[ohnonotthat]

It's the relationship between win rate and varience - more specifically, the WR and SD.

If, for example, you have a win rate at 3-6 holdem of $15 per 100 hands and a S-D of $120/100 hands your coefficient of varience (C.V.) is .8

- Anything above .1 used to be considered great but the xplosion of NL has spoiled us; it's easy these days to find C.V.s of .2 or greater.

Since knowing one is useless without knowing the other, the C.V. provides a ratio you can apply to any game in order to decide whether that game is "good" for you.

A high win rate is of little use if the SD is so high you literally might not live long enough to get into the long run; an overlay on Lotto is a good example. Buying a $1 ticket that has a theoretical value of $3 is not as good as it sounds if your chance of collecting ANYTHING is a million to one.

In poker, a high ante stud game might provide a huge winrate but be so volatile it could take years for you to smooth out the bumps of the short run.

Low draw ("lowball") is also known for having a poor C.V. - unless your opponents are absolutely horrendous it's difficult to find a game with a C.V. better than .05

Some say the reason Holdem took off and left stud and high-draw in its dust was due to the ideal size of its C.V. Poor players almost never won at high-draw while they won too much at stud (assuming a medium to high ante).

If the dummies win too often it's hard for you to make a steady living; if they win too infrequently it's hard to get them to keep coming back.

I'll stop here so as to allow those who have significant experience at all forms of poker to jump in and elaborate on the specifics of how each of the common varieties of poker rate on the list - from highest C.V. to lowest.

Best wishes,

- Chris