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Aleksei Lebedev
Exan13
Coach

Variance in tournament poker – how to treat it

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02.10.21
5 min read
Variance in tournament poker – how to treat it
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Translated with the help of AI. We apologize for any errors and would appreciate your help in correcting them.

Do not be afraid of variance, but understand the principle and get the most out of each turn. 

Variance - a measure of the spread of random numbers, relative to the mathematical expectation. In poker, it is called “downswing” or “upswing”. The variance itself is neutral, but in the perceptions of most poker players, it often has an acutely negative connotation.

This is mainly due to the fact that with a positive turn of variance, called upswing, most players experience a strong psychological need to record victories completely on their own account and get emotional pleasure from their own success, because strengthening self-esteem is the strongest need of human psychology. On the contrary, no one wants to experience self-doubt and a decrease in self-esteem, so everyone notices the downward wave, and immediately begins to blame dispersion for its failures in order to prevent a drop in self-esteem, because the pleasure of one's own success is too tempting - one does not want to part with it. 

Such a scheme of perception of dispersion occurs automatically in most people, if you do not work on it purposefully. If you carefully study the charts of the results of many players, it becomes noticeable how often after a successful series of drifts the player's schedule flies down. Very often, this state of affairs is associated with excessive confidence, and this, in turn, is associated with incorrect perception of variance. It is necessary to be aware of the fact of luck and successful dispersion. This is much more effective than swimming in the rays of narcissism. 

 
I will say more - after a successful series of drifts, you need to worry about the quality of your game and the psychological component even more than in the neutral period. The consequences of an inflated opinion about your game can be very serious. I always admire students who come to me after skidding or several and say: "I was lucky here, I pulled on luck, I want to use money properly and improve the quality of the game". I do not have such humility and have often in my career entered a state of excessive self-confidence. I am sure that this fact has greatly slowed down my development in poker. I believe that it will be much easier for the people described above to achieve a stable result. 

Remember that a good skid is already upswing by default and part of the money won belongs to the dispersion, it will definitely take them away.

  1. Always carefully climb the following limits, do not climb too quickly after skidding - it is better to first analyze your game yourself or with a coach.
  2. Never stop working on your game. If it seems to you that there is nothing to study and you can temporarily relax - this is a trap!
  3. The more you invest in quality education, the more you will make a profit on the the long run! Investing in yourself is one of the best investments!
  4. The key to success at a distance, not only as a game strategy, but also in the qualities of your character and psychological state! Do not spare money for working with a psychologist and time for independent knowledge of this aspect of life!
  5. Never assume that variance owes you anything! It will return you by itself and your task is just to wait! Do something worthy of being chosen by the bird of fortune! 

You will definitely cope with everything, defeat any downswing! But this will not happen by itself, look for what you lack, study, work, develop!

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