So I apologize for how generic this question is, but usually when I get into a new form of poker, I like to get a feel for the daily up/downswings so I know what is normal.

So what's a normal LHE swing? Thanks in advance.

Depends how many hands you play a day mate.

I'm only a part timer so try and play 500 a day and +/- 100BB is not an unreasonable range of results.

Most days though it is +/- 50BB.

You think you're a part timer! Ha, I might play a couple hundred hands a day. Sometime on the weekend I get a 2 or 3 hour stretch, and I might be able to squeak our 300 or 400.

Take a look at the sticky at the top of this forum and do some reading.

If you play 400 hands, you will have a result within roughly +/-80BB 95% of the time. If you have a high winrate, it might be something like +85BB to -75BB.

Damn dude, I'd slit my wrist if I lost $3200.

Ready the blade.

you're gonna end up dead or in a rubber room with this mentality.

Live FR has significantly less variance. Probably around 14BB/100. Thus, you'd be looking at more like +/-56BB. There's always that other 5% though.

100 BB swings will happen very frequently, 200 BB ones will happen somewhat frequently and also be prepared for 300BB ones every once in a while. This is definitely not a scientific answer as Leaders but will give you a ballpark of what to be prepared for. GL.

One of the best mid-high lhe 6max grinders I know, with a 1.6ish BB winrate lifetime (800k hands), told me that he had a 500BB downswing almost every month. However, he never had a losing month either cause he played huge volume.

Whao.. that's a lot. What are the stakes he play exactly?

I find a 500 BB downswing every month to be unlikely for a 1.6 BB/100 winner. As a 0.8 BB/100 winner over 1 million hands, my biggest was 350 BB's.

I guess either I got very fortunate, or he very unfortunate.

or his games+style have a higher variance maybe? This is just what he told me. He never showed me any data, I only have his ptr graph. I'm not gonna out him but he can if he wants to (and if he even reads this thread).

Winrate is much more important, than standard deviation, when talking about swings.

fyp. Our concept of "swings" is skewed towards the negative, i.e. we consider winning the normal outcome and losing a product of swinginess. In that way having a big winrate "decreases swings" in our mind, which is completely false though. All it's doing is skewing the swinginess upwards.

I know what your point is though. A 1.6BB winner is less likely to have a 500BB downsing than a 0.8BB winner, even if the former's game has a higher Std Dev. But there's certainly a cutoff point where if the Std Dev difference becomes high enough the 1.6BB winner will have a higher chance of 500BB downswong than a 0.8BB winner.

But like I said, I have this from the horse's mouth and that's all. I can't speculate any further. All I know is he's super-analytical and smart so if he says it's so I believe him. And maybe 1 million hands isn't that big of a sample size in this crazy game.

Or I could just misremember the whole thing and be completely wrong

edit: new calcs coming lol.

Not that I don't think it's possible, just for it to happen every month seems kinda bizarre.

OK, no new calcs coming, maybe Leader or some other can show, that winrate means more than standard deviation. It just that mathematically winrate means more. I'm just not smart enough to explain it. It has something to do with the fact that 2.5 BB/100 is 5 times more than 0.5/ BB 100 and difference between 16 BB/100 standard deviation and 24 BB/100 standard deviation is only 1.5.

didn't you read my post?

I agreed with you that winrate has a bigger effect on downswings than std dev. Winrate however has no effect on variance or "swinginess" cause variance==std.dev and winrate doesn't affect std.dev.

This is all theoretical anyways cause we don't have his std.dev nor do we even have a confirmation that my "500BB downswing/month" is even accurate. My memory might be off.

But in theory, if you make the difference in std.dev big enough then eventually it will overtake winrate. Idk how big it has to be tho (maybe 15BB vs 100BB, who knows).

If however my memory is correct and his estimate is as well then the likeliest reason for that is just lol samplesize. The long run is just so insanely long that two different 1 million hand samples from a solid winner and a crusher might still have the crusher experience regular 500+ ds while the solid guy's biggest ds is less than 400BB.

All I'm saying is: lol variance.

swinginess, both positive and negative, IS the std dev.

edit: wolfram beat me to it.

Sorry, didn't read your post well enough. I think we agree.

Edit: It intresting, that BruceZ and Kelly bankroll requirments are so (?) different? Not sure if different, but you have to speculate to accumalate, right?

There is a cutoff point, nut noone will ever reach it.

The 0.8BB winner will always have way bigger swings than the 1.6BB winner no matter how he plays or what games he play in, and im pretty sure its not even close.

and also, to not have a ds bigger than 350BB as a 0.8BB winner is pretty crazy also and another example of extreme variance (in a good way though)

"and also, to not have a ds bigger than 350BB as a 0.8BB winner is pretty crazy also and another example of extreme variance (in a good way though)"

hmm, I'll consider myself lucky then :-)

Just looked back and found a 500 BB DS from a couple months ago, but it was at higher stakes where I RB grind and only slightly beat the rake.