A lesson in variance...

I have been playing online for about 3 year, but only recently have I begun to look seriously at my game. Coincidentely I feel like I'm getting my arse handed to me playing at a level that I feel quite qualified to play. I have just set up Poker Tracker so I can find leaks (varying shapes and sizes, I presume). I understand that I really shouldn't be complaining about any losing streaks until I have logged thousands of hands?

I'm wondering if any of you sharp analysts can help either pump me up during this cold streak or offer some advice on one particular session that I'm in the middle of. I am clearing a bonus on one site playing .50/1.00 and have logged around 860 hands. I have lost around 120 dollars including bonus money.

I know that this doesn't come close to telling the whole story, but does anyone see anything obvious in these stats? What kind of variance should I expect to take over the course of thousands of hands? Any kind words or thoughtful insights are greatly appreciated. If you need more information, I'll do what I can to provide.

Here are the stats from this session.
Session games 864
Games won 7%
Showdowns won 38%
Flops Seen 21%
Win% Flop Seen 33%
Fold 57% Check 17% Call 12.5%
Bet 8% Raise 4% Re-raise 1.2%
Fold History
PreFlop 81.37%, Flop 8.2%, Turn 2.6%
River 1.5%, No Fold 6.34%

To recap here are my questions.

How much variance should a poker player expect?
Does anyone see anthing obvious in the limited stats I've posted?
Thanks

NEED MORE INPUT STEPHANIE....

(more stats plz, VPIP? blah blah blah)

-johnny 5

OK, I know that there is very little information to work with. I only have the temporary version of PT with 1k hands loaded. I'm waiting for my Reg. Code...still.

Sooooo....if there is something obvious, I'll take it. Especially the question to variance. I've heard somewhere in the neighborhood of 200BB. Is that close? How does someone ride out 200bb losses without losing their mind? I've got the bankroll to handle it, but I just begins to feel like I've forgotten how to play? Some people say to tighten up, my knucklehead friend says that I should play looser? Thoughts?

[hemstock]

Search for downswings. There were propably 10 in the last week or so. And 1000 hands is an insignificant sample.

[DavidC]

Hi there.

My first 6k hands at 2/4 cost me $80. Don't feel so bad. That's like 30 hours of play, for me.

Generally you should have about 10k hands before you do a stats post.

The downswing you're on right now is pretty normal, particularly for someone just starting to take the game seriously.

What's of most value to you right now is reading poker books, posting hands, and reading responses to other posted hands.

at first glance your 38% sd win rate seems low .... then again since you only have 864 hands it could mean absolutely nothing other than running bad.

more hands more stats.

i posted a question similar to this a short time ago...
i was running good (or so i thought) for a while, but then hit a nasty streak of losses. i just escaped 1000k hands with only $20 of bonus money intact.

i almost begged people to tell me it was variance, when all along i knew what problems i had, i just didnt want to admit that i sucked and needed to learn more..

then a bunch of people told me i sucked and needed to learn more.

so i did, and i got better.

then i ate a sammich.
cheese sammich.
MMMMmmmmmm....

[hyp]