View on variance.

[johnnybeef]

After talking to various members of this forum who I have either befriended or associated my self with, and then reading this thread and this thread, it has become very apparent to me that there are a ton of people who don't truly understand variance around here. I'm not sure what the general consensus on me as a poster here is, but I believe most people respect my opinion and advice. Over the last two months I have been barely break even playing sngs. Irie wrote a brilliant post about downswings that can be found here . I kind of want to add a few figures to show some newbies what is possible here. In the last four months, I have been living off of poker winnings exclusively. April and May I was crushing the 22s and 33s, and spent money like a drunken sailor ($200 jeans.) At the beginning of June I went to Vegas with everyone for the wsop, went broke, and have struggled since. Since the beginning of June, I have had downswings of 20, 35 and 45 buyins respectively. During my latest swing, I have gotten my chips in itm 7 times in a row with top pair only to be called by a draw that hit. My 1st place % over the last 400 sngs is 7.3%. My Roi over that same stretch is -5. IT IS HIGHLY POSSIBLE FOR A GREAT PLAYER TO RUN THIS BAD AT ANY TIME.

My point in writing this is to inform people of how bad it can get, as I have seen many people around here hit their first bad stretch and freak out. Stay calm. If you play the right way, it will turn around eventually, as, like life, poker is full of peaks and valleys.

Good luck everyone,
Johnny