There's been a lot of discussion about standard deviation, that I want to note this.

I use poker income and I decided to try the rungood app.

Turns out that while poker income gives me a standard deviation of around 43-45BB per hour, rungood with the same data measures it at 90-91bb per hour.

Don't know which app has it right and which has it wrong, but it bears keeping in mind whenever those figures are put forward.

They are both about the same.
43BB-45BB vs 45BB - 45.5BB

Assuming that you're not trying to make the distinction between BB and bb, some of those apps calculate the standard deviation incorrectly. Bip! has posted about it, and how to correct it.

No, everything is in BB.

lol standard deviation

not even trying to troll here

focus on the stuff that matters

Yup. Here's one of the posts:
If you're interested in STDEV and how it is calculated, there was a very good discussion ITT in December of 2015.

hey guys im up like 20k at 1-2 and break even in 250 hours at 2-5 why?? I feel im playin good but cant log more than 2 wining session at 2-5... im beating nl100zoom on stars so i think i have the skill to beat tha game but im breakin even pretty sad

Because variance, that's why.

It's impossible to say really.

Some people love to blame everything on variance. It relieves them of responsibility. Maybe it really is variance and maybe its not. There's no way for us to know without you telling us a lot more detail.

For starters, whats your win rate at 1/2? Saying you're up $20k doesn't mean much on its own.

If you are beating 100NL Zoom on Stars, you are plenty capable of beating 2/5 Live.

Moreover, I was also breakeven on my first 200 hours of 2/5 and that isn't the case any more. Had nothing to do with skill.

The only thing that may play a role skill wise is taking a bit of a time to understand player pool tendencies and ranges.

This is a good point. If you are good enough to beat 100NL online, you should be good enough to beat 2/5 live....BUT....if you play 2/5 full ring live the same was as you play 100NL 6 max online, you will NOT win.

Same with the other way around, though it's always "skills" not variance.

If you win money --> skill.

If you lose money --> variance.

There are many strategy posts that aren't exactly positive EV decisions, and yet people love to counter with "I am a $xx/hr winner, look at my chart, and therefore I must be right."

Other than a pure math question like

"Villain went all in and Im getting 1.5:1 with nothing but a flush draw",

there is a lot more going into most decisions than just math and EV decisions.

There's no way to calculate the EV of the majority of decisions. That's where the disagreements about the correct play comes in. If a person makes a lot of decisions that are counter to popular opinion on these boards and they win at a high rate consistently, then they probably know what they are doing and are probably better than the avg poster who disagrees with them all the time. Ive gotten to the point where I barely respond to strat posts anymore because what Im reading in those posts is hilariously bad. Its like being at the poker room and listening to 3-4 random people discussing a hand at the table. Most of the time I just shake my head in amazement and instantly stop wondering how 90+% of players lose money.

I try to keep lower sizzings still as a general strategy i dont know if that affects a lot my winrate for example i open 3x, 4x vs limp, 3bet 3.5x ip 4.5x oop

On flops dry texture i like to use my 1/3 pot strategy

I would suggest that that is a small part of your problem. Live players will call 4-6BB opens all the time. Ive discussed that at length with a friend of mine who prefers a 3x open. His background is stronger in tournaments where smaller opens are normal. Hes slowly coming around to using bigger raises as we play together a lot and he sees my results with bigger raises.

I limit my smaller opens to LP. An EP 3x raise is going to get called 5-6 times way too often for my liking.

My last post on this subject before it veers off.

This is incorrect. Formulas exist, just matter of assigning variables. Depending on the variables, there could be a wide or narrow range of answers, and that's how we gauge EV and best decisions.

But if a person simply respond with "this is what I would do and I won a lot of money" but cannot explain his decision, then that person is really no different.

If you don't know why certain posts are bad, then how are you better?

At end of the day, variance exists on both ends. For there to be so many players "running bad," there has to be at least some players that are just running damn good.

If a person raises 72o UTG and won the last 10x, it would not surprise me that he probably thinks he's a great LAG, not benefactor of positive variance.

My sentiments exactly. Mike, you pride yourself on narrowing your opponents range better than most in LLSNL. Sometimes to the point where you say you can put your opponent on one exact hand. If that's the case, how can you not determine EV in these spots you claim you have a handle on?

This thread is starting to turn into the old thread that got locked.

^ This. Be very, very careful.

You can figure the EV if you know that someone has a certain hand a certain percentage of the time and a different hand a certain percentage of the time but those hands and those percentages are impossible to know. After the fact its real easy to tell yourself you played the hand correctly based on your assumptions of the possible hands and that you are just running bad and keep running into the top end of someone's range. Whats hard to admit to is that you may not be as good at assigning ranges as you think you are and you arent running bad, you are playing bad. Which brings me back to people assuming when they are losing its due to variance as it relieves them of responsibility.

Whether or not anyone thinks I am good, bad or ugly makes no difference to my win rate. It is what it is. I take responsibility for my own play when Im losing and dont just blame it on variance.

I came from an online 6max background and if you are sticking with online strategies to beat a live game then you are playing quite suboptimally.

People like to blame downswings on variance but the fact of the matter is that if you've only played 250hrs at a level you probably aren't that good at it yet. That's the way poker works. Aptitude isn't going to do much for you without experience. Its always funny to hear about new players crushing when there are players who are just as smart or smarter who have been playing that level for 5+ years and are still improving.


LoL @ players running bad. I've never met a player that had a long run bad stretch at 2/5 or below that wasn't absolutely atrocious at poker (everyone thinks they are good of course). I guess I've run hotter than the sun at poker but the funny thing is when I look into the future all I see is more of the same. I also foresee more of the same for all the run bad players that don't make adjustments to their games.

You can make this argument both ways.

It's really hard to compare winrates and strategies as the table conditions can vary significantly between players, and it's difficult to get meaningful samples live. It's also really hard to convey the live conditions and player reads that correlate to a given decision in an online forum after the fact.

I agree 100% with that part.

Please don't discuss HHs ITT. I deleted the derail, but I suspect it was meant for the chat thread. Also consider the Low-Stress Strat thread.