Just curious as to what you guys think could be normal when it comes to swings?

Playing live now with 186 hours logged (small sample I know) I'm currently making $130 an hour at 2/2 (with a "mandatory" $5 btn straddle, so I guess 2/2/5?). I know this isn't feasible long-term. I'm currently +$24,100. This game can play huge.. in the early mornings when we start getting short handed (game goes overnight) we tend to do the $5 button straddle and sb blind raises to $20 (basically 2/2/5/20?). My biggest winning session was +$13,500, and my biggest losing session was -$4,300. My biggest upswing has been +$32,500 and my biggest downswing -$9,400 (if you want to even consider them swings since the sample size is so small).

My latest session of -$4,300 was about ~8 buy ins. I normally buy in for $500 but this time I was buying in anywhere between $500-1000, so I'll just say 8 buy ins. Not going to get into the hands, but I just kept running into it. A lot of hands that I was all in I was flipping or better and losing, along with a few that would probably be considered spews where I was dominated against drunk holiday players that were practically giving their money to everybody else at the table, but taking mine. For example, one called the turn with an open ender no other draw for $800 and lost to someone's 2nd pair that missed the nfd. Yet I ran into sets this one session more than I have in any other session, it was rough. Online I know this can be common, but you see so many more hands. There's no saying it can't happen live, I'm just curious as to how much variance I should expect. Live tends to go multiway every single hand so the variance seems like it'd be higher.. but I see people say it should actually be LOWER since you should only really play possible nutted hands (AsXs, big pocket pairs, etc) unlike online where it's heads up more often. Like T987r is basically just as valuable as T987ds live, since your mighty 8 high flush draw is likely never good if it hits when it goes 6 handed to the flop, and if so nobody is paying it off with a worse flush.

How many buy ins would you consider to be "normal" or common for a single 8 hour session to win/lose? What about the swings?

You gotta be able to win by minimizing what's known as "Parteyer" affects which is from Joseph Parteyer a 15th century English gambler who coined the phrase when he lived at the Starlich Casino in London for 535 days and won and lost his network equivalent to $10m in today's dollars over that span a documented 894 times. Unsure if it's comparable to plo but I'm guessing you run the risk with a high hourly from playing lots of hands so if you want to do this for a living avoiding swings by tightening your range should help.

What you describe seems pretty reasonable for that game.

I once busted 15 times and got back to even on the 16th bullet. I once busted 18 times.

The variance in live is smaller cause you are more nutted when you gii and your opponents have less equity as they’re making bad calls.

Your T987ds vs T987r comparison is flawed. When big all ins happen people will have to fold higher flush and backdoor flush draws. The guy with a set or wrap doesn’t get to choose his side cards and your flush draws could be live. It’s also nice to block your opponents.

Your sample is meaningless. That’s basically 1 month full time. If you’re still at 130 in 6 months then you are likely a big winner. Note that you don’t need to be a crusher to win big at 2-2-5-20.

I know it's still better to be ds because you can freeroll, block opponents, hit backdoors, etc. But what I meant by it is, if you go 6 ways to the flop and end up 5 ways to the turn looking to hit your wrap but instead the flush completes, odds are you are no good with a middling flush. You're not really looking to hit the flush when going 6 handed. Whereas online since it ends up HU a lot, you might still not be good and should be cautious but will feel much more comfortable turning a 8 high flush than if you have the entire table still in the hand.

You are right but I think playing T987r is a leak. And once in a while it checks down and you win with 8 high flush