Quick hand for some backstory:

Villain is a big calling station and in general a very "weird" playing player, it seems like he doesn't follow any strategy, just makes random moves based on feel.

Deepstack game, around 250bbs effective.
We're UTG with KK

We open to 3bbs, BTN calls, villain in the BB 3-bets to 10bbs, we 4-bet to 25bbs, villain calls.

Flop: Q 8 5
Pot: 53bbs

Villain checks, we bet 30bbs, villain calls.

Turn: Q 8 5 3
Pot: 113bbs

Villain checks, we bet 60bbs, villain calls.

River: Q 8 5 3 8
Pot: 233bbs

Villain checks. Pot is already big but I believe he will call down with any queen so I go all-in for the remaining 135bbs.

Villain snap calls and shows K8 for rivered trips. I died inside a little bit.

Anyway, the question is not really about the hand (but if you think I could have done something differently then of course do tell!) but about variance. One situation where the hand really played itself and instead of being up 250bbs for the session I was down 250bbs. It's huge and you can't help but feel frustrated and depressed. On one hand I want to play deepstack poker because I know I'm good enough to fold when I'm beat and I can get even more value from calling stations but after a hand like this I start doubting myself. I'm not sure I have the right mindset and discipline to handle such swings, is it better to buy-in for 100bbs to reduce variance? What are your experiences in regards to this?

You know this is an interesting situation to bring up because from personal experience as a live cash game player, this happens rather regularly.

That is this self-doubt can creep in when:
- You value-cut yourself or;
- Your bluff doesn't work;
- You fold and get shown a bluff.

So given that we can observe this. How can we deal with this intelligently?

Can I see, in all likelihood, my mind is placing too much emphasis on doing well in a particular session? And, in all likelihood, in playing perfect. Or things going perfectly in my favour.

So being honest about this, a relatively easy step I can take is to start to develop a broader perspective to see the reality of poker rather than be swept away by it.

I can start to see poker on a longer time-scale by, say, not paying any attention to how a session, a week or even a month goes.

I can see poker as a learning and refining process in which where things go wrong I can use this to fine tune my game.

And we can take this even deeper by looking at the way our minds work.

Something that's vital to see is that it's incredibly easy for the mind to get ahead of itself. For example, if you pull up to cover a weak player in the game your mind automatically starts to create an image of you winning the money off that player. This usually happens at an emotional level where there is this excitement for the opportunity.

From seeing this clearly, an action like pulling up has to be made carefully and intelligently. But how am I to do this if this all happens automatically like I've observed?

An awareness has to be there of course for this automation to not act mechanically. And to break automation requires an action. This action, in fact, leads to an effortless awareness.

In this action, one finds there is no self-doubt as the 'self' is moved out of. (This is a rather challenging thing to describe concisely, completely and precisely).

One final note, if one looks at the decision to play deep or not rationally surely one sees it makes sense if:

1) You have the bankroll for it (it's worth checking this with sims and others if you need in order not to look at your situation from a narrow perspective);
2) You can clearly and honestly explain what edge you have. For example: If you are playing deep to cover players you can see have clear leaks in their game and you have a plan to exploit them.

You do not indicate the stakes, which can ALSO be very relevant to the equation. Something I have noticed when playing 5/10 instead of 2/5 or lower is that people will come along with much weaker holdings than a game where most are playing ABC poker. Further, they have no compunction about playing, and sometimes even leading, with second or third pair.

Viewed in that context, I see this as a standard live hand if this was a 5/10 game. If it was lower, then you had a villain that you should eventually profit from...

Something else that I am curious about, though, is why you took any club holdings out of his hand. After all, a flush got there on the river. On the flop, you also could not have removed 6-7 from his hand, as that would have left him open ended. While it did not get there, it seems like you are bemoaning the results without having adequately evaluated the hand as it was playing out.

As to your variance question, one hand is not variance. It falls in the '**** happens' category. Call for chips and move on to the next hand.

What I haven't mentioned here is that in the same session I put my money in good with a flopped flush and got called by Aces with a nut flush draw, the villain got there. It was another 200bb~ loss for me. So I lost around 450bbs in a matter of an hour even though I think I made good decisions. It was very hard to take.

As for your "ifs":
1. I'm not sure -> I have 30 "100bb buy-ins" but I buy-in for 200bbs so in reality I have 15 buy-ins. This is the money strictly for poker which I know I can lose. However I also have a regular job which is like another 30 "100bb buy-ins" per month so I'm never in much financial danger. But I don't have huge amounts of money saved up just for poker, that's for sure.

2. Depends on the villain of course but in general I definitely have a visible edge against the field.

Of course I considered clubs. I just didn't talk about my thought process much because it's a section about psychology, not strategy.

As for the strategy I had the K plus the opponents is really just a big calling station (which we can see here calling with an 8 till the river and calling a 4-bet OOP with K8s). Also very ofte he would have just lead the river with much less than pot-size bet left to get value from the clubs he was chasing. All of that lead me to believe I'm very often good on the river and should put the rest of the money in. If he had K8s there then he would also have all the Qx like AQ, KQ, QJ, QT, Q9. I also wouldn't be shocked if he called me with an 8 without improving on the river because why the hell not.

I hate to say this but maybe check back river. I know this is nitty but what is villain calling down with? Mainly hands that beat you and maybe aq. Kq jq seem like trivial folds to a preflop 4 bettor/ firing 3 streets.

As played not much you can do. Bad luck. You should try to play in mtts like one stated. I can’t imagine what the roi would be of a solid tag in a game like this if even only a few are playing like this.9

Not sure about the postflop sizes, you might want to go smaller oop 250bb deep, even though he's a huge calling station so whatever.
On the psychological side, losing 4 and a half buy-ins is lol, playing zoom poker x4 online it can happen in less than 15 clicks in a row. I think the problem here is being underrolled/scary money.

Edit: wait, you weren't oop. The hand now becomes super whatever.

Hand isn't important, only its consequences to my mindset.

I definitely don't have "scare money" problem. I might have a problem with being underolled though, should have like 30-40 buy-ins for deepstack and just for poker I guess which I don't. It hurt me to lose those 450bbs so that says much.

Again, you still did not discuss the specific stakes. It DOES make a difference. Simply discussing 'deepstack' or X BB does not address potential mentalities of the others in the game. I mentioned very real differences in play that I have seen at multiple live environs between the low level games and even a step up to $5/10.

At $5/10, there are PLENTY of players that will even lead with second, third and fourth pair, especially if they somehow believe that hero is barreling. More than once, I have seen pots in excess of $2K that got taken down after the river when King high was shown...and I have taken more than my share with little better than fourth pair.

But that not withstanding, this is still not a variance issue. This is a one-hand MEH issue.

I didn't post the stakes because I'm a European, it's kind of different here. Let's say stakes are similar to 2/4$ in US.

This is not one-hand MEH issue, hand was just an example, it happened to me many times that I put 200-300bbs good/being ahead, didn't win the hand and ended the session with a loss even though I felt like I played well.

Let me ask you a different question - how many live sessions are enough to judge if we're a winning player? I played 13 deepstack sessions so far, that's around 90 hours of play and I'm up something like 120$ in US terms (30bbs). That's barely anything, 90 hours of grinding and I'm not even up half a buy-in. I feel like I really haven't been running well but at the same time it's been 13 sessions already and I think like I should have visible positive results by now. So that's why I'm starting to doubt myself.

IMO, that thirteen sessions is nowhere near enough to determine whether you are a winning player. Even though it is close to 90 hours, it tells you little about overall expectations. Poker is necessarily a swingy sort of venture but thirteen longer days doesn't tell you enough about whether you are destined to be a break-even player or not. This would hold true if you had the same people at the table in each session or whether it was constantly a table full of new faces.

Admittedly, if you were being felted every single session and were simply the victim of your own poor play, you might be able to better guesstimate whether to continue at the stakes, but thirteen sessions with some up and some down is generally not enough to really determine if you were losing despite 'getting it in good' and just being run over by the variance train...