I've been listening to Sessions by DGAF a lot, and I sort of wonder now about variance more than I used to.

Specifically, if the game we play at the casino for NL 1/2 is closer to roulette than chess. I play a historically TAG low-variance style, and even though I've been winning for the last 3 months pretty solid, I now attribute winning to "running good" rather than anything skill based I may be doing. It's just something I've been wondering about. If I'm wrong I'm wrong.

Another thing, started playing live in 2006, and then a 200 dollar buy-in was worth a lot more in real money than it is today. I wonder if this might be behind some of the crazy, crazy games I've been in.

It's not chess, but it's not just a +EV roulette either. Maybe Risk.

Are you saying you don't think anyone can beat bad players?

No, I think they always lose over time, but when there are so many people in hands--and drawing no matter what--it's tough for your +EV edge to come out.
Perhaps my perspective isn't long-term enough though.

40% to win 2:1 will have much lower downswings then 51% to win 1:1 over any meaningful sample size. Your perception of the situation is skewed because you look at very small sample sizes and probably underestimate how much variance actually exists in all situations.

This is something I have thought about from time to time.

Speaking imprecisely and more conceptually, consider that poker is a multi-dimensional space - like a graph but with many more than two dimensions.

And think - if there were only two dimensions (meaning only two variables) that each point that might appear on the graph represents a possible result of what happens when all the possible values in the x-axis interact, one by one, with all the possible values on the y-axis. Think of the very large number of points - dots on the chart - as the mathematical "space" of the game that plays only in two dimensions.

When we run Pokerstove with one hand versus one hand, that is such a space. The "expectations" defined in that Pokerstove run are easy to understand and get our minds around.

But that's only "two dimensions". With only a little imagination we can conceive of many more possible dimensions that affect the results of "just one hand":

* number of players in the pot
* how well each of them play
* what style each of them play (TAG, Lag, etc)
* How drunk each player is
* How high, and on what, each player is
* How positionally aware each player is
* Stack size for each player
* How tilted is each player
* How "up" or "down" money-wise each player is
* How much being up or down affects their play
* How long ago each player got there
* How soon will each player want to leave
* How skilled each player is
* How each player at the table views us
* How we view each player at the table
* How refreshed or tired each player is
* How much each player develops a player image for the others in the pot
* How each player tends to act against each player in the pot based on his view of their image
* How each player views "pot odds" in making bad calls multiway
* How much risk tolerance each player has
* How successful has each player been running bluffs this session

As can be seen, this list can be expanded even more.

Now, think of each possible "value" of the answer to each question, for each player, combined with all the other questions, and imagine a dot or "point" on this hard-to-imagine graph with so many axis-lines...

... and realize that when we play one hand and get a result from that hand, this constitutes only one dot on that graph.

... and realize that we never ever will play another hand that will duplicate that dot, or any other dot, no matter how long we play.

Some of the dots represent "we win the hand", and some of the dots represent "we lose the hand", on only two of the axis lines. How much we win or lose on that hand depends on all the other values on all the other axis lines, the ones we can list and the ones we haven't thought to list.

Now, we add up how much we won or lost and consider that somehow representative of something, our "results". Maybe there should be another axis ranging from "sun-running" to doom switch", another for "game selection", no matter. The point is, how many hands do we have to play to get a "representative" sample of this immense, multi-dimensional space, to represent "our win rate" or our "skill"?

Our win rate is real. Our "skill" in navigating how to play in this multi-dimensional space?
Maybe it is real but, dang, how many data points does it take to separate "skill" from all the other variables? The effect of "all the other variables" is what constitutes "variance".

That's why win rates are a statistical thing and have upper and lower bounds, that converge the more hands and hours and days and years we play.

This line of thinking is not intended to encourage overly loose play, or the play of more hands with -EV (EV is also real). But it IS intended to encourage so humility - it does for me anyhow - there is good play and bad play, but "results" are a long-term "thing", not a hand or session or week "thing".

And "learning how to play better" is an abbreviation for considering as many of the variables that we can, and adjusting as well as we can, knowing all the while that we will never completely master the interaction of all the variables in the immense "space" of the data and little dots that represent the various possible outcomes of each hand.

Not very articulate, I fear.

But still I find it useful when running hot or staring into the abyss, sort of a mental shock absorber to play as well as I can at the moment.

Very articulate Nozsr and I am going to read that a second time. Very true, thank you.

Very interesting synopsis of what it really means to play tournament poker. It reminded me of an idea I had some time ago that might give us a better barometer of relative skill: run a multi table tournament where each table is separated off from the others by walls and players cannot go to any other table. This is because at each table, each hand is dealt using identically shuffled decks of cards. In other words, at each table, the first hand would see each player at each seat getting the exact same hole cards, the exact same flop would come out, etc. Each deck is shuffled randomly, but at each table the random shuffle is identical.

In this way, we can really compare how various players handle the exact same deals of cards and we can analyze afterwards how each table made out (assuming someone was notating in detail each hand at each table). It is extremely unlikely that any two tables would have played each hand in the same way. So we'd have lots of data to analyze.

Of course, this would take some preparation, to set up all the decks of cards so that each table had X number of pre-shuffled decks. Maybe have 10 decks at each table, to cover 10 hands at each table, and as each hand is completed, have someone randomly shuffle one deck, then put the other decks in the same order as they become available, and put the decks at the end of the deck queue at each table. There would have to be some means to prevent human error. It might all be worth it as an experiment to see how different collections of players react differently to the exact same hands being dealt.

And if the shuffle of each deck in turn was recorded, a tournament could be rerun again and again with the same ordering of decks, but the players would not know the ordering.

Trying to think of a name for this.... "Pre-ordered NL Texas Hold 'Em"? Not very catchy.

I quit listening to Sessions because I decided he was never going to learn the obvious lesson that's smacked him in the face time and time again.

You beat low stakes poker by paying attention to what your opponents are doing and employing an effective counter strategy.

DGAF doesn't do this. Instead he continually cuffs himself by showing up with way too many hands. He excuses this by saying he's much better at hand reading and sizing up opponent personalities.

Well, you don't need a soul read to know your J4o is often going behind and when your opponent's personality is "calls too much" it's a bad idea to often be bluffing.

It's basically "Special Pleading: The Podcast starring Yeah, But…".

The only episode of Sessions worth listening to is the one where Matt Moore tells him all of this.

Delete Sessions and add His and Hers. The strategy is better and the grinder-procedural narrative is honest, positive and helpful.

1-2 is getting easier.

This is exactly what they do in "Duplicate Bridge".

I'll check out this podcast.

In general though, you want to embrace these crazy games when you're in it. The variance can be nasty and it can truly feel like bingo, but when you flop good, your skill advantage will help you get more value out of the hands than your opponents will.

A few individual sessions and you're down a few buyins wondering what on earth you're doing but in the long run it'll work out.

I will google His and Hers. Have not heard of it. In a way, 1/2 is getting easier (at least in the midwest) because i feel like a lot of players nowadays aren't mathematically based at all. It causes some huge roulette like swings though lol.

I think it's called Duplicata, but I could be wrong.

Your goal is to print your equity and a proper bankroll is required to account for variance.

You simply can't have 20% of your roll on the table in the form of one buyin. People who talk about variance in a purely anecdotal way are also often just bitter losers who think they are better than most of their opponents and they just aren't. Hubris and ego cloud their world view.

Bankroll not a problem for me at present. I think for NL 1/2 10k is the rec. bankroll

Agreed, this is what I was trying to say. So long as you are rolled for many, many buyins and put in the hours you'll be fine.

You're fine then. The only thing stopping you from not being able to beat live 1/2 then is your own skill level. You'll have plenty of times where you're down multiple buy ins on a single day. They'll be other times when you need a cart to stack all your racks on.

These games can be crazy at times.

I still don't think it's reasonabe to play 1/2 if your end goal is profit though. Even if you're one of the best out there at 1/2, even crushing it in god mode, you're kind of capped at 20bb/hour and that's being super generous. Most guys I knew were anywhere from 8-14bb/hour with some outliers above and below. This was at the lowest level in Macau, which is like the equivalent of $3/$6. The guys playing the nosebleeds have significantly lower expected winnings. I knew one guy who was just happy to get a few blinds of profit over the course of a day long session.

There are many jobs out there that will pay that and include things like healthcare, matching 401ks etc, better hours, respect from the community, etc. 1/2 is great for having a fun hobby that can generate side income. It's a horrible life choice if that's the end goal.

If you can't reliably beat 5/10 or higher for a living than grinding live poker for a living will never be an optimal career choice. Even if you didn't go to college, there are many careers out there with far less stress, added benefits and upward mobility that poker doesn't offer.

Very few poker players earn more today than they did 10 years ago. You can't really say that about anyone else who didn't choose poker as a profession.

Wow, thanks for that info, I had no idea. So if they go to all that trouble in bridge, it must work as a means of measuring relative skill.

Has anyone seriously considered bringing this concept to nl poker? One caveat I thought of yesterday is that if you had say 10 tables all starting off with say 9 or 10 players each, you would likely get 10 different results of the very first hand, which from that point on affects the relative results because on the second and all subsequent hands, you do have the same cards dealt out, BUT you have different chip stacks for the players at each table, and chip stacks do affect decisions. So the only hand that would give really "useful" data would be the very first hand. I wonder how duplicate bridge deals with that (no pun intended).

It would still be interesting, though, to see how different players of different skill and experience levels handle the exact same deal of cards.

They can do it in bridge because the cards are kept separate and order doesn't matter. Also there are only 2 "sides" (the N-S teams, and the E-W teams) so you're essentially competing against half the player pool (though in the end each group is given points so you can compare between the two sides, if imperfectly).

Here's the holder for duplicate - you can see it has 4 slots that each hold 13 cards, one for each of the 4 players. https://www.baronbarclay.com/product/4592/Royal-Boards

once the cards are shuffled and put into the slots they are given to each player to use, then put back into the same slots for the next group. They are never recombined (into tricks), and there's nothing like the "muck" in poker.

For poker, order doesn't matter for your hole cards, but it does for the board. So you'd have to invest a contraption that holds the 9-10 pairs of hole cards, plus the stub, rather than just the 4 sections for bridge. And the dealer at each table would have to very carefully keep the board in it's proper order so it could be redealt again. And there could be no muck, each player would have to keep their hole cards, and you'd have to come up with a way to signal when a player had folded. And finally then each player would only "compete" against the players at the same seat at other tables. e.g. all the seat 1s would compete against each other, all the seat 2's would compete against each other, etc.

Once while teaching backgammon to a group of about 14 people, towards the end of the group of sessions, I did an experiment.

Seven games were set up, but there was only one set of dice. Mine.

I would roll the dice, say out loud what was rolled, and then wait for everyone to make their moves.

When all the players moved, I would roll again, announce the roll, etc.

After about 8 rolls, everyone looked at everyone else's game.

No two were alike.

I would like to see that done with experienced backgammon players. I wonder what the results would be like then? Is there 'correct' play in backgammon? I assume there is, and novices might not know it/execute it like an experienced player might.

Similarly, take two cash games, one 1/2, another 5/10. Each table has similar/exact starting stacks (in BB's), decks are set identical. How much variance between the two? Assuming 5/10 has more experienced players, and 1/2 are regular mix of novices/regs.

Let's just go back to Newton ... for every reaction there's an opposite. Players are smarter than in the past. If they see a Nit, or even a TAG, they will look for spots to 'set up' that Player to lose a big one even if it's -EV long term. Some don't care one bit about EV, they want the thrill of the play/victory. It's amazing how one of the main 1/2 'pros' in our area still gets action when everyone knows his range and playing style ... and yet he's a long term winner from what I can tell.

I've said for a long time there are 3 classes of Players ... 'Card', 'Gambler' and 'Poker' and you need to adjust your play each hand for those styles of play based on who remains in the hand. This biggest issue I see in 1/2 is that Players wander from one style to another, even within a session ... and certainly session to session. A Player's emotional state (tilt or outside influences) will affect how they trod through their session and if you want to be 'highly' profitable at 1/2 live then you need to be aware of all the factors ... and still 'run good' per say.

I constantly post 'play poker', not just 'cards' and charts. The pots I steal from live reads allows me to keep sticking my chips in there looking for those larger opportunities to GII in higher equity spots and then hope to 'run good'. I'm considered a pretty decent Player in my area, but if you ask a lot of the regs I'm just as famous for the beats I take when I have someone unknowingly crushed.

Long story to get to a point ... I totally agree that 'controlling' variance these days is very tough at 1/2, but your ability to sense the various forms of play and how they may affect the spots you're getting into has it's own merits.

Why is 5/10 'more predictable'? Because, as stated, you 'should' have Players who are more consistently playing the same way ... which means you don't (shouldn't) have as many in game variables to worry about/consider when making decisions. In fact, one could say that there's more 'card playing' at the higher stakes than 'poker' ... at least Pre-Flop. I can absolutely guarantee that there are more showdowns at 1/2 than 5/10. Just that one stat means that your variance is more 'under control' based on one less chance for a suckout to occur. GL

I imagine for the general population it's more like a slot machine than anything, buy-in for $100 at a time and hope it lasts, not really expecting to win big, just hoping to get lots of play time out of your money, always the off chance of hitting a jackpot (BBJ), every limp of $2 is like a spin of the machine

lol at 1/2 pros

It depends on where you play.

Where I play, it plays exactly like Zynga Poker. 9 players, the dealer & two waitresses seeing a flop for $97 makes zero sense. And the donkbet of $2 on the flop? Love it.

I think some of it has to do with $200 not being as valuable as it once was even 5 years ago.

1/2 has always rewarded tight aggressive robot play. Tom Dwan even speaks of this in one of his interviews. As a professional, you are always trying to make the most profitable move possible. There is much more to poker than just hitting cards, learning how to size bets relative to pot size on wet/dry board textures will get you much farther than just playing ABC. And not bluffing calling station/loose passive players will also set you up for success.

Good professional poker is much more akin to fishing than anything else IMO. You need to have the patience of a saint to be a professional live player. You also have to be comfortable with taking it in the ass sometimes (like getting set over setted after waiting 4 hours for a playable hand).