Variance is a word that’s overused in poker. People use it as an excuse for their losing streaks.

A bad player might get all his money in as a 40% underdog and get lucky a couple of times. His strong opponent knows that he got his money in as a favourite, but with a sample size of two he can’t complain. The important thing is to keep getting your money in as the favourite, regardless of how ‘good’ or ‘bad’ you are running.

The difference a lot of players have is their approach to variance. A lot of players play very well for long periods, lose a hand where they are a big favourite and begin to lose track of the decision process that gave them the positive expectation in the first place.

For example, someone playing a lot of high-stakes Omaha could well get into five or six big pots during the day where he was a 60% favourite and lose them all.

After becoming disillusioned and losing heavily, he might try to break even, thinking that it’s fine to get his money in as the 40% underdog on a few occasions, as he’s obviously running bad and somehow ‘owed’ some good fortune.

Poker forgets

Wrong. Poker has no memory of how well we run, how much we lose and how badly we get sucked out on. Each result is an individual event, made up of specific probabilities getting a result dispersed around the mean. This is variance, and allows bad players to keep playing badly and strong players to keep pressing home strong statistical advantages.

You can’t expect to win every day, every week or every month. Poker money does not move in such a simple way – results deviate from the norm, and luck can prevail. Bad luck can destroy not only players that play too high for their bankroll, but an average player’s game mentally. Losing is part of winning in poker. Good players know how their edge makes them money.

What’s your style?

Your style of poker has a dramatic effect on your variance. If you’re a good, tight-aggressive player, you’ll enjoya relatively stable income. Loose-aggressive players have to put up with much bigger swings, a fact of life if you’re playing good, loose-aggressive poker. But often, loose-aggressive players have a better win rate in the long term. There is something of a trade-off between variance and win rate. Playing ABC solid poker can grind you out a respectable, reliable income at a lot of levels online – very useful if you are operating on a shortish bankroll of say, 15 buy-ins.

Very good loose-aggressive opponents can enjoy far greater win rates, but they have to stomach the occasional heavy downswing that accompanies this style of play. If you are adequately bankrolled this makes little difference to your overall earning capacity of course, but it is something you should always bear in mind.

High stakes or low stakes?

The stakes you play has a huge effect on your variance.

Compare player A, playing $10/$20 Hold’em with 20 buy-ins, with player B, playing $1/$2 Hold’em with 100 buy-ins. The difference in variance can be quite brutal. Player A is playing high-stakes poker in a game where even the best players only have a small edge on their opponents. He is likely playing on one or two tables to maintain focus on betting patterns, timing tells and complex levels of thinking.

If he drops five buy-ins in a week he has just lost 25% of his roll. This affects him financially (he probably will know he’s playing too short for that game now) but could also affect him mentally. He could start to play scared poker, lack heart and conviction when the pots get big or pick up some other disadvantage.

Player B has the luxury of playing in a game where he knows he has a big edge over the long-term, can afford to play numerous tables at a time to further reduce his variance and knows that dropping five buy-ins won’t hurt him in the least. By being over-rolled, he can relax and play the game. This can be a bad thing for some players too though. I know many players who can’t play their A-game when the money at stake doesn’t hurt.

The fact remains however, that if both players have the same expectation, let’s say a 15% edge on their foes, player B is going to have a much better ride with regard to variance. The losing streaks won’t hurt as much and the increase in hand volume will help to force achieved results to conform more closely to expected results.

Hopefully you now have a slightly better understanding of what variance actually is. By being adequately bankrolled for your game, you should be able to make variance work with you rather than constantly battling it. Playing high-stakes Omaha on a short roll is not embracing variance – it’s pitting you against it. Remember, playing good poker is about knowing the game inside and out and never letting ego get in the way. Variance is a key part of the game, so get to grips with it and your game is sure to improve.