So after coming back to poker recently and putting in a few 100k hands, I really have had a share of variance I always kind of didnt believe in. I'm not talking about a bad session or 2, or a few coolers or your aces being cracked. I knew this stuff is common and it never really bothered me. But now I understand what people are talking about and WHY bankroll management is so important. When people say ÿou can experience downswings that last weeks I thought that was something maybe only 1 in 1000 people would experience. But I have had a 150k hand sample where I ran 9bb/100 BELOW EV and thats just all in EV not to mention the 1000 and 1 ways things can go wrong that isnt just getting coolered. 150k hands felt like an ETERNITY, the thought that this could just be a common thing where you just run 9bb below EV for that many hands is terrifying. Playing hours a day for days on end only to be down 5, 10, 15, 20 buy ins before equalizing is probably more emotionally testing than quitting drugs.

Anyways this is not a vent post but rather an awakening post, is this something everybody has experienced and knows? Or are people overplaying it a little like I thought? Im talking having a proven win rate graph only to have stretches of 100k+ hands where there seemingly is no end to that ruthless brutality of losses. For you slightly better players out there, what was your first huge downswing that really showed you what variance can do?

This isn’t a bad beat woe is me post. I am actually in respectful shock of what is possible as far as variance goes. I am not results oriented, but variance in todays session shook me to my core for the first time in 20 years of playing.

No exaggeration at all- in less than 90 minutes playing at the horseshoe 3/5 during WSOP the following hands played out in rapid succession:

1. I raise 3x preflop with kings, guy jams with 6s, I call, 6 hits for a set. Buy back in for $1000

2. I flop a straight with 9-10, rainbow board. Opponent with AQ suited bets a pair with backdoor, I raise, he shoves, I call, and I get it in as good as can be. Runner runner for the flush. Buy back in for $1000

3. I flop straight with KJ, bet every street, runner runner 4 hearts on the board, lose to a 8 of hearts

4. I turn a straight with 89o, rainbow board no flushie this time!. Get it all in good only to have board pair on river and get stacked by 77. Rebuy one more $1000, I’m playing decently and getting unlucky I think?

5. And the cherry on top I just hit bottom set, get it all in bad for the first time in this list as opponent shows mid set cooler

20 years and thats the fastest I lost $4000 by a mile. I thought I had experienced downswings and variance before but this was a whole notha level of getting fucked by chance.

Anyone out there experience a comically bad run like this? Someone tell me its going to be ok.

I’m 22 years old, and a business student. It would be my dream to be a professional poker player. I truly love the game.

I have been studying NLHE for about 3 years now and playing seriously for about 4 months (120 hours). I play mostly 3 home games as I’m 4 hours from the nearest casino, and these are decent, fun, recreational home games. The one I’ll be referring to is a 50 cent 1 dollar game that runs like 2/4 or 2/5. The game is a full table of 10 players consisting of 2 decently strong players 2 nits 5 LAG Fish, and myself. (I’m by far the most studied, these guys have never seen a pre flop chart in their life.)

I believe that i am a good poker player. I know GTO pre flop very well, and i believe i mostly know the GTO decisions to make post flop. I don’t stick strictly to GTO because the players at my tables are to exploitable. They over limp and are super inelastic pre flop so i raise huge with value. (10-20x) BB (this is standard at this game) I don’t make any negative EV plays pre flop or post flop. I understand and implement every poker concept I’ve heard. I have a good grasp on bluffing, and I bluff often and win them. I usually buy in for 200 (max for the first 3 hours) then double up my stack by winning pots over the next 2 hours. I tend to hold my stack well and win some pots getting me up there in the chip lead. Towards the end of the night in most sessions I get coolered or stacked somehow and lose it all.

I have a great attitude at the table. I’m not emotional at all. Is my sample size to small? Is this a possibility of variance? Is my dream dead, or should I keep grinding?

For reference here is my results over the last 120 hours. I started off great but started going downhill in September. All advice is appreciated.

For pros out there who knows variance very much can you guys simplify it for me, ive watch and read stuff about it and i really cant understand it fully

I’ve played a few hundred events last few years. Always large field 1k-2k buy-ins. I’m a winning 5/T cash player for 10 BBs an hour. I used to have a coach for MTT’s, I’ve done countless hours of solver work for MTT’s. I adjust to exploit population tendencies and individuals tendencies at the table. I’m like -50k lifetime in live MTT’s.  

Nothing I do seems to work out. Always when I’m running deep, have a big stack, there just always seems to be some unavoidable cooler that takes me out. Set over set. Standard flips that I lose. AA vs AK and they just hit trip kings. Anytime I talk with friends that are winning MTT players they just say “there’s nothing you can do there” and it’s just so fucking frustrating. I’ve read that no matter what some people will run above EV and some will run below EV in their lifetime in live MTT’s. I have to be bottom 5% as far as expected value against results.

My parents are getting older and they both say how they’d love to watch me on a TV final table. And it’s like I don’t have the heart to tell them they’ll probably die before that ever happens. Feels like there’s nothing I can do but keep firing and hope for the best. 

Edit: I've played about 500k hands lifetime always at a loss, and although I can recall plenty of horrible sessions, this was years ago, so I don't really have a gauge on how many horrible (compared to how many decent) sessions one should expect encounter.

Disclaimer:

About to rant. I'm not blaming my poor EV on variance. I have tons of work to do.

Rant:

Recently played roughly 35000 hands online and ended up at zero-point-who-cares bb/100.

Throughout, I had three 3000-5000 hand 'humbling' sessions: you can't hit a flop if your life depended on it, the board constantly (every single time) 3 and 4 flushes and straights or pairs when it doesn't serve you (and never does when you need it to), recreational players keep backdooring random two pair, etc., etc., etc., until you find yourself 10 BI down.

This last session I played twenty-something hours straight (about 7000 hands), just to see how long it would last: it lasted 12 hours.The remaining how-ever-many hours I finally started hitting hands and made back 5 or 6 buy-ins.

35000 hands amounts to about 9 sessions, three of which were eat shit and die.

My question is, to any grinders that have played many hundreds of thousands of hands, how often do these 'humbling' sessions occur if you could put a number on it? Is it as often as one-third? Is it worse?

Been grinding poker semi-seriously and what really bugs me is variance: That unpredictable rollercoaster of highs and lows. Lately I try to treat it like plot twists in a novel, part of the bigger picture instead of freaking out over a single hand.

 It’s way too easy to get stuck in the moment, celebrating wins or beating yourself over losses. I remind myself it’s just one piece in the long run. having a group to share those “wtf just happened” hands and keep sane really helps; got a discord crew that’s pretty solid for that and this community.

 How do you all stay steady when variance hits hard? Got any mental tricks or routines? Always curious how others keep cool when the cards don’t fall their way.

Is it normal that i start with 60BB after a couple of hours i end up with 150ish BB and after a couple of hours i go back to 60BB?!

Is still my first week and im learning but this game is already killing me😅

I can never play poker for like longer than 2 days in a row because everything just goes wrong and the game is unplayable. I tried to prove myself wrong by just keep on playing even when things go wrong because if I prove to myself that things can start to go right again without taking a break then it would obviously mean I dont need to just stop playing. I have played 19 tournaments ($1-$3 buy ins) in the last 4 days and have only min cashed in one which I then busted out AK vs A6 for a big pot in a hyper.

I have fun playing the game when there is hope that things will go better but I just prove that things wont get better by just keep on trying to play when I would normally just stop playing. I dont want to go on a rant about bad luck/bad beats/suck outs that get told time and time again by fish so just use your imaginations. So why is it that I literally cannot play the game for longer than 2 days in a row or else nothing will go right? Because I would like to just be able to keep playing and be able to accept downswings by knowing that it will get better but it isn't able to happen and just forces to to stop playing for a while then I will just come back and everything will start working again

I'm sure many others out there are able to deal with it, but I'm just obviously not cut out for it. For about two months straight, I've been winning reasonably well. A little more than doubled my money.

Then almost lost my entire bankroll with the following hands in three days:

AA cracked four preflop all ins. KK cracked pre. QQ cracked pre. Trip 8s cracked to KK trips limp. Nut flush to straight flush. Full house to bigger full house. Full house to quads. Trips to flush on the river. Trips to flush on the turn.

I get that "variance" is a thing, but the fact that it's even statistically possible to lose almost your entire bankroll through what is effectively no fault of your own makes this far more gambling than I wanted.

Not just sharing a bad beat, but admitting that gambling just isn't for me. I'm a baby bird when it comes to statistics and losing that many solid hands in three days is just hard to look at.

Peace out, folks.

So I’m 21 years old & recently started playing 1/3 at my local casino. In the past I have crushed low stakes home games & most microstakes online games. However, through about 55 hours at 1/3 I’m stuck over $950 & feeling just extremely disheartened. I’m certain my game isn’t perfect by any means, but I still feel as if I should be winning at this games. It seems like every time I play I take beat after beat & it’s super frustrating. Today I had aces cracked two different times by turned gutshots (one of which was a set of aces), as well as top 2 cracked by a rivered gutshot. Is 55 hours enough time to say with certainty that I’m playing poorly or is there a chance I’m genuinely having terrible variance?

I’ve not cashed in the last 15-16 tournaments I have played. Low stakes too with £40 buy ins. Id say I’m an average poker player been playing since 2018 mainly home games where I learnt the basics. I know the basics of the pre-flop charts GTO etc. i feel like a play a fair game maybe one or two hands where I make mistakes but nothing like crazy. Last tournament I played I had about 30bb going in after the second break. And 15bb including the ante. I ran completely dead on that table and it was a shove fest with every player shoving due to the blinds increasing every 15 mins. I think at one point the average stack was only 20 bb. I had nothing remotely good to shove or even call for the last 45 minutes I was there. I shove blind and lose. The other tournaments I always happen to get coolered, things like calling AK against a low pocket pair hitting nothing. Or set v set. Things like that. Am I just a bad poker player or is the variance just never on my side ?

So I haven’t been playing long, roughly 6 months, and I have definitely been a losing player. I expected this though. Poker is a challenging game and even if I somehow was playing great, variance can always be a large factor that takes many hands to see through. I have been playing micro stakes (.02/.05) on ignition. I know these stakes are laughable, but I’m super broke right now and don’t have the money to comfortably go up especially since I have been losing at the lowest stakes. I have been trying to learn since the start. I’ve read many books and am starting to learn how to utilize tools like equilab to better understand my ranges and learning how to better gauge when I have an edge. With all of this said, I know more now than I ever have, and I just had the worst losing weekend of my “poker career”. I just lost 700BB in like 3 days, which I recognize is not an insane amount, but I don’t like it and want to be able to know if it’s because I’m just playing like absolute dog shit or if it really was just bad luck. I have just started experimenting with new concepts for me such as polarized 3betting vs linear, trying to learn to balance my ranges (which I recognize at these stakes isn’t necessarily optimal), etc. So, with all of this said, how do you objectively conclude if your losses are bad beats or bad strategy? Should I just stay course?

I’m noticing most games where the statistics line up with what happens(which is probably 2/3 games) I go up around 40-50bb. When I’m running cold it’s hard to not lose the whole buy in whether it’s terrible flops or missed strong draws. When I’m hot I go profit closer to 175bb, but that only happens so often(1/10 games more recently). Like the title says, how do I not lose my whole buy in when running cold while still maximizing strong hands?

Can somebody tell me what the fuck is happening? I play a semi loose and agressive style - My Vpip/pfr/af/ is 25/20/3 and some sessions I am absolutely killing it while other sessions I can't seem to win a hand vs very bad players. Every little tip and suggestion is appreciated

I just started seriously studying poker about 6 weeks ago. I’ve been fairly profitable at 5NL, and tonight I decided to make a giant leap and play 2/5 at my local casino (too much of a leap definitely😂). Anyways, I was playing great! I was up around 30BB after an hour and a half. Then comes this hand:

I have AA in the small blind, UTG raises to $15, gets 2 callers, I raise to $60. He goes all in, the rest fold, and I call. He shows AKo, and it runs out and he gets a straight and covers me.

I’m really early into trying to get more serious about poker, and that one hand just completely put a stopper on my desire to continue studying and getting better. I guess what I’m asking is those who experienced something similar when starting, how… and why did you still continue? There’s not many games or activities where you can execute something perfectly and still lose. Is there some mindset or philosophy that keeps you going? I’m finding I really enjoy this game, but the coolers are SOUL CRUSHING. Especially when that was the first time I played for an amount of money that was meaningful to me. Any advice would be appreciated.

Hey everyone,

I recently read an article that at a sample size of 100k hands your winrate is likely within +/- 4bb/100 hands of your true winrate.

This led me to the question how live cash game players are even able to beat variance. Especially in the higher stakes I think it is difficult to maintain a winrate above 5bb/100 hands.

In a live cash game you play around 30 hands an hour. This means you have to play 3333 hours to get a sample size of 100k hands. You have to play alot of poker for 2 years to achieve such a big sample size.

So if you‘re a small winning player (~3bb/100 hands) you could play 100k hands and still loose money.

This makes me think that beating variance in a live cash game is nearly impossible and that there alot of pro players out there that probably just had an amazing run.

It also means that you can play live cash games for several months daily and be a loosing player even though you‘re the best player at almost any player. I know variance is huge in poker, but is it really such a big factor?

Like wtf is this?

Sunday go to play live, 1/2, sit in with 300, card dead first hours, then KcTc, raise from CO, very aggro BB calls. flop QJ3, I bet he calls about 1/2 pot, turn 3, but gives me a flush draw. he checks I bet again 1/2 pot, he thinks a lot and calls. river blank 7. h checks, I decide to bluff 2/3 pot, as he was really aggro before. he thinks then calls with A high no FD. like wtf.

this tilted me a bit.

then slowly work my way down to 100 stack, where I get in pre with AKo, KQs calls, Q arrives for him.

rebuy to 400 stack, when I get A7s, raise from BU, both blinds call, pot around 25, flop A 7 T, SB bets 10, I call. he had to rebuy 3 times at this point already, was running bad but also bit too loose...

turn blank 2. he bets 20, I decide to raise it up to 75 hoping he got any A except AT or maybe even 7T or the straightdraw, he goes all in, couldnt let it go for another 75 to call. he had 77.

another 2 hours card dead I work it back to 300 stack, get KK, basically bet it all the way on 44QJ board only to Ace arrive on river and he shows AQo.

then very loose and bluffy guy about 70% vpip and rarely raised pre but bluffed a lot at river and open mucked it like 4/5 times in last hour like so strange. I open UTG with AKs he calls on my left its heads up. flop AQ3. I bet 3/4 pot he calls turn 7, rainbow board. I bet again 3/4 pot. he calls. river 8.

I check to try to get a bluff out him if I show weakness given the read. he bets 55. I call. he has Q7o.

whatever I have left like 75 I go all in from BB against 1 raise with 99, raiser calls with ATo. board 2 J 9 haha, turn 8, river Q hahahaha.

and then today back to microstakes zoom level to teach me a lesson:

66, flop 36K, he had KK, 170bb deep

66 flop Q36, could not let it go vs turn raise on turn 2, yes he had 45o

AKs pre all in vs AJo, J comes

AKo 3 bet pot, flop AQ2, again cannot let it go vs 45/30 guy had to show AQ

AA 4 bet it, opponent calls,op KJ8, again cannot let it go, he has JJ, turn J too, 160bb deep, hurts less if he shows KK lol

87s, flop 56A, I have OESFD, I get it in, he has AK, turn K giving me the flush, river K haha

JTs, flopping a flush on 937 flop, get it in vs shortstack of 60bb, he has the A high FD, which hits on turn.

QQ 3 bet, flop AKQ, and he check raises me, I was hoping he can have KQ, AK, AQ enough times, after just calling my 3bet and not KK, AA. he had JTo.

JJ, pre all in for 50bb, he has J9s, gets there with flush on flop

22, flop 244, slowplayed it just called his bet, turn Q, we get it in, he has QQ, luckily for less than 70bb

AKs couldnt let it go after 4 betting it, he had AA, 130bb deep

and the best, AA, 3 bet pre, flop 36A, he checks I bet very small like 20% pot, he calls, turn J, he checks I bet 2/3 pot, he goes all in, and I was wondering how the rng will do it this time. he shows KTs no flushdraw with Q being the only outs. river Q

all this in like 700 hands of zoom about and hour or bit more on hour on 3/4 tables. zoom is nothing but a long line of bad beats, unlucky pots, some real suckerpunches, some horrible riverkills, and good thing you can have much more of these due to nature of zoom. I dont think I have 100/150 consecutive hands of zoom where I did not lose at least 1 buyin at showdown at one of these hands in last few thousands of hands. they are coming on a conveyor belt system. my session are basically just to try to win back the buyin I just lost 20 mins ago or will lose in 10 mins because its certain those will happen.

Hi.

I’m planning to become pro/semi-pro. So I was wondering, can I beat the variance (considering all the other factors equal) playing micro/low limit mtts 1 table per time (meaning not multi-tabling) or I’m I being delusional?