How do you personally cope with omaha variance day to day? Do you ever find yourself completely demoralized?

Like the rest of you I find peace of mind in generating EV, and knowing I made the right decisions, but we are only human.

Incase the title didn't make it obvious enough, I just lost a few BI (boo-hooo!!)

I usually jump up levels and recoup my losses, then feel good about my decision and don't have to worry about variance.

Just kidding.

Having a sufficient bankroll and a positive frame of mind are the only ways that I know to reduce the effects of variance.

Anytime I start feeling the variance monkey weighing me down I reread The Tao of Poker which helps centre me.

I just keep reminding myself that good plays pay off in the long run and comeback the next day ready to play my best game.

There is no easy fix to handle the variance, its all mental. Some people have it, some people learn it, some people never grasp it and continuously crush their rolls and their souls.

For me, the best cure is taking some time off. For full time professionals, that is not always an option, but temporarily reducing volume and/or taking the most time off that you can, as well as prioritizing other healthstyle choices that can improve your poker game and mental state is generally a good idea.

Well, I've got 90$ after some coolerers in nl10 (was taking a shot with 110$)

I restricted myself to nl/pl2 and BB10c limit.

So if I where to loose 45 stacks in either holdem or omaha, yes I'd be very sad.

The limit restriction is just there, don't think I'll be playing limit ever again except maybe Razz.

I went on a $10k downswing earlier this year after a sizable upswing and kept on playing, upswinging again now including best single session ever by a very wide margin that pretty much doubled by overall winrate. Point being, if you are a winning player you should just press on because downswings are going to happen but you won't start upswinging again if you quit.

You can later take pride in the fact that you kept moving forward despite the pain we all feel on a big downswing. That takes character.

Thanks Dingus, monikrazy. Yeah sometimes its nice to know your not the only one. What an emotional investment grinding is

GL man, 100 ->1000

use this time to really study over the hands you played. When you lose and you think it was a bad beat take that hand and look through it carefully see if you literally played it in the most +EV way if not which ill be honest is the case very often learn from this. I find losing money can be a powerful motivator. never be afraid to take a step back either. everyone sometimes needs some me time.

No

amazing even pros constantly say they do at times feel bad. im surprised you have never felt bad from it. truly amazing.

Yeah it's not ideal to lose BI but it happens, use it at a time for positive review. Find out what you did wrong in the session and fix that, use your pain a short a cue that a learning opportunity is at hand

What swings? lol

Winning or losing a decent new car every month can be hard. Just buy a car when you make enough and sell it when you lose it. Easy game.

Seriously, extremely conservative BR management is key. Having 100 + buyins sounds insane but so is this game.

I think PLO variance being higher is a meme. Variance is as affected by standard deviation as it is by winrate. If you can get a better winrate in PLO then it can be a much better option, variation or not.

I am not saying variation isn't real, and losing sucks, but I think very often people want to blame their lack of success on things like "plo is just a high variance game". No, poker has variance, your mental game is just not strong enough. Likely you'd have it just as bad if you were an NLHE reg, or a trader, or a freelance worker who might run bad with employment etc.

Sounds like you haven't experienced much and also don't understandis variance on a theoretical level neither. Here study this : https://www.primedope.com/poker-variance-calculator/

Losing a few buyins playing PLO sounds like a guy getting drunk from bud light. Dude you need to have a bit stronger mental game than that. I'll feel some sympathy once you lose more than 10 buyins in one day. And more sympathy once you run more than 10buyins under allinEV in one day.

hahahahaha.

Ahh the sounds of ignorance. It's bliss until you get hit by that ignorant train.

Looks like you didn't study it and chose ego over learning. I'll give you a second chance:

1. Try running the calc and change the winrate. Does the variance change with winrates?

2. Look up PLO vs NL Holden variance numbers and plug it in the calc. PLO variance still a meme?

3. Look at the bottom variance line for 100k hands. Is it a winning line even when player has a positive winrate? Imagine being the guy losing over 3 months playing winning poker. Now put in 1million hands. Imagine being a winning player and lose over 2 years playing full time. Your naive mug wouldn't be so smug no more.

Straw arguments because my points went over your head are still straw arguments.

Standard deviation's going to be higher in PLO than in NL because of closer equities. My wr in PLO's much better than in NL but my sd's > 2x what it is in NL. I agree with everything else you wrote though. It's hard for people to take responsibility and put hard work in.

You suck, fragile ego, and a little dull.

Below is your post in case you forgot.


"I think PLO variance being higher is a meme. Variance is as affected by standard deviation as it is by winrate. If you can get a better winrate in PLO then it can be a much better option, variation or not.

I am not saying variation isn't real, and losing sucks, but I think very often people want to blame their lack of success on things like "plo is just a high variance game". No, poker has variance, your mental game is just not strong enough. Likely you'd have it just as bad if you were an NLHE reg, or a trader, or a freelance worker who might run bad with employment etc."

Swings are a lot easier to deal with if you have a big bankroll and know you're a winning player. It's a lot easier for either of those to be true if you have 3x the winrate. There's a reason why all the NL regs are going broke all over the place or moving down stakes, the PLO ones aren't, even though the former group tends to study way more.

If the STD difference in PLO scares you to the point where you pick to play a dead game, then you're not suited to play poker. We're not talking about a situation where where you have similar winrates but one game has way more variance, so all your little variance calculations just entirely miss the point.

Of course there are places and there are people who can still crush NLHE, and if that applies to you, great, but in many places and for many regs, they are way behind the curve, and to be competitive in NLHE is a lot harder now, especially if you're Euro.

And for reference, I have run 3x my entire bankroll under EV before for 60k when I was playing on FTP and had 20k to my name, and I had a 2.8k hour break even stretch playing live, where about 1600~ hours of it I lost 80k, this is despite a 75gbp hourly lifetime including 800+ hours of 1/2.



So that's what I was hahahahaha-ing about; you telling me I don't know variance. It's pretty unbecoming to start guessing people's background in general, but especially stupid when you're completely wrong.

Anyway just to entertain your little challenge, I thought I'd run the calculator anyway:





If you look at these two graphs, and also factor in the fact that having a bigger bankroll, which is much easier to accumulate with a bigger winrate, helps with dealing with downswings a lot, and then still pick the lower winrate lower STD graph, well, read above, poker is not for you.

There are more extreme outliers in the high winrate high STD graph, but the 95% interval line is actually breakeven+, whereas for lower winrate lower STD it's at -2k+

Of course 3x the winrate is a big number, but if you're playing anywhere with tough NLHE games, and looking to become a pro where you want to play high enough stakes (5/10+), you're just going to have to end up playing games where there are at least 6 okay regs on every NLHE table, and maybe 2 at PLO at similar stakes, and most regs don't even have preflop down, and the 2-3x winrate is a simple reality, that I can't prove, but anyone who plays professional knows is true for anyone who isn't top online stakes competitive.

Note also the live bb/100s are much higher. To entertain your challenge a bit more, I'll post graphs that are much more pessimistic, and then two that mimics live conditions.





yeaaah I'd still take PLO at a bit more than 2x the winrate.

Let's look at live. From what I can see in my local games, most NL regs I know sustain something like a 50~ hourly at 5/10 (and this is with enough bumhunting that the game breaks much much faster). At PLO at those stakes it's from 80-130, let's call it 100.

NLHE gets maybe 30-35 hands an hour in those games, so it's something like 32. 5/.32, 15.6bb/100.

PLO is between 22-28 at a guess, let's say 25, though honestly that's generous. 40bb/100.

Let's say a year's time and 1200 hours of grind, so I will give PLO 30k hands, and NLHE 38.4k

3 trials for NLHE:







3 trials for PLO:







Yeaaah I'm not playing NLHE lol. This is without considering the bankroll issues and game selection issues, because NLHE games are way more bumhunty and breaks way more often these days.

btw, please remember live has run it twice fairly often, and people tend to play a much less aggressive style than online, so the STD should be lower; shorter stacks also lower the STD (against common live knowledge). I picked 80 for NLHE and 120 for PLO, which should be way more than generous, but I don't know the actual numbers. If anyone can source some more precise ones we could have it run instead. I doubt it'd be significantly different, but if you want to prove me wrong, do the gddamn work.

All these numbers would be quite different if your winrates are lower or closer, but if you're not able to get a winrate this high at PLO, I don't see how you can be a winning player at tougher NLHE games these days. Maybe in your backwater-town games, but not in an international arena if your plan is to move up stakes at some point.

Oh, just for the sake of reaaally testing this point, I'm giving NLHE 75 hourly instead, even though the numbers I give are accurate to Euro games; I understand it's a bit better in America.



Yeah, the bottom line is pretty close 6k at 95% interval for NLHE, 7.7k for PLO, but what's the upside? Not to mention your game is way more likely to die in the coming years.

So yeah let's have some nice quotes from this thread so far:

Yes, it does; as shown in the graphs. your likelihood of having a losing/breakeven year, or year with insufficient winnings in the PLO examples is way lower.

And yes, definitely a meme.

How do you manage to say this with a straight face when you said this:

Variance is literally standard deviation, so obviously "variance" doesn't change with anything aside from STD, but this thread is about "downswings", and your likelihood of having a downswing, especially in context of your bankroll size, is much much less significant if your winrate is higher.

[ ] suck

[x] fragile ego

[ ] dull

1/3, not the worst, but not good enough. Try again.

A friend gave me some numbers from pokerdrope, so the STDs I use are relatively accurate.



Using fullring numbers, my NLHE numbers are 10 higher than the average of 70, but I think it's pretty obvious that's not going to change it. If you want to run it at 70 instead, be my guest.

I am less confident about 6max online numbers, but here is are rough one:





Is it reasonable for me to say NLHE online has half the winrate of PLO? It is in my experience, and based on the 100zoom+ regs I know this is generally true. Being a PLO reg obviously gives me some bias of knowing more good PLO regs, but most of my NLHE friends have way worse winrates.

My NLHE friend said 1-2bb/100 is standard, at best 5-6. I think 4-8 is pretty standard in PLO.

Finally, this part is funny, because I literally broke even over 2 years as a pro, as you can see in my live graph. "Imagine" lol. Oh, btw, I was playing NLHE at the time.

When it comes down to it, if you don't suck, the chances of having a losing year playing live PLO is pretty f-ing low, so thanks for bringing up the calculator and letting it entirely prove my point:

If you don't want losing years, stop sucking and play a game you can have a good winrate in, and stop worrying about STD.

Glad we're in agreement.

I'm with Inky on this one. My live HE winrate is indeed much lower than my PLO5 winrate (5 versus 7.8 bb/hr.). Don't get me wrong: live HE games aren't "bad" anymore, just not as profitable as their PLO counterparts. I spend a ton more of my time in PLO games these days for a reason.

This is true, all you need to survive this game are a giant bankroll, a giant winrate, and the ability/dedication/time to play 100k hands in the same pool.


As for OP all poker players have had bad times, taking a break will help a lot. On the other hand tilt reloading will rarely help.

swings? this game has swings?





the secret is to swing up too, not just down

Op I set Stop Losses and do my best to just close all my tables when I hit that number of Buy Ins.

Sometimes it's that kind of day where it could be running bad or playing bad, or a combination of both.

Practically Live to Play another day and get a clear mindset and Analyze your play of hands when you are ready to get better at your game. The online games and Casinos will always be there regardless if it is with or without you.

Obv easier said than done in the moment, you wanna chase those losses by grinding longer or playing bigger. As previous members have said not the best choice when you are in that state of mind.