"...Why such a variance? For the most part the players are usually the same, my play is the same - Tight, Aggressive..."
Good question. I have heard from players who play at live venues, they also often express a preference for a couple of favorite poker rooms. When they criticise a poker room they normally point out that the player pool is too nitty, the rake is too high, or there is too little action, etc. They same will apply to online sites.
For the past several years with regard to on-line poker, the entire poker community just nitted up by relying on solver charts and so on. When you have a hard time finding a cash game table with participation rates >20% at the micro level, you don't have the action to get involved that often in a hand. The entire exercise then self-reinfornces as everybody tightens up. When you add in the rake and lack of rake-back opportunities, there is no potential profit in the games. There's just no damned action.
The problem was not with HUDs or even with solvers but with an entire community who won't give action. Most people want to act like bots. They want a gauranteed BB return. Nothing wrong with that, but we shouldn't expect juicy cash games - bar maybe the weekends
That's why I went entirely into tournaments. At the micro to mid levels there are people who will give action on the tables. For whatever reason, there are players who will gamble it up a bit more in a tourney - boredom, limited liability exposure, who knows?
I once heard that high roller cash games were very lucrative in Las Vegas simply because professional gamblers knew they had to give action to whales. Sometimes the pros took one for the team when variance went against them and the whales took home some of the pro's money. It's a bit like a weekly friendly game, if you took all the money every week the game would end or at least you'd be uninvited quickly. A good reg at a friendly game gives action, loses some, and gains respect when they emerge as a good player over the years. People don't resent their winnings so much then. They don't act like sharks, but more like foxes.
The online game sort of forces us to act like sharks, imo - what with solver charts at our instant disposal. I tend to think that the online scene operates in waves. Right now, due to the pandemic, there's plenty of action. Shoals of fish* have come into the waters and the hunting is good. This will pass. Then another wave will occur - if only because a new generation is born.
In the meantime, there's always tournies and the odd occasion weekend tables to keep things ticking.
*I have no illusions that I am anything other than a fish. I sometimes nibble at others but I haven't grown any shark's teeth. Yet.
