes, So does playing cold.. The other line represents your winnings over that time. But until u get those 100,000 hands, Youre not winning shit for a week or month, ..... well means SHIT


Now thats a really simplistic graph. But it illustrates the point that Varience will swing low and it will swing high. Varience is NOT luck.

Varience is not 1 game, or 20, or 50. varience is what happens over time. Be prepared for never winning a hand or game with best cards, be prepared for not winning a hand or game with best cards for even month stretches.

However, do be prepared to always play your best, with the best cards in all games and hands, and over time that win rate will beat varience.

Now there are some other important considerations I should mention. Tilt and BRM. A lot of players will just play through the bad varience, fine if u have the BRM to do that. But if u dont have the BRM, a lot of peeps will start playing much tighter, and not make plays with JQ on the Button, cause they are scared of losing their BR. That will affect the varience over time. those loops are gonna get bigger, lol. Tilt, well, if you tilt, god bless ya, we other players that see that think , mmmm, mmmm. If u lose with AA, then you lose the other half of your stack with KK, and you got 1,000 chips left and start going all in every hand, you are Tilting and you know what? you dont know jack about Varience.

Varience is probablility with statistics. But it for sure the Hell not is LUCK

[Limey777]

On a variance related matter, I just filled out a questionnaire for Pokerstars. It was stated that some players had requested doing away with the 20-50BB tables and replacing them with a 20BB cap. Now, with variance as a constant and the probability that on the micro FR Omaha tables a $2 buy in will induce a 9 way coin flip I would say that it is a fair statement that over time (100k) hands you should break even, minus rake.
So can somebody please explain why ANYBODY would want such a game?

There’s nothing you can do about variance except be aware that it exists, I consider the hands that don’t make it to the river to be the profitable hands (not that I would ever lie or steal).

I want to use two hands that I posted the other day, $10 buy-in. Long story short I flop set under set, turn gives me quads and the river gives my opponent quads over quads, 1 outer. I agree that this is variance, it is also a bad beat and my bad luck for being in the wrong seat at the wrong time. It’s going to happen from time to time and is unavoidable. You can throw the action cards theory in here if you like, the variance is still the same. I’ve had my fair share of 1 outers.

Let’s say hypothetically that I’d not been using smart BR management and that I’d invested $100 instead of $10 in that hand. I would be steaming, spewing hot molten tilt all over anybody who’d listen. After sharing my tale of woe I’d be looking for a little support/sympathy.
I’m trying not to step on any toes here Villa but if I’m spewing tilt the last thing I want to hear is "oh, that’s just variance". That would be the same as saying sh!t happens.

The second hand was just a couple of dumdums (myself included) that refused to lay down their junk cards. I’ve got Aces and the other guy has KK. He has a 4 outer (it’s Omaha) and over-bets his hand on the turn. Variance dictates that I’m going to lose in this position about 8% ( I hope I’m right) of the time. My opponent bet 33% of the pot. I consider myself unlucky to not be profitable as he hit the river.




Now, as far as us folks that want to scream "it’s rigged, it’s all rigged" every time we get the bad beat. I enjoy the rigged threads, and the reason I do is because.

1. They are the most humorous and nobody enjoys a good laugh more than me.
2. They inspire decent, informative, sensible posts and threads on topics such as this one.

However I think it’s also a fair statement to say that some rigged threads are just mind numbing twaddle that should be deleted asap. We can dictate which one’s to keep and which to let go by voting on the thread rating but it appears that this function is not being utilized to it’s fullest extent.

[hojediade]

Hey,

So much things are true in this thread that i don't have much to add. Let's say that i already vote for Villa as the best thread starter so that i don't need to change anything.
On the other hand i feel like we should switch the name of the "Bad beats" forum to "Variance for dummies".

voting on the thread rating but it appears that this function is not being utilized to it’s fullest extent.

I agree with this but we already use the report button whenever we have to. Maybe we could imagine another use to it, to automatically select best thread of the month??

Thank's both for your knowledgable posts.