Hello everyone!

My name is Julijan, and Im here to introduce the first PLO EV variance pool, which is launching on 1st of December.

There is all the requiered information on our website www.ploevpool.com

Start defeating variance, and join the pool today!

your website doesnt give any info besides "we fight variance"

How does this tool work?

I don't think this is a good idea or likely to work out.

This feels super sketchy tbh.

All off the specifics and formulas are in the "pool rules" section.

Simply put it will work in a way, that transactions will be made from people who run above EV to those who run below EV in the current period. Once the pool gets big enough, everyone should get money very closely to their EV at the end of the month.
Ofcourse pool can swing into negative or positive even with alot of players, but those swings are still way less brutal than it can get for an indivual player. Those "swings" will be splited based on the volume of specific player and his average buyin (formulas in the pool rules).

I am a 250/500 spin&go player on Winamax, and in Spin&go format I would say that 90% of all professional players above 50 buyin are part of one of the pools. Swings are just huge (similar or probably even bigger than in PLO), so this became very common solution for us. Thats why we will try to make it work also in PLO.

If this isn't already a scam, it will turn into one.

Hi there.
I'm working with Julijan to make this pool work. I'm profesional poker player for 15 years. I've transitioned to PLO25 in 2017 now I'm regular on PLO2000 for 3 years now. I know that the variance can be brutal thats why I've decided to join this project. I would not believe it would work if I didn't know that in Spin&Go format, the pools are standard. There are pools with 500+ players in it. Every profesional is in a pool due to super high variance.

I've played in Rozvadov last week in PLO5000 games. I have no interest in scamming people with this pool. Its small service compared to stakes I play.
I've ran below EV every year of my PLO career. It has been super hard to grind through that. All new introduced games have and higher variance. Recreationals enjoy that however profesionals do not. Its a good service to the profesional community, to reduce variance between them. I think the benefits you gain outweigh the little cost there is.
Its hard to break through with an idea in community.

I understand the "this is scam" point of view. There is a lot of scam on internet going on.
As I said, I'm a real person I played in Rozvadov high stakes (from PLO1000 to PLO5000) for a week now. I might also go to EPT Prague in december. I've also played PLO tournaments up to 10k buyin on Pokerstars and GGPoker. Check my reg date for this name on 2+2.

Pool with enough players will provide great value to all the professionals. I want to create something of value for the community.

Miha Piršič

Show of hands: does anyone here know any 'trusted' rakeback guys who turned out to be a degen and ran off with a load of your and other people's money? These very often do not start out as a scam, but temptation gets the better of them.

Secondly, even if it's not a scam, this is still paying to reduce variance in the same way that equity chopping is. Where we get given a free opportunity to reduce variance by RIT - technically not free as the fact it takes a little longer cuts slightly into our hourly rate, but that is made up for by the fact that with reduced variance we can afford to play higher stakes or buy in deeper - we should take that opportunity. But even if the owner is a fish who puts all the profits back into the player pool, there's still overheads that mean that money is coming out of the player pool. The benefit of reduced variance is not enough to justify that, in the same way that a 1% fee for equity chopping is not worth it either.

Miha and Julijan - I'm not saying the concept of a variance pool is bad or an obvious scam.

But implementing it and enforcing the rules may prove exceptionally challenging. Joining the pool seems to requires a high level of trust in other players and/or the pool adminstrators. In addition to confidence that the pool was well designed in the first place and is robust enough to address unexpected issue and make structural tweaks / etc.

Other conflicts of interest are possible, especially around shared hand histories and other aggregate player data.


Another good way of evaluating a variance pool is comparing it to the pros/cons of a more traditional staking arrangement.

Though of course, in the history of 2+2, no-one has yet to link their screenname with their real name and then turn out to be a scam artist or help a scammer by providing cover and getting more customers. Not saying your vouch is worth nothing, but I'm afraid with your 4 posts in 15 years, it's not worth enough to justify making other people profit at significant risk.

Well, training sites take out of player pool too. Secondly , do you play PLO?
I've had months I ran 5k below EV on PLO200 couple of months in a row. I would gladly pay 150$ to insure myself.
Even if you have big winrate, you can still have many consecutive months of losing. Everyone who has experience big down swings gets this. You have to understand that many players don't make it because of variance. Its a form of insurance. People insure many things in life.

Training sites offer something valuable in return.

Paying more than a very small price in order to reduce variance is fishy. It's part of the reason Phil Hellmuth is seen as a mark in cash games. Other than the fact he plays pretty badly, every time he gets it in ahead he values his own fragile mindset more than the EV he's gaining and asks to give away equity in the form of insurance. This is a very difficult job in some ways, one of the biggest is dealing with variance. It's just lazy to give away equity in order to reduce it when you can just try to improve your mindset. It's well-understood in gambling circles that insurance is -EV. That's why the business exists.

There's obviously nothing to stop people who trust each other swapping bits of their action in order to reduce variance, but this level of organised, mass-swapping is sketchy at best. If you can't take the variance, perhaps you should find a different game.

I've lost as a 97.5% and 96% equity favorite live to the same guy for stacks in PLO. I demand reparations!

If its that how you think its fine. So if you have an edge in a game you would avoid it because of high variance?
Well a guy who would think this over will get insurance and play this game. So does almost every profesional Spin&Go player.

Professional spin&go player? That exists?

I am all in favour of reducing variance, whether by playing slightly tighter, or RIT, but I am not in favour of paying for that privilege, and think people should just get more comfortable with variance rather than pay for it to go away.

There are couple of pools of 500+ players. Monthy Buyins exceed 100mio...
Its basicly a reason for me to join this project. The model working is proved by reality.

Appreciate the thought, would not buy.

How many players you have so far? Miha, are you still playing on gg?

If you get handhistories from GG can you use them for MDA? Do you have any playes on the pool yet?

Send an email a week ago and didnt answer. Dont trust them

Obviously lol.