Right off the bat, let’s define what poker variance is. It’s described as the measurement statistics that point out how your poker results will be distributed and scattered. Furthermore, to clarify, “bankroll swings” is just part of the story when it comes to poker variance. Winning with poker variance entails the unremitting use and reuse of gains and benefits in the long run. If you’re able to play the game with skill, foresight, and savvy that’s superior to your opponents’ to the point that it even triumph over the rake, you’ll succeed more often than not. Simply put, poker variance and probability shouldn’t that be a big of a hindrance to players in the grand scheme of things.
With that said, the misfortune that victimizes even the most excellent of poker star players is the fact that when losing streaks or bad luck hits them hard—which cannot be avoided in games of chance, even skill-oriented ones like poker—they tend to forget what made them such a force to be reckoned with in the poker table from the get go. The feelings of helplessness and discouragement from playing poker correctly yet still losing thanks to pure luck will make even the best of us players forget the poker experiences we’ve gathered, the poker math we’ve mastered, and the poker tactics we’ve accrued.
Poker Variance and Bad Luck
In other words, you can never control the laws of probability; random chance can still screw you over when you least expect it. Once poker variance appears and makes the poker results differ from expectations, it has a tendency to mess with your head, so to speak. Variance also has a tendency to continue on a session-per-session or hour-per-hour basis too. You shouldn’t expect to win hourly or daily regardless of how skilled you are at psyching out your opponent, manipulating actions, bluffing, and calculating poker math in your head. To be more specific, consider the following example. Suppose there’s a “good” player that’s dead set on playing a table full of novices in an “I can’t lose” proposition.
This supposedly decent poker competitor then complains about cheating and shenanigans whenever AA doesn’t “stand up” during a crazy and congested PokerStars it Texas Holdem game wherein eight participants usually take the flop. This happens because he neglects the factor of poker variance. Because of his mistaken and willfully ignorant beliefs in statistics and poker math, he’ll always think that AA should be winning more than half of the time in order for him to make money. Bad luck is always a factor regardless of how experienced you are at playing poker. Then again, poker math emphasizes that a hand that prevails 25% to 40% percent of the time is quite convenient against seven players. Instead of whining about the 60% to 75% of the time that he’s losing, he should embrace his winning percentages and be patient.