"loose" play and variance

[pete fabrizio]

Just a small topic that I've been thinking about since I saw it referenced in someone's post. I'm sorry, I don't remember the author, but they said they suspect "tight" play may actually correspond to higher variance in PLO.

Now, I'm what most of you would call a "loose" player, although I might describe it differently: I play with a sense of urgency -- if there is value out there, I want to take it, and I don't have time to sit around and wait for the nuts all the time. BigDaveD seems to understand this style fairly well, but suggests that I better be prepared for some massive swings, etc. Is that true?

Of course, for this matter, we have to understand that by "loose," I don't mean "bad" play -- I mean a combination of aggressiveness and willingness to put money in thin - whether by calling in marginally profitable situations, making marginally profitable bluffs, or betting for marginal value.

While the hourly Standard Deviation for such a player is almost certainly greater than a tight bread-and-butter player, I would hypothesize that 1) It is not as much higher as people might think, and 2) The overall variance for that player, measured by ratio of winrate to standard deviation (CV for those of you familiar with ibanking jargon or with Mason's gambling terminology) would be lower.

On 1): While our looser, more aggressive player is putting a lot more money in in high-variance, marginally profitable situations, I think people tend to forget that this is somewhat offset by the fact that he is going to get more money in than your average player in low-variance, highly profitable situations. For example, that loose/aggressive player is often going to get paid off by people with an underset, or by someone calling his river bets (two intrinsically low-variance, high-profit situations).

On 2): Similarly, I think this "loose" player is not only slightly more profitable than his "tight" counterpart, I think he is much more profitable. This is because not only does he get the additional e.v. of all those marginally positive e.v. situations, his pushing those situations also gets him paid off in even better situations, as above.

And I think it is intuitively clear to me that the increase in expectation outpaces the increase in variance. Therefore, the C.V. for the "loose" player is actually lower.

While I have only my own play to back up this claim, my stats have supported it. I generally find my standard deviation is around 100BB/hr no matter how I play, and my CV is around .16 . While I don't really know how that compares to a "tight" player, I know it's much better than I could achieve playing limit hold'em (where I was struggling to maintain .09-.10).

Thoughts?

[Big Dave D]

Pete I want to comment but I don't understand the CV bit...is it just winrate/SD? Does this mean that you are winning 16 big blinds an hour on average in PLO?

cheers

Dave

[pete fabrizio]

Yes, it is winrate/SD. Generally, this is the most accurate indicator of overall variance. (For example, this number is the most important when it comes to calculating bankroll requirements.)

[Big Dave D]

If you are consistently making 16 big blinds an hour over a big sample, why the hell are you here, or asking questions? Who cares what the variance is? This is a huge win rate for plo over the long term. There was a good thread on the hendon mob forum that looked at this:

http://tinyurl.com/533q3

gl

dd

[pete fabrizio]

I don't quite understand your question. Why work on my game if I'm already winning? Ask all the Party 15-30 "pros" who have seen their bankrolls evaporate.

That thread you linked to is unmanageable, are there any highlights?

Generally, I don't think the BR issue is that interesting, since it's pretty much solved. In PLO the variance is about 100BB/hr, so a bankroll of 3000BB is basically sufficient even for a player who wins 10BB/hr. And it's pretty easy to calculate your risk of ruin given winrate, standard deviation, and BR -- in my poker spreadsheet, I just have a risk of ruin calculator.

[Big Dave D]

The highlights were:

SD maybe as high as 200BB/hr
Win rates were 5-10 good, 15-20 unbelievablebly excellent.
Therefore bankroll may need to be as high as 10000 BB, although this was for a very high chipped up B&M game. My gut is for the online games, with the current looseness, maybe 5000BB.

The point is, if 16 BB is your REAL winrate, and by this I mean one that has been sustained for maybe a year or so, ideally a couple of years, then variance is irrelevant. YOu are so far ahead of your opponents that it doesnt matter, as long as you dont spend your bankroll.

dd

[sherbert]

[ QUOTE ]
Just a small topic that I've been thinking about since I saw it referenced in someone's post. I'm sorry, I don't remember the author, but they said they suspect "tight" play may actually correspond to higher variance in PLO.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hi Pete

That was me. I said that there is evidence that a tight player will see their variance go up in a loose aggressive PLO game. I think that is probably true of all games.

Cheers

ps thread works for me...

[pete fabrizio]

That 200BB/hr SD figure is much higher than in online games, and Standard Deviation is a statistic that converges very quickly. They're talking about a game with equal blinds, so that's 33% higher right there. Also, those games often have a minimum bring-in of 2x the BB, and/or straddling (having lots of straddlers itself can practically double the size of a game), plus people are buying in for 500BB instead of the 100 cap online.

As for winrates, it's really up to ones best guess. They don't really last long enough to be measured, since by the time you have the thousands of hours booked that you would need to limit your statistical winrate down to within a BB or two, the game has surely changed and your "real" winrate is probably different.

[sherbert]

Another point I would like to add here Pete - your description of a loose agg. player could be viewed as a tight agg. player in some quarters. What you/we are all trying to avoid is weak tight. I think loose simply means at the risk of stating the bleedin' obvious: preflop; taking more hands to the flop than a tight player. I'm probably on the tight side here, perhaps 25% +. You might be taking 35 per cent through to flop, or more.
On the flop, by definition, a loose player will naturally then be taking more hands through to the turn, based on hopes of hitting a backdoor draw/set or 2 pair for instance.
If you are tightening up on the flop, however, this will make a big difference as to whether you actually fall into the loose aggressive camp or not.
Or say on the flop you are raising let's say top two pair more often than other players. Again that is not necessarily a mark of a looser approach than rivals, but of aggressiveness. And it depends on the player you are raising and texture of the flop.

I have no idea what any of these traits will do to variance. A lot of your earn in plo I'm sure is playing the player, a skill that falls outside the spectrum of loose agg/tight agg etc. I'm sure a lot of the plays you mention in your post fall more into that category.

[Big Dave D]

You seem really coy about how long you've been making 16 BB/hr :-)

Measuring a changing figure over a long period of time is quite easy. Its called an average. Sure it may fluctuate a lot, but that is easy to measure too. Its called variance. In B&M games I know my average is 10BB/hr over a period of many many years, so I'm happy that that is probably a fair reflection of my quality of play for that time. If i start making more I know that I am (a) playing better vis a vis the competition or (b) rushing. Its nice to know.

Also I think that the tighter player having higher variance may be true in NLHE, but bollox in PLO, even more so as the game gets looser and looser. But of course his win rate is less.

gl

dd