So, Holdem manager shows what the standard deviation over a given example is. Is it possible to reduce this number, without affecting your winrate?

yeh, if you find yourself in a spot where say the EV of calling an all in pre flop and folding an all in pre flop is the about the same then taking the folding route will reduce your SD.

Imo there's a lot to be said for this especially if you're prone to tilt or practice aggressive bankroll management

If you really want to reduce SD, only get it in with the nuts.

But it's going to drastically lower your win rate.

We can all make money when we have the nuts, but the better the player, the more they're extracting from other spots. Really good players will still get value from super thin edges (in fact, that's pretty much a definition of 'skilled' - how marginal the spot has to be before you stop getting value from it.)

But adding those marginal spots is going to increase your SD.

Variance is the price you pay for taking their money in the long run.

If you really want to reduce SD, don't play poker. That may reduce or increase your winrate, depending how good you are.

So your answer to the op is no or are you just trolling?

OP, the relationship between winrate and std dev is pretty complex so there's not an easy way to reduce one without reducing the other.

He's saying that variance is part of the game and reducing variance merely for the sake of doing so is not productive...essentially you are not asking the right question.

The best answer itt is the one that tells you to reduce the number of coin flip situations you go for. But it has to be a true either-way decision to really have no effect on variance/standard deviation.

Poker is a game of variance. Most of your decisions will be based on uncertainty, so will include variance by definition. DD was saying that playing only the nuts is low variance, and I added that not playing is lowest variance - both these are reducing the game to certain decisions, removing uncertainty, and removing variance.

Your primary aim in poker is to increase your edge. If you try instead to reduce your variance, you will be missing out on a lot of profit, so this will affect your winrate.

Can someone tell us where this particular stat is located within HEM 2? I cant seem to find it anywhere in the normal stats section for the reports?

Thanks

EDIT: Ignore. Its refered too as Std Deviation in bb in HEM

No. The only way to reduce variance without affecting the winrate is to chose the lower variance play when both choices have the same expected value. But most people already do this.