Volatility and Different Poker Games

[theben]

I dont know exactly where this post should go, but i am going to put it here. if its misplaced, i am sorry.

for the commonly played limit games, what game has the least/most volatility and fluctuation, ranked from lowest to highest? I am familiar with many of the games and I have a good picture of what is the least/most/inbetween volatile, but I would like to know the perfect, correct order.

please order these games:
holdem
omaha
omaha 8
stud
stud 8
triple draw

[r3vbr]

A good way to do it is for some player who plays all these types of games, to get their cash flow from the excel sheet and calculate the standard deviation from each of these difrerent games. Also differ NL/PL/Fixed if possible.

I would also love to have this information.

[Iceman]

Least

Stud-8
Omaha-8
Stud (low ante)
Holdem
Stud (high ante)
Triple draw
Omaha high

Most

[B Mando]

How did you come to this order? Is this widely known and I am living in the dark? I just find this very interesting because I play a lot of games on a short-term basis and move on to another game.

[Iceman]

[ QUOTE ]
How did you come to this order? Is this widely known and I am living in the dark? I just find this very interesting because I play a lot of games on a short-term basis and move on to another game.

[/ QUOTE ]

High-low games will almost always have lower variance than high-only games, since you win pieces of a pot more often so it smoothes out your overall result. Omaha-8 usually has higher variance than stud-8 since the flop totally changes hand values in Omaha-8, and even flopped hands often don't hold up in Omaha-8. In stud-8 a lot of heads-up pots simply chop and there's only a lot of raising and reraising in the rare case that there's a strong high and strong low out.

In lower and middle limits, holdem tends to be play more aggressively than stud, holdem hands are much more likely than stud hands to involve lots of players, and holdem hands usually have more money go in the pot on early streets before hands are really defined. In stud games with a high-ante, the ante acts as a randomizing factor and also encourages much looser and more aggressive play.

Triple draw lowball and Omaha high are very high variance games. The chance of being dealt a pat hand or one-card draw is extremely low, so a large fraction of the hands you wind up playing are two-card draws, whose eventual value is highly uncertain. Even with one draw to come, you often have no idea where you really stand. However, when you do have a really strong hand in triple draw, it's often unbeatable or close to it. That's not the case in Omaha high, where even the strongest hands on the flop or turn often have a large number of outs against them. And Omaha high hands run very close in value, even when you have a premium hand against mostly randomish hands.

[theben]

Thanks for the replys. I knew that omaha and triple were very volatile. but i wasnt quite sure where exactly holdem and omaha8 stood. thanks for adding in the differences between stud with a big and small ante as well. I was aware that stud is usually a higher variance game than holdem, but i was unaware that low ante stud was less volatile (I should have guessed it, but i thinks its because i dont play much low ante stud at all so i wouldnt know, but it makes sense)

[gergery]

The key factors determining variance are:

Amount won at one time. Split games essentially means you win smaller $$ amounts more frequently, which is what variance is. Less obvious is the fact that some games have hand values that run closer together, which means its more correct to play more hands, which means pots get bigger, which means the amount you win at one time is larger – so more variance.

Degree to which hand values change over the course of one hand. Since it is almost always correct to get more money in when you have the best of it, games where your hand changes value a lot of the course of the hand mean you can be correct to bet heavily but then have to fold so more variance. Games with more cards in your hand mean hands run closer together in value, which means its easier for the hand behind to overtake the hand ahead, which means more players in a hand will have the best hand and thus be correct to bet – so more players will be putting money in thus increasing variance. .

Information available to make decisions. More information means you can align your betting better with your hand value. Stud allows better decisions based on observed cards, and releases the information more slowly, 1 card at a time, so less variance. While triple draw conceals more info.

Speed at which hand values change over the course of one hand. Games like holdem and triple draw where multiple new cards enter play at one time will result in sharper swings in hand values, however the community card nature of flop games like holdem means that dominated hands can remain dominated, thus mitigating the variance somewhat.

There are probably a couple other big factors.

Net, I agree with Iceman’s ranking (tho might put all of stud above holdem)

--Greg