volatility

I've heard it claimed that stud poker is wildly volatile. Would anyone care to take a shot at quantifying that? Please, do be technical (if that suits you).


I am interested in both 7cs and in 7cs/8

the "swings" of the game--the "up's" and "down's" of your short term sessions.

The "spread' or "varience' of the game.

Even if you are a very good stud player,you will --at times---experience hugh big bet losses in one session.

But don't let that frighten you! You need the bankroll to sustain such possible losses.

In the long run and with a good bankroll,a good player will show a continuous profit over time---at least 90% of the good players will!

If you have the emotional bankroll to handle such losses when they do occur,you should do well.


Happy pokering,

Sitting Bull

Ps I saw your post on the "General Theory" section .

Example: 1 or 2 pairs in Hold'em is much less "volatile" than 1 or 2 pairs in stud.

In other words,these type hands will hold up much more frequently in hold'em than in stud when you are facing more than two opponents.

it meaans that stud has a high standard deviation. That means that your results will vary more than other games with a low standard deviation. As an example, lets say in stud and holdem your win rate is $30 per hour. In a given session you should be within two standard deviations of that average. But if the stud deviation is 100 and holdem is 50 then your stud results may vary between -170 and +230 but the holdem results will be between -70 and + 130. These numbers have no validity by the way they are just meant as an example.


Low limit stud in my experience does not have high volatility. I have found that at 10-20 and below stud games have the same or slightly smaller deviation than holdem. At least that has been my experience. Once you get above 15-30 the stud antes increase which requires looser and more aggressive play, thereby increasing the standard deviation. This is also partly why stud games are much bigger than holdem, because of teh higher deviation the worse players still have a chance in the short term


Pat

I am a mathematician turned stock trader. I understand the nature of volatility very, very well, and am very good at correlating volatility/hour, volatility/session, and statistical significance. But I am not very experienced at poker. I seek specific, quantitative estimates of volatility. Ideally you will say something like:

"I estimate a 5 hour session at 40 hands/hr has a std dev of n big bets" and give a real estimate for n.


However, I am aware that my brain is wired funny--most people don't actually think like this. I am willing and able to construct a distribution curve around any specific anecdotal data. In fact, I prefer anecdotal data because I am suspicious of most attempts to construct distributions. So when you talk about dollars, tell me what stakes game you mean.


You touched on the point, Patrick, that more aggressive games have higher volatility. This is certainly true, and I suspect the magnitude of this effect is very large. I play primarily 2/4 to 5/10 online, so these stakes interest me most. But again, I would like to try to quantify the relationship of agression to volatility.


I have been playing mostly hi-lo lately, and the answers here might be very different. Aside from the implications of a split pot, the aggression levels (at least in the games I have encountered) varies quite dramatically.


I hope some of you will respond by saying "I had a good run where I went plus in k consecutive sessions during which I won n big bets," or "I lost every day for a week (or 2 or 5 or whatever) and lost n big bets." And let me add, a description of a normal good or bad run is more useful than a description of an extraordinarily great or awful run.

i dont know what "n" is for you but when I played 5-10 my standard deviation was about $100. it really depends on your style of play. The worst hours i had i would lose about $250 or $300. thankfully they were very few and far between. I woudl guess that online the deviation would be higher. good luck.


Pat