A strange observation (semi x-post)

[SomethingClever]

Going through a pretty major downswing. Last night, I looked up my standard deviation for the month, expecting some wild number like 24 (it's usually 17 when I'm running normally).

It was 13 BB/100!

I posted something to this effect in Probability but I thought it might be interesting to note here as well.

Pzhon replied with these comments in Probability that seemed to make sense.

[ QUOTE ]
What is the standard deviation of your AA hands? It's high, much higher than your standard deviation of an unplayable hand that you muck from any position. When you are getting a lot of good starting hands and hit many flops, your standard deviation goes up. That might explain the pattern you see.

For completeness, the total variance is the sum of the inter-hand variance (the variations from which hands you are dealt) and the intra-hand variance (the luck after you know your cards). Getting a playable hand like KQ contributes little to the inter-hand variance, but it increases the intra-hand variance.

[/ QUOTE ]

[Zele]

That is interesting. I noticed the same thing during a recent downswing, though not to the same degree (15 vs. 16.5bb/100).

I would never have thought of that explanation and I'm glad you included it.

[fnord_too]

Pzhon always has good statistics posts.

I would have taken a more pedestrian route like:

If you folded every hand in a five handed game with 1/2sb 1sb blinds, you would be losing 15BB/100 with zero variance.