how does everbody on here cope with the variance in the game?

I play stts mostly, and have good and bad runs but the bad runs always seem to last longer

When i am running bad i know i am guilty of poor decisions, and always suffer from them. Conversely when i am running ok the same poor decision seems to result in a split pot or a win.

Usually on a bad run i will reduce the number of tables i play, or miss a couple of days. I used to change sites a lot, but there are not many sites with 08 stts running regular know, so all my play is on stars.

I spoke to marky_crash at the tables the other day and he just plays through the bad times, but his bad times are probably only 20% roi

I would be interested to hear how other regs cope.

The most important is to differ between running bad and playing bad.

As to variance: You "run bad" half the time and "run good" half the time, that's a mathematical fact, and that gives me comfort.

Have a healthy br and focus on playing good. Ignore variance.

I ignore it. Is that coping with it?

You're going to have upswings and downswings. The wilder the game, the higher the upswings and the lower the downswings. Meh.

I don't think that's "variance." I think that has to do with the agony of losing a given amount being greater than the joy of winning the same given amount.

I think this is talking about "luck." When you make a poor decision, you figure to suffer from it more than you gain. That's why it's a poor decision. You can make a poor decision playing poker, get lucky, and win. But usually you lose. (That's why it's a poor decision).

Good idea.

Buzz

ding

when running bad try as hard as you can to flop the nuts and get paid~~~

Make relentless perfect decisions.

+1

Also alcohol, boxing bag, loud angry music and quitting early. Tomorrow is a new day. Life is too short to play through a downswing IMO, better off playing golf.

i`m on a streak myself right now.
but i`m sure it will end within the next 250 games.
it allways does
and by the way even marky has some bad runs.
funny is ;thats when he starts a bit in the chat




ps:whats your nick on stars mullion?

to make this clear from the start of my post:

i don't know much about cashgames but in sngs there IS good and bad runs. There is no such thing like a random game at all times.

Only thing u need to do is to feel what's going on at the time. If i keep losing every AA2X preflop all in i will stop open shoving and will look at more flops and try to hit them hard and value bet the shi..out of the hand.
Nothing else u can really do but wait until that happens ( during these runs u usually don't hit too many flops ).

Then on the bright side of life we have the rungood. When i get the feeling i'm on this ( like winning AK23 vs AA34 preflop all in and every AAXX holds up i open shove ) i start to take more preflop risks i would not take otherwise.

Say: 9 man stt, 4 left, 1 huge chip leader and i have a little more then the other 2. Chip Leader abuses the bubble and literally shoves every hand. I will call him a lot lighter when im feeling the good run ( and i will win a lot ) but when it's the other way around im just gonna try and cash.

It's pretty sick, but if u play 200 sngs/day u will get both the good and the bad at least once and it's also pretty obvious.

Like i open 30 18man turbo tables:
The first 20 i get sucked out by KKKQ in a preflop all in vs my AA23. And this will happen in close to all sngs. Ppl can call with any 4 and will win and i know this b4 it actually happens.

Then the next 10 sngs im slightly tilting and open up my shoving/calling range a little What will happen is: winning hands like A345 vs AAK2 and stuff EVERY time and go on to win 6 sngs and come 2nd in the other 4.

So basically what im saying is ( and this is also true in general without any "runs" ) - play optimal at any point. Feel the engine and react accordingly.

ppl might say: well if it's profitable to openshove AA2X then u should always do it regardless. I don't believe in this in sngs to be honest even though it would be completly true if all was random which it's not.

Marky was mentioned: he does the same thing btw. if that helps.

Again as Zuri said talking about SNG's only ....

I will happily just open ship aa with a low card most of the time (not all of the time) but if i am running awful AIPF like this and experiencing the downside of variance then i start to play softer for a little while and limp or open raise instead of getting it in preflop and take a more cautious small ball approach with all my big hands. The aax with a low card can be played profitably either way imo so if im running good then i usually just ship it in , if not i use pot control and try and reduce variance a little.

I view myself as being lazy open shipping like that but if im running good then yeah i am lazy lol. There are many times i open fold aa with a low card too , if it is like aa8x and the equity setup is horrible...

I guess just adapt to every table individually and take into account how your running.

Manndl mentioned i can strop in chat when things arn't going my way too , i try and be pleasant but yes he is right i can be an ass in chat if i feel im running bad , i guess i can on occasion use chat to vent and let off steam instead of letting it affect my game.

Marky and zuri - surely you have just advised exactly what NOT to do.


Mix it up, aboslutely , but "if I'm running good I shove, if not I limp??????????" sounds like some sort of defensive tilt to me.

as a cash game plr i am guided by my all in ev (not 100% accurate obv) but a very good guide over what can be incredibly long, sick bad runs.

+1

We both said this was relating to sngs , Cash games are a whole different ballgame.

Also when i am playing SNG's i am trying to score as high as i can in the stars sng leaderboard so i am viewing the games in bunches of 100 , i want to be as consistent as i can over the 100 games so if im running bad and being stacked when im AIPF i think switching to a style with less variance and a small ball approach to ensure minimal damage to any 100 block score and try and improve on consistency is wise.

Also i usually play 5 or 6 at once and and have a target score (which at the end of the day will be reflected on profit margins) so say i have the 6 games in front of me....

I get dealt aa4k @ 10-20 and 3 people limp , 9 handed this early simply open shoving you are getting a called a high % of the time and obviously 95%+ of the times your called your ahead so i have no problem with just shoving here.

Also if i open raise here i am getting called multiway very often and unless i smack the flop hard i am going to be throwing the hand away often post flop so i think shoving is probably the best way to get value out of the hand.

Having said that lets say this scenario arises twice early over the 6 tables and i bust both and am left with 4 tables , i will at this point very often (again not always) start playing my "big hands" a bit softer because if i continue to just shove these big hands and continue to run bad before i know it i can be left with 1 or 2 games out of the 6 which i may or may not cash in but at the end of the day my score (and profit i am targeting) from the games will not be what i had in mind.
At this stage i am happy to switch to a more small ball approach and control variance and be more patient in the remaining 4 games to try and make sure i find spots where i have much more of a lock on the hand or am freerolling or can pick chips up easily and try and ensure i maximise my points (and profit) from the remaining games.

So if i can small ball it and reduce variance and be more likely to cash taking the more cautious approach .. why dont i play all my games like that?

Several reasons , volume for a start i cant focus to the same level on 6 as i can on 4 so im happy to make more marginal but still +EV plays when i have the 6 tables than when i have 4.

Also it mixes my ranges up and makes me a little less predictable.

Also if we are talking about this situation arising in the 6 games twice early , lets assume the reverse for a minute and i win the first couple times i ship early it gives me a cushion over the block of games and lets me just try and crush the 6 games knowing if things start going downhill i can revert to a more cautious approach at any time.

I guess i see a similarity in this approach to people playing MTT's a lot of players who get a big stack will try and be active and chip up more but if things dont go so well they will reign it in a bit , i guess my approach to sngs is similar but over the block of games i am playing not just over 1 game.

So i would say shoving hands like aa4x aa5x etc is probably the best way to get value out of them early on but for me personally i think it is wrong taken in the vacuum of 1 game as i can put the chip equity to better use but this negated by the fact i am aiming for volume too i resort to the tactics i mentioned above.

thanks for the replies all, guess we all agree downswings suck.

Very interesting hearing zuris and markys strategy for coping, must be good stuff if you both employ it, ty.

@ manndl i will pm you my screename, im shy

run it twice
take breaks
get it in good

couple things i forgot to mention.

i can totally understand your point of view.
If we were chatting among complete newbies i would always tell them to do exactly what u just said. I will tell them not to care about variance and just do whatever is most profitable at any point of the game.

However: i assume ppl who find this forum and regularly post in it have enough experience to allready know this.

I understand OP that he believes he doesn't get the optimum at all times and is looking for help. As marky said: you are looking at the leaderboard when playing competitive sngs and therefor look at it as sets of 100 games.
So it doesnt really help if u go on saying:" oh well my AA45 is good here let's just shove it for the longrun money" but keep losing at this particular time when u need to get in points towards the leaderboard.

marky crushes this leaderboard almost every week and i believe i had a shot too playing less tables. The most problem 30 tabling is EXACTLY the issue we are talking about right now:

It's no big deal to make the best decisions at all time ( assuming 18man turbos now, cause of no real HU and so on ) but i'm losing roi because it's tougher to realize the good/bad runs this way. I will exactly still to the regular guideline which demand me to do this and that for longrun profit and so on but i won't adjust to easily to the "runs".
Meaning: i just keep open shoving AAlowX and keep losing but if i realized that this was going on, i would raise and play hit/fold which would give me a better roi.

Usually after a while i realize it and adjust. In KO's it's way easier to see what's going on. Btw: came 4th in last weeks leaderboard playing ko's ( havent for months ) and there were a lot of sngs where i folded AAXX preflop in certain situations to get in some points. And then i had a good run and would just shove em all or call most all ins
was just unlucky i allready had over 400 games in and it didn't count towards the low orbit no more ( made 702 points in one set of 20 lol, which is 15 wins and 1 2nd ). Not bragging really was micros..

A good player not knowing what's going on would fold some hands i didn't and wouldnt reach these kinda points. A bad player on a good run will probably make a decent score but never this high, so the only way to do it is play solid poker and realize what run you at and then just run super well for 20 games straight.

So to end my long post ( sorry if some things are hard to write but my english after just getting out of bed is horrible.. ) i would say:

don't do things very different when running bad and don't lose profit ( playing AA34 preflop not shoving can also be profitable if you know what your doing postflop ) but ADJUST, because im close to sure that there's the small edge a really great player ( not me i have tonns of leaks ) has over the good player.

Wat??

trying to adjust to good/bad runs is silly, unless they are caused by you playing bad or good. Adjusting to something like losing shove fests with the best hand is dumb.

By definition a really great player is going to have an edge over a good player, I don't understand what your point is there.

well i guess i tried to show my point, marky did too. If u cashgame players play different and it's working for you: all good.
I'm not sure what the value of our replies on an sng question would be since we both have 0 BOP tickets and a negative roi
Guess we are dumb. OP is a nice guy and i guess he can read all the answers and decide what he likes and what not.

As a stt player i can totally understand zuris (and markys) point, and respect the fact that they are long term winners at the game.

I reckon its a mindset thing at times, i know if i have shoved a premium pre-flop and got busted in the last three or four stts, and then get dealt a-a-w-x i am more concerned about getting busted here and now than using long term view, if you get my drift?

zuri - i dont know your screename so can't directly comment on your play but i would guess it's clear your good - ive pld marky numerous times so know he's decent.

But this is a thread about "dealing with variance".

You two appear to mainly be talking about strategy based on things like battle of the planets and dealing with more tables - that's fine, playing more tables less optimally than more optimal play on fewer tables can reap bigger returns - similarly ensuring BOP qualification is far more important than finishing 1st or 3rd in a $16 stt BUT has NOTHING to do with dealing with variance.

where you do mention variance i believe you are both costing yourselves money.
where your change of play has nothing to do with any other factors except "ive been running bad or running good". the reality is this has no effect on how the next hand should play.

i say all this as someone who far prefers to play stts and mtts but can make more playing cash. i love tourneys.

I totally agree with jeztuck.

I can't believe Züri, your talking about adjusting to good and badruns wtf?! If i believe in sth like that, i wouldnt be able to play poker. Adjusting your style when you have like 10 sng to reach 100 and need to gain xxx points more for the botp leaderboard seems fine to me.

^This.

Changing how you play some hands based on BOTP stuff can make sense.

Thinking that because you are running bad you are more likely to get stacked when you push AALx preflop is just complete superstition nonesense. What happens in a given hand is completely independent from previous events (regarding the randomness of the cards).

to prohpili:

we discuss this at a beer and i'm gonna show u my points in person.
It's tough to break through all the "text book" laws and i was well aware when posting what the most likely response in here will be. I don't care too much though since i've played enough sngs to know certain things.

Im also happy if ppl don't adjust, but once again: OP asked for oppinions and i shared mine.

Try this:

play 2k omaha8 1.50 ko's and fold all hands until u get something like AA2X. Meaning: just wait until u're sure u hold the best hand. Once u get the hand, open shove it. ppl will call u a lot. and they will hold KKXX, QQXX and even JJXX. So usually u're about as fav. as u can be.

Then look into ur tracker and check results.

It's gonna be something like this:

8:1 wins
1:8 losses
10:2 wins
0:7 losses

and this will go on over the whole 2k sample.

since it's not gonna be:

3:2 wins
1:2 losses
5:3 wins
2:4 losses

it should be clear to anybody that there is no such thing as randomness. Not saying it's an unfair game, just saying u need to be aware and make more money while on a good run then losing on a bad one. That's also the reason i never call it variance, since variance to me would mean a completely random game.

Overall i believe it's fine if marky and i keep getting 1st places in the leaderboard

Is this a level? Why on earth would PS random number generator be intentionally hacked to enforce good/bad runs?

it's not. I don't know you and i don't know ur experience playing sngs on stars.

I don't work for the company so how would i know? I didn't for AP, UB or full tilt either. I guess billion dollar companies do what they have to do to get more $$$.

Guess these streaks could lead to rushes. If i run good i feel like im top of the world and this feeling would probably lead a bad player to donate money to the site once broke. A good player on a losing streak could go on tilt and play higher to regain losses which will accumulate more rake and make him bust eventually which will lead him to put more money on the site, since he knows he tiltet away.
Good players could also be thinking it's variance and increase volume which will generate again..more rake.

I could name tonns of reasons for them to do this, but we will all probably never find out an exact solution.

All i know is that the odds of losing ( meaning getting scooped ) AAXX vs KKXX preflop 8 times in a row are not THAT good but still happened hundreds of times to me so far. And the same the other way around. the words "in a row" should be the biggest indicator of a non random game.

Im aware it can happen ( does in live games too ) but not this consistent over such a large sample size, going terrible to great and back without any "normal" running in between.