Short-Handed Flucuations

[Octopus]

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Really interesting stuff. So, when I go on 200BB downswing over 5 sessions, that's because I was lucky enough (assuming my play has not changed) to reach into the bag and pull out these negative # far from my expected winrate?

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And assuming your opponents' play hasn't changed ... EXACTLY.

When people talk about the inevitability of downswings, they are talking about the fact that if you take a huge number of draws from the bag, you should not be surprised if a bunch of them are far from the expected value (both above and below). In fact, you should be more surprised if there weren't any such draws.

[John Feeney]

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As far as the quote from the book...A greater edge doesn't mean your variance will change. It just mean your winrate will be higher.

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That's true as far as it goes. But, though it's been a long time, I believe I was probably thinking of two things when I wrote that passage -- (1) selecting more passive, readable opponents, and (2) improving your hand reading ability. The references to game/opponent selection concern the first of those. The references to your play improving and times when your edge is very pronounced probably concern the second.

Now while I'm rusty on this stuff as I'm not playing these days, I believe your standard deviation does, in fact, tend to decrease (as your edge increases) as you improve your ability to read hands. This is understandable if you think about your then improved ability to avoid trouble, to get away from losing hands, and so on. Mason has written about this. Your standard deviation will also be lower if you play against more passive (and readable) opponents. No doubt I should have been more explicit about that when I wrote it.

[QTip]

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As far as the quote from the book...A greater edge doesn't mean your variance will change. It just mean your winrate will be higher.

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That's true as far as it goes. But, though it's been a long time, I believe I was probably thinking of two things when I wrote that passage -- (1) selecting more passive, readable opponents, and (2) improving your hand reading ability. The references to game/opponent selection concern the first of those. The references to your play improving and times when your edge is very pronounced probably concern the second.

Now while I'm rusty on this stuff as I'm not playing these days, I believe your standard deviation does, in fact, tend to decrease (as your edge increases) as you improve your ability to read hands. This is understandable if you think about your then improved ability to avoid trouble, to get away from losing hands, and so on. Mason has written about this. Your standard deviation will also be lower if you play against more passive (and readable) opponents. No doubt I should have been more explicit about that when I wrote it.

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Nice! Thanks for chiming in! I called my wife in and said "Hey look (showed her your book), this is the guy that wrote this. He replied in my post." You know what John? She didn't seem to care. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img] LOL! Women!

Anyway, I'm really enjoying the book.'

The only thing I thought when reading your post is this:

It seems to me that the worse the opponents, the harder it is for me to read their hands. I only seem to get a good grasp and a range of possible holdings when my opponents have some sort of starting hand requirements and have some knowledge of postflop play. Otherwise, it could be just about any hand. So, for me, if my edge is that large, I probably don't have much hand-reading going on.

Thanks again.

[chief444]

But I just wanted to thank you John for the response. And obviously you're right that more passive opponents will mean less variance and I also see how playing with a better edge in general could decrease variance. Although it seems to me that a greater edge in itself won't necessarily change variance. Certainly the opponents play in general will though.

Good book and well worth the read for anyone who hasn't yet.

[PokerBob]

In my first 1000 hands last week I dropped 70 BB. In my next 5000, I won 260 BB. My sessions are usually 1K hands, and in those sessions I fluctuate all over the place. Yesterday I won 16 bets in my first 30 hands. 200 hands later I was down 20 bets. I have no idea if my experiences are "common", but I thought it might interest some of you.

[DMBFan23]

all I meant to say was that there are two different "variances" at work here...

mathematical variance.

XBB/100 hands, and there's a formula to calculate "variance" in the precise mathematical sense.

the variance we feel playing poker.

personally I beleive this manifests itself not in the variance/SD we learned in 8th grade, but in the difference between our expected BB/100 (presuming anyone can even know that) and our BB/100 after N hands. the higher one's winrate, the less we will feel that effect, even though mathematically his variances/SD might be the same as someone who experiences greater "poker variance", which is really just swings, as a result of a lower EV. I thought standard error over blocks of 100 hands would be a good measure of that, perhaps I [censored] up the terminology.

[JoshuaD]

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personally I beleive this manifests itself not in the variance/SD we learned in 8th grade

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[img]/images/graemlins/ooo.gif[/img] What school did you go to?

[DMBFan23]

10th grade? I dunno

[chief444]

I must be getting old because when I was walking 2 miles through snow each way to school [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] I don't remember having this in any course until advanced placement classes in 11th/12th grades. Even then I can't remember how much depth for sure.

[JoshuaD]

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I must be getting old because when I was walking 2 miles through snow each way to school [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] I don't remember having this in any course until advanced placement classes in 11th/12th grades. Even then I can't remember how much depth for sure.

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Same here. I remember spending maybe a week on this sort of stuff in my 11th grade AP pre-calc. I never touched on it again, even after spending 2 years at a University as a math and computer science major.