What's a normal razz standard deviation of win rates for full-ring vs short handed vs HU?

Bump.

someone is having a downswing

razz is such an easy and automatic game you should be winning all the time. meaning no real downswings.

I loled

is that spam or third level

there is a lot to think about in that sentence. it wasnt just off the top of my head.

It was ironic then, I take it? Kinda like the slogan "Omaha: 4 cards! Easy to win, hard to lose!"

sorta SG, it is an easy game to learn and simple to play. but tough to win the max at against better players.
most bets are automatic which makes a monkey a favorite in the game against bad players
so against bad players you really should be winning all the time. against better players you play a different game.
and most players have big swings in razz. if you pick and choose properly according to dead cards and position you dont get big downswings.

you really play two different games between better players and weak players.

well I can't argue (and never have) against your claim that armed with a few oversimplified rules a nitty monkey would be a favorite at a table full of bad razz players (given the structure favored the monkey). But I find it troublesome that you seem to endorse the worn out sentiment of "that's how you get the money" instead of trying to maximizing your EV (i.e. "that's how you get the most money"). True, maximizing your EV often leads to higher variance which is usually accompanied by deeper and longer downswings, but in the end isn't that what 99% of the strategy on these forums (and in 2p2 books) is about: maximizing your EV?

lile i said you get to max ev with different players you play differently. against bad players in razz you do pretty much play a tight nitty agressive game to maximize ev. otherwise some of the better players will kill you if you get out of line. in razz you dont get away with too much creativity. a mechanical player will beat you.

i never care about variance. it is what it is according to your style. i try to max my win rate and suffer whatever my chips do. but in razz my chips dont fluctuate as much as in other games. and thats how it should be.

To maximize your win rate in Razz requires putting a fair amount of money in the pot with hands with a great deal of uncertainty.

The point is that in Razz, unlike most other games, you can have a verifiable sizable edge on your opponent, but still not have a made hand. In fact, this happens a lot in Razz. Maximizing your EV requires that you push these edges, but doing so greatly increases variance as well.

This pushing your small edges is what makes Razz both mechanical and high-variance.

Ok, let's not get on the crazy train here. There is substantial evidence that razz is one of the lowest variance poker variants, if not #1 on the list. Some playing styles will increase your variance in razz, but the equivalent style will also increase your variance in other games as well.

My arguments with Ray are many itt, including:

Maximizing your EV in razz means adjusting to not only the skill level of your opponents, but also the size of the antes. If you're playing in a low ante structure, being nitty is pretty much correct regardless of who you're up against, but that's not so in a high ante game. Of course, against good players you'd like to have an equal or better hand when you take them on, but why are so many old schoolers averse to mixing it up with bad players (I assume you mean "loose" here) unless they're sure they're ahead? Bad players usually make more mistakes than just playing too many hands on 3rd st, and if you're not in the pot you can't take advantage of them. Obviously you have to be more cautious if the good players have position on you, but only when they show strong door cards.

A mechanical player may beat you if you try some wild and creative stuff, but a mechanical player is only as good as the rules he plays by. Often they include small leaks (and sometimes a couple of big ones) that can be exploited but they get away with it by practicing good game selection. One place you can't bumhunt is in MTTs, and I've beaten plenty of mechanical and fishy players in those. It often takes different lines, but both can be beaten.

I do apologize tho for assuming you were playing a nitty style to keep your variance down. I'm glad that you're always trying to maximize EV (and giving advice based on those lines), I just disagree that you'll get the most money playing a purely mechanical game.

i basically said about what you are saying so if you are disagreeing with me you are disagreeing with yourself.

Variance and long term swings are not the same thing. Generally, in simpler forms of poker a competent player will win at a higher rate against terrible players than he would in a more complex form against the same terrible players.

But in a simple form of poker, the experts and the competent players won't play much different. Thus the relationship for the expert between win rate and standard deviation will be poor when against competent players even though the standard deviation (or variance) will be relatively small when compared to other games. Hence your long term swings can be larger.

Best wishes,
Mason