[jasonHoldEm]

Hi guys,

Been going through my first cold streak recently. As a new player I'm still developing an appreciation for the natural swings in the game (and sadly not having this appreciation has caused me to lose some of my edge and make things worse).

I walked away from the tables for a few days after losing my entire buy-in Sunday night in about a half hour. I had three big hands that went sour (and I probably could have gotten away from two of them had I been thinking more clearly), the other hands I played I just threw my money away, so I think a break is the best thing for me at this point.

I've been trying to gain a better understanding for the swings I am to expect playing poker and since I'm not a math wiz, I'm turning to you guys for help.

Soooo here goes:

I have 36 sessions logged so far. Since I'm still new to the game I keep my sessions fairly short (they range from 12 mins to 126 mins). I converted the minutes to hours so that I could use Mason's formula (from his essay on the main page)...will using decimals (ex: 0.73 hr) throw off this calculation somehow?

I followed the example he gives in the essay (my N=36 instead of 10) and I came out with a variance of 620.5 and a sd of 24.91. I should point out that I play 1/2 at this point.

I'm pretty sure I calculated these correctly (if they seem unrealistic please let me know), but now I get to show my ignorance by asking what exactly do these numbers mean? I squeaked through stats 101 with a D, so please use small words. [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

Thanks in advance,
Jason