Poker Variance Lesson - Poker Fundamentals Course - Texas Holdem Poker Strategy 2015

[@adansampieri6249]

Six months of good variance and 6 months of bad. Figure out when to play and when to lay low or stay away but always study and keep improving.

[@emill40]

So the take away based on the coin flip example is, if you focus on the long term your present positive or negative variance can be more easily ignored, focusing on longer time scales allows you to realise that upswings and downswings are inevitable IN THE SHORT TERM ONLY

[@adronias]

Thanks for this level headed video. I really needed it to cool my jets and blow off those runner runner scunners. One of my biggest weaknesses is to not rifle through hand history. Noting down patterns in play etc. The thing that sucks with that is seeing all those times you folded with good holdings. You never get to see their cards and have that positive behaviour reinforced, but you see all those bad calls that cost you money.

[@markholmes9811]

Great lesson! been looking for poker videos like pokerzion videos this past weeks and I've watched many of your videos and it's very helpful.

[@MicroGrinderPokerSchool]

+Mark Holmes Thanks, I appreciate it!

[@jonmaddocks7391]

Good video, Thank you. I've just finished a session of short deck (6plus) Hold em, in which i got one outed all in on turn, for 3 buy ins, (approx 97% equity) and then lost the next 5 all ins consecutively, with 76% equity on the first, then 2 flips with 46% equity in both, then 87% and 72% all for approx 2 buy ins. Is this considered normal, and to be expected? I'm trying to figure out how rare an occurrence a sequence like this actually is. I realise 6 consecutive losses is a small sample, but if I were to place an accumulator on a 33/1 shot, 2 even moneys, a 7/1 and a 3/1 shot, id be looking at about a 7,000/1 shot. With what kind of frequency should I expect to go on downswings like this? Should I consider it fairly standard, something that happens to everyone, now and then, or is it just a horrific anomaly, that is unlikely to repeat itself for a very long time? Is it normal to have worse runs for longer, or is this about as bad as it usually gets? Does anyone know how to calculate say the likelyhood of a run like this happening per 1,000 hands, or is there some other unit of measurement used to describe how normal or abnormal it is? Thanks for any insight you can provide.

[@McGavel1]

Awesome stuff. Thanks for the info.

[@MicroGrinderPokerSchool]

+McGavel1 You're very welcome! Glad you found it informative.

[@McGavel1]

I did and I'll watch a lot more. Thanks again and keep up the good work.

[@MicroGrinderPokerSchool]

McGavel1 Thanks as always!

[@effortlessawareness8778]

Insightful video man. Its good to reflect on variance especially if your on a downswing. The last 2 months I have been on a severe downswing and I fall into the trap that the site is rigged and by rigged i always suspect that the site has programmed conditional factors onto accounts in terms of max profit that can be earned per deposit and also a time sequence per last deposit and also that new players may be favored. I will be honest in saying that 40% of my losses have been a cause of bad run and 60% on tilted plays. The way I have been running has been strange: If i win a big pot I will be dealt a premium hand that will (dare i say be) setup to lose sometimes on the samet able or a diifferent table when multitabling. It happens very shortly after I have won a big pot. Another thing i have noticed in new players at the table is they run very karmatically so say if a fish gets his money in bad, nl100 loses 80$ he will be dealt good hands that will win and drive his stack back up to where he started while some other (me) poor bastard who is dealt AA or KK will lose to his KQ or Q10 and these situations happen incredibly often however i am given no Karmatic rebate when i lose my big hands (sounds crazy but I have enough hands to show this happening). iv taken breaks from playing, sometimes a day off, a few days off, a week or 2 off, and still come back to experiencing negative variance where i am card dead, or get dealt a good holding only to miss the flop, or when im dealt a good holding and hit the flop i get no action or if im dealt AA KK QQ JJ etc i get no action when i raise preflop. and ilike i said if i do on occasioan win a big pot then im shortly afterwards, dealt AA KK or AK or QQ or JJ only to lose a big pot on boards that arent scary or ppl chasing their draws etc and i know that this type of thinking is wrong that im going to lose after i win a big pot with th3se premium hands but It HAS always happened because in all rational sense this shouldnt be the case. I have greatly improved on controlling my tilt and come into sessions with a clear mind (i do a little meditation before a session). However its been horrible. Im always asking myself how come I cant be rewarded for my play and scrutinize the way i play my hands after every session and cannot see any leaks other than the tilt from losing say with AA all in preflop against Ak, but i have gotten much bettrr at controlling this. I constantly ask myself why cant i go ona heater for once where I run super good but instead all im treading is negative variance and this is crippling me because Iv been very serious about the game as a means to of earning a living. Anyways sorry for my rant lol its just a hopeless feeling and im seeking some sort of wisdom from someone hoping they have the lightbulb answer. If this all evens out in the end like you say it does then I should be going on a massive heater soon to account for this bad run shouldnt it? my question is that if i run really bad doesnt variance on these psuedo random number generators correct itself in a very rigid way? Haha probably a stupid question but i got nothing to lose by asking your advice.

[@MicroGrinderPokerSchool]

I understand your distaste with how the cards run sometimes and I also sometimes question the validity of online poker and the "online poker is rigged" debate when questionable things happen. In the end, online poker is a programmed by companies that we have no control over how the write their programs and how legitimate they truly are...but so long as I keep winning, I'm happy. As for variance, we never know how long a downswing can last. Andrew Seidman, the author of Easy Game and DeucesCracked said he went on a year-long downswing before and it actually caused him to quit playing for a while before he returned to the game. My biggest downswing has been 20 buy-ins so far over around 25k hands running around 19 buy-ins under all-in EV. Short answer - yes, you will have variance upswings, but they might be 1, 2 or 10 buy-in upswings...and what is interesting psychologically is that we always tend to remember our bad beats and suck outs but not so much the hands we win...which compounds the issue. So stick with it, play good poker and things "theoretically" should turn around for you. BTW - I don't monitor comments on my KZbin Channel to often, so please visit MicroGrinder.com and feel free to reach out to me on our Forum. Cheers! Alton

[@adansampieri6249]

Six months of good variance and 6 months of bad. Figure out when to play and when to lay low or stay away but always study and keep improving.

[@colinglen4505]

I've just experienced 3 absolutely gruesome days of online hold em... doing well at the small ball play with wider range hole cards...but everytime I was dealt a premium hand I ended up losing huge chunks of money through suck outs / bad beats etc..I lost count of the times I was given the nut flush on the river only to discover that it gave my opponent a full house...in my last hand I paired the board and shoved but he called with k 10 spades and one spade on the flop ..of course he then hit the royal flush..it's like my worst enemy has his hand on the pack of cards...i'm in total shock. :p

[@MicroGrinderPokerSchool]

+colin glen I feel for you! I've been there too. Just keep playing good poker and you'll fight through it.

[@tiagomota4734]

with KK afte 100 hands with this hand im down 1 dollar i play the micros on pokerstars , for some reason i run into 3of a kind all day long and since i reraise with my KK and AA and QQ and they are calling with 22 or 33 or 88 10 x BB i just cant put them on these hands i reraise they call i put them on some QQ or JJ and i go allin to lose to sets....i might consider folding KK preflop for a while it happens all the time ....no im not talking about 1 day and 3 hands NO ALL THE TIME!!! im dead even i win pots with other hands and i lose with the bigones somehow, i play they agressively but its just the way it is! 1 month now in and im dead even!

[@dantejohnson8187]

Your not talking about variance your talking about tilting.

[@MicroGrinderPokerSchool]

+John Doe Did you watch the entire video? Yes I talk about how variance can relate to tilt, but the lecture is on variance. Tilt and variance go hand in hand, so you really can't talk about one without discussing the other.

[@myavatar9848]

+MicroGrinder.com Poker Not everyone tilts, yet they still have variance.