The Pain of Variance

[Neil Stevens]

Whine whine whine. It's not fair. Every time I get playable cards today, the flops go against me.

I'm laying down the cards when I know I'm beat, but that only minimizes a downswing.

I'm just trying to keep in my mind how wonderful it'll be one day when I'm out there on the other tail of the distribution.

I don't see how anyone can stand making a living on this game.

[Mangatang]

A definite milestone is when you get to where you don't care about the outcome of any one hand or any one session. As long as you're making the correct plays, you don't care if you lose the hand. Long term is the only thing that matters. This only comes after you have logged thousands upon thousands of hands.

[Rudbaeck]

It's just chips.

Heck, even real money isn't real. It's a consensual fantasy. (A good one, but still.) Macro economics 101 or ten hours of poker will teach you this.

[Neil Stevens]

Thank you, and I know you're right. I'm at exactly 1069 hands right now. This is a new frustration, heh.

[AncientPC]

More variance threads:

scared of loosing money

Variation frustrations

[Evan]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm laying down the cards when I know I'm beat

[/ QUOTE ]

This sentence concerns me. A lot of people (especially in thier early stages) have a tendency to fold too much when they "know they're beaten" to prevent their downswings from gettign worse. I make a lot of calls when I feel like I know I'm beaten, especially on the river where I'm often getting 15-1 or more. If I'm wrong here only 10% of the time (or even less) I'll show a profit. The point of this rambling is that makeing what you think are great laydowns in bg pots is usually bad and can make your downswing worse.

[Neil Stevens]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I'm laying down the cards when I know I'm beat

[/ QUOTE ]

This sentence concerns me. A lot of people (especially in thier early stages) have a tendency to fold too much when they "know they're beaten" to prevent their downswings from gettign worse. I make a lot of calls when I feel like I know I'm beaten, especially on the river where I'm often getting 15-1 or more. If I'm wrong here only 10% of the time (or even less) I'll show a profit. The point of this rambling is that makeing what you think are great laydowns in bg pots is usually bad and can make your downswing worse.

[/ QUOTE ]
You're right. And I hope I'm not doing what you say here. I do throw small bets into big pots when I know I'm behind, but I don't know the odds well enough to risk the chips on the closer situations.

I guess time will tell, heh.