Variance, on a personal basis

This seems like as good a time as any to talk about variance in less of a theoretical / math sense and in more of a personal / psychological sense.

At this time, I'm going through a 125+ BB downswing at the same time I've increased the level that I'm playing (I have jumped to $0.50/$1.00 almost full-time) and to use a phrase coined by poker1eh, its starting to hurt.

In ring games, I have gone from a rate of 1.5 BB/100 with $45 of profit to a rate of 0.35 BB/100 and a loss of over $50 in ring game play (a swing of $95) in the span of about 1300 hands. At River Belle alone, I am down $86 in the midst of trying to clear my $125 bonus.

This wouldn't be my blog without a nifty graph, so here goes. As always click for a larger version, but you may want to avert your eyes first:



The self-doubt that has crept into my game is amazing, to the point that I get a sinking feeling everytime I see a premium hand. I honestly don't think I have become weak-tight, as I don't think I have backed down on the aggression with the premium hands. However, I either seem to win a small pot or lose a big pot with them recently - it seems to be a "steal the blinds or get sucked out on" situation.

I am in the process of reviewing my play, looking for leaks. In general, I feel I may be calling down to the river a bit too often lately, figuring that people are trying to run me over. But I suppose that is a vicious cycle - if I start folding to raises late in the hand, then people WILL start taking shots at me. I am also conscious of not becoming weak-tight, so need to make sure I'm betting for value where appropriate.

Let's look at some PT stats:

For my first 9800 hands, my VP$IP / PFR / W$WSF / WtSD / W$SD was:
16.41% / 5.96% / 30.5% / 34.0% / 50.5%
For my (1400-ish) hands since then, those same stats are:
15.29% / 6.7% / 30.0% / 27.0% / 40.3%
For my last 700 hands (the last half of the downswing), they are:
14.77% / 5.9% / 30.6% / 30.6% / 40.5%

So, I seem to have tightened up a bit preflop. All other stats seem to be within a reasonable range of each other, except WtSD and W$SD. W$SD is (quite obviously) lower in the midst of a downswing. What is reassuring (at least at this "100,000 foot view") is that I don't seem to be chasing more than I used to - in fact, if anything, WtSD shows I'm folding more often than I used to. Perhaps that is the leak - I'm actually letting people take me off hands. More detailed analysis of individual hands is surely needed.

In looking for the bright spots:

• I have the self-awareness and diligence to go back and review my game to see if there are leaks instead of just raging about my bad luck (although poker1eh and QuadMan may differ on this opinion of complaining!)
• I have people that can (and will) review my play
• I have the sense (mostly) to get away from the tables if I feel like I'm tilting. If I'm completely honest with myself, I need to work on this a bit more strongly though.
• I have the bankroll to absorb this variance - in the grand scheme of things, 125 BB is a reasonably small bit of variance, and need to remind myself of this. There is a reason why our bankroll needs to be 300+ BB, and this is it. A look back at my very own variance post "proves" this.
  
• My bonus clearing almost covers this loss, which is a testament to the HUGE power of bonus chasing. I am 555 hands through my bonus, which means my bonus cleared "so far" is (555/875) * $125 = $79.29. So in a very real sense, I'm "only" down a little over $6 in real money. Simply amazing.

I don't know if I have a neat ending to this post. I think simply going through the thought process of writing it has helping in-and-of itself. That being said, I think I'm going to take a break from playing for a few days just to get my head on straight. And not the kind of straight that keeps sucking out on my sets either..... :-)