variance greater in card clubs than online?

[Bodhi]

Although I mostly play online and in home games, a friend of mine frequently visits the local card club and (mostly) plays the $3/6 tables. Despite his successes, I've told him a number of times that he doesn't really have the bankroll for 3/6 and that he should build it online so that he can afford a higher limit game where the rake isn't so big. In any case, his results were wild over 3 days recently. Day 1, he profits $169. Day 2, he loses $180. Day 3, he loses another $100. I heard the usual bad beat stories and what not; the oaks card club is very, very loose to say the least. 8 players to the flop is not uncommon, even after an UTG raise. My guess is that this extreme looseness makes variance even greater, and that one might need a bigger bankroll to play at the card club than online. Is this true?

[GreywolfNYC]

I don't think you can get any idea of variance from three sessions in a cardroom.

[Bodhi]

You need to interpret my language more charitibly. Of course I don't think I can infer variance values from 3 sessions, so stop trying to score a rhetorical point and re-read my post. Let me spell it out for you though "Is it correct to infer that the looser the game, the greater the variance?"

[PokerFink]

Yes, your assumption is correct. This applies to NL games as well. Loose fish will bust you with goofy hands, but you will bust them more often. Looser, bad players are +EV, +Variance.

[slogger]

Your assumption about the correlation between loose opponents and variance is certainly accurate, but be careful about extrapolating that info to arrive at a determination about the relative size of a "sufficient" B&M bankroll vs. online BR.

First, as you know, even single-tabling online will cause you to see far more hands over the course of 4 hours than you will see live. Because of the "faster" play online, I believe a larger bankroll (more BBs) is advisable for online play at a particular limit than for live play at the same limit. Even moreso if you're multitabling online.

Just because the play in an online 3/6 may be significantly tighter than its B&M counterpart does not mean your friend is more likely to go bust playing live.

If your pal's got a $1200 bankroll, he should not shy away from taking some shots at live 3/6. If he loses half of it, he should drop down, or switch to micro-limit online games to rebuild (as you suggest).

Even if he's working with less than 200 BBs, playing 3/6 when playing in a room (assuming he's a winning player) might be the best move given the enormous hit he will take due to rake at 2/4 or lower.

Online, I think it would be a big mistake to play even semi-regularly at a level with less than 200 BBs (I'm making the assumption that he cannot afford to simply reload if he goes bust). For me, since I play 2-4 tables at a time, I like to have over 400 BBs - a little conservative, yes, but it allows me to play my best game and keep concerns about variance to a minimum.

[Demana]

You will feel the swings more playing live because you play a lot less hands than you would online.

In a B&M, you might play 100 hands after 3 hours.
Online, you can play two tables and see 100 hands in an hour.

[Bodhi]

Not a lot of time to post these days. Party poker just deposited $50 into my account at random (I'm not sure though).

[TobDog]

Its not random, they have big plans for you, you just dont know why yet!

[GreywolfNYC]

[ QUOTE ]
You need to interpret my language more charitibly. Of course I don't think I can infer variance values from 3 sessions, so stop trying to score a rhetorical point and re-read my post. Let me spell it out for you though "Is it correct to infer that the looser the game, the greater the variance?"

[/ QUOTE ]

You must forgive me for my feeble attempt to score a "rhetorical point". Since you have been so gracious as to spell it out for me here's my answer:
1) Yes. In my experience, the looser the game the greater the variance.
2) You do not need a larger bankroll to play live than you do online. In fact, I believe the opposite is true due to the generally horrendous level of play online. I have none of the swings playing in cardrooms that I've had online.
Now, if your original question hadn't been so poorly framed you wouldn't have had to ask it twice. Remember that next time you feel the urge to get uppity.