It's hard to talk about "variance" in such general terms as outlined in the OP. What's interesting is applying the concept to specific situations.
Often, people post hands on this forum that are very close decision. So close that they may not be worth worrying about. Some of them boil down to this: "I can fold and have 0 EV or I can call into a $1,000 pot and have +$2 EV." In this case, you may want to fold to reduce variance, if your BR is small, even though you are giving up $2.
But there's a trick here: lower pots does not mean lower variance. Let's say that the flop is Q72cc and you hold 34cc. A guy c-bets into you. If you semi-bluff him, he will fold here very often. In this case, calling to see the next card is actually
higher variance, from what I can tell. If you bluff you will win a smaller pot a lot of the time; if you call, you'll win or lose a bigger pot.
Variance is also a lot broader than just all-in EV (Sklansky dollars). Sklansky dollars are really only a small part of variance I think. Let's say you raise preflop with AK and the flop comes Q42. That's variance. Now let's say you c-bet and get called, or you get a fold. Both of those outcomes are variance. The board and your opponents holding will be randomized from hand to hand. Some days you get people to call preflop with worse hands and you whiff every flop; some days you are raising with 9
T
and flop the world every time. Some days you hit 0/10 sets, some you hit 5/10. All variance.
So the real way to reduce variance is to sniff out the coinflip situations, those +$2 situations where you're playing for a $500 pot, and fold them. It's very different from playing passively. If you do this wrong, it's dangerous, but you can do it.
Last edited by dunderstron!; 05-09-2014 at 04:07 PM.