Anyway, my point was that in spite of my Asian-math-whiz-kid-wannabe background, it’s only three years later that I’ve finally grasped the elusive concept of variance. And now that I understand the almighty force, the only thing left for me to work out is why so many people just don’t get it.

People who tell me bad beat stories, broke joker tourney donks asking me for money because their one big luckbox win wasn’t enough to sustain their lifestyle of 10K buy-ins/Cristal/strippers/coke until their next big luckbox win – indeed many of the things I dislike about poker would vanish into thin air if people just got variance.

I did consider standing up on my high horse (I’ve spent so much time up there lately that the saddle is getting worn down) and demanding that the WPT run a short tutorial on variance right after that thing about hand rankings complete with Vince Van Patten voiceover – but then I saw the light.

Why? Well it’s these exact people I despise that end up being the value in the games. The ego – well the male ego, let’s be honest – is such that success is usually attributed solely to one’s own ability, skill, grace and wit. Luck doesn’t even factor into the equation.

For example, Random Douchebag somehow wins a six-figure amount in a tourney and concludes he has awesome skillz, so he sits down at 200/400 PLO. Or try Mr. N00B who is running at 17BB/100 over 500 hands because his gut-shots keep hitting, and he decides that the only logical thing to do is move up.

Now I’m not sure what side of the aquarium glass I’m on, but I hope that variance continues to be misunderstood by the masses. Now go forth and make sure you play your favorite hand like it’s Aces, chase your outs no matter how many, and for the love of God please keep running good – at least until I meet you at the table.

Post from: Poker From The Rail

God Bless Variance

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