Sorry if this too general... How do you study the role variance plays in the short term and the long term? also studying your skill level vs your opponents skill level?

I know we can just record all the relevant hands that happen which is what I do but I wonder if I can do a better a job of accurately assessing the role variance plays

recognizing the degree to which variance has affected your results is what I want to get better at

thanks for any feedback

About the last thing you want to do is waste your time studying variance. There are calculators available online (google is your friend) where you can see just how wide it is. There are also people who do calculate it in the Winrates containment thread.

The reason it is a waste of time is there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. At most you can tell a version of bad beat stories (I'm running 30 buyins below my expected EV). By the time you accumulate enough hands to do a decent calculation, you should know how many people really want to hear your bad beat story.

Of all the things there are to study and get better at, why would you want to spend your time studying how variance affects your win rate?

You would be better off studying how to not let variance and big outdraws affect you mentally and make you play badly after they happen.

I never said anything about win rate, studying the role variance plays can give you clarity on your skill level and how well you are playing, identifying mistakes, and building stable confidence

I'm taking this directly from Jared Tendlers book so these are not my words but he recommended talking to other players about how they study the role of variance

Here's your study material:

AA has 63.8% equity vs 3 random hands. That means if you shove blind and 3 others called blind, you win 63.8% in an infinite timeline and lose the other 36.2%.

Variance is learning to deal with that 36.2% and knowing that you are significantly +EV to shove with AA against 3 random hands and continue to do so.

That's pretty much learning variance in a nutshell.

Variance should be among the last things you study to assess your skill level, because its really difficult to measure without using detailed tracking tools.

More specifically, understanding how variance affects your live win rate without a pretty solid mathematical foundation can be a lost cause. It can also lead to a misplaced focus on the comittal street over other areas for improvement in the game.

You've misunderstood what he meant. From his website about his mental game book.

There's a world of difference between learning how to handle variance from studying the role of variance has on your results.

Handling variance (or stopping tilt caused by it) comes down to what poke4fun posted. Whether it is from accepting the math of the situation (Mason Malmuth's approach) or becoming numb to it through repetition (more of Jared Tendler's approach), you just have to control your emotions. Some people have never practiced it. If that is the case, be warned that you just can't turn emotional control on and off. It will be a long journey where you will have to change your personality to achieve the result. If you are unwilling to do it, poker may not be the activity for you.

I'm not asking about handling variance , yes this issue is covered in the book

there is also a section, pg 211.. titled the skill of recognizing variance , I agree that it is a strange concept to study off table , he says, " if your skill in recognizing variance is weak your estimate of your edge will be off" and he elaborates further on the topic

It’s another way of saying to know your EV.

Learn to calculate EV and you will learn how to calculate variance.

I think can be useful to run some sims and remind yourself how hard variance can dick you from time to time. But that’s mostly a mental game thing. If you intuitively understand that you can play perfectly for hundreds of hours and still get ****ty results, you shouldn’t need to “study” variance. You’re better off reviewing hand histories and seeing how far you stray from optimal play.