How should you react to variance?

[Burnley Joe]

My opinion is that often, you shouldn't. Let's say you do well in 3 out of 10 tournaments. Some games you play are perfect, some you know you made the wrong move at the wrong time in that specific game. Then in the next 10, you don’t cash at all even though you felt like you played well. So what do you do? Well you react, of course, but how you react could be the problem. Something must be done, or should it? The ups and downs of bad luck, or good luck, dont always tell you the underlying quality of how you actually played your own game. But very few players are confident enough to stand by their judgements about the underlying quality of their play and so remain glued instead to short-term indicators - indicators purely by chance. Some players ignore the fact that there are ordinary ups and downs and instead look for some deep meaning in short-term change. If anything goes wrong I think they look for a special cause and tackle the problem by changing their play too much. I also think that the consequence then is that the total variation becomes greater than it would if they just played their own game and allowed their game to run uncontrolled. In other words, you make the variability of your game worse by trying to fix it. But is it really that difficult? Things go up and down. How hard can the facts be? I am not going to say all ups and downs are random. But I do think that reading too much into the information can be as damaging as ignoring it. Adjusting your game too much might can just lead to worse problems. Of course, ups and downs can have real and important causes. But even these don't necessarily tell you about the underlying quality of your game. The risk of playing down change is that you might miss the next big win. But since there's an equal risk of over-reaction, does anyone know of a solution? I would like to know it please. Anyway thats my thoughts on recent downswings and upswings, and i aint tweakin my game. BJ

[PGremlin]

Re: How should you react to variance? You know as well as me that MTT's can be very sick in variance. Losing a dozen MTT games in a row is nothing special, expecially in the huge field MTT's. But to know if it's just variance or you got outplayed can be a difficult judgement call. 1) If you are confident that you played strong then don't worry to much. 2) If you are still a bit worried then get someone who you trust and is qualified enough to judge your game to review a few complete games where you think you played good and still lost. Getting another persons point of view can really help improve your game. 3) Use a tracker and review your own games and see if you really didn't make mistakes / left opportunities unused.

[Dodger]

Re: How should you react to variance? I think this line just about sums it up:

Some games you play are perfect, some you know you made the wrong move at the wrong time in that specific game.

Variance can be seen as the way probabilities balance out the wins and losses. But if you indeed play the perfect game then you will still end up profitable. The problem comes when you are not playing your perfect game and you are making probably silly mistakes. Silly errors need to be eradicated from your game, otherwise you'll excuse the losses as variance when a lot will be down to pure bad play. Once your strategy is honed, and your play is how you need it to be, then the wins and losses due to variance will balance out and your profits will be down to your overall good play. Allow your play to remain full of holes and you'll end up on the path to skintville!!! So...how do I react to variance?...I don't and you shouldn't. But when I spot my errors...I fix them, or at least try to, as any player who wants to be profitable needs to do.

[bignedkelly]

Re: How should you react to variance?

So...how do I react to variance?...I don't and you shouldn't. But when I spot my errors...I fix them, or at least try to, as any player who wants to be profitable needs to do.

agree with this variance is just a part of the game - the best hand doesnt always win and so on. the important thing in my opinion is to be totally honest with yourself when looking back at how a game went. Sounds daft that you would be anything other than honest with yourself but it can be very easy to only see things from your side when looking how a hand that you have lost has been played and when you look a bit closer you find that the guys runner runner beat turned out to be a fairly standard play. Another point is that games with slightly different structures can play either to your strengths OR against them - if you play a rebuy game with 1000 starting stack and a deepstack freezeout with a 20000 starting stack with the same strategy then its like playing holdem and omaha with the same strategy. I think its important to look back at each individual game you play and decide where you went wrong and just as importantly where you went right. as for variance - shit happens