[XChamp]

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I might be mistaken, but doesn't your win rate have a big influence on your variance? More so that the particular game you play? A big absolute win rate gives less variance if my intuition is correct.

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Your intuition is wrong. A big winrate will cushion you psychologically when it comes to variance. It's a lot easier to deal with a $200/hr standard deviation when you are winning $200/hr than if you are winning $20/hr. The reason is that with the bigger winrate you will lose money only 1 out of every 6 hours on average, while if your winrate is $20/hr you will average losing money almost 1 out of every 2 hours ( a little less).

The swings, however, are the same. Both players will average being $100 under their winrate the same number of times over a given sample of similar sessions, for example.

edit- added 2nd para.