Is this normal variance?

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bjj_mat

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I deposited money 20 days ago on PS to play micro stakes and in that period of time (20 days) have played 47k hands on exclusively NL10 holdem zoom.

During those 20 days, I had one day where I lost 12 buy ins, one day where I lost 18 buy ins, one day where I won 14 buy ins, and on average the movement was +/- 4 buy ins per day, generally on the + side.

And while these 20 days were quite positive (up 42 buy ins), I can't help but wonder if these huge swings are "normal"?

I hear of very bad runs, but I wouldn't expect in only 20 days to have more than 1 of them. I had thought losing 5-6 buy ins was rare in a day, but it happened various times, and the big wins were also just as often.


I have never played much volume (I have a total of 108k hands on pokerstars, 47k which were these last 20 days, those other 60k hands were over a period of maybe 2 years) so I have no experience with the swings.


Curious to see from more experienced people what they think about this. Is it just mainly due to my playstyle (only logical reason I can think of if these swings aren't normal), are the swings normal with this much volume, or did I just run into a very weird 20 days?
 
LD1977

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Well in the past month I had a few 10BI swings (both up and down) while playing 10NL FR, 51k hands played.

Overall I broke even (slight +) while running 3.5 BI under EV.
 
micromachine

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It's probably just variance, but yeah your playing style may contribute to the swings, and if you tilted a bit on the downswing days that may have contributed too.

47k hands is quite a lot, I'm not that surprised you had a couple of big swings
 
Vollycat

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47k hands is quite a lot, I'm not that surprised you had a couple of big swings
No. 500K is a lot. After 100K of consistent play you can start to gauge and look at graphs to see patterns.

But I do agree with Micro that your playing style can obviously contribute to the variance. If you are up 42 buy ins after 47K hands I'd say you are on a pretty good heater actually.

Best of luck,
Cheers
 
micromachine

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No. 500K is a lot. After 100K of consistent play you can start to gauge and look at graphs to see patterns.

But I do agree with Micro that your playing style can obviously contribute to the variance. If you are up 42 buy ins after 47K hands I'd say you are on a pretty good heater actually.

Best of luck,
Cheers

Was just sayin (or trying to) that 47k is enough to make a few big swings likely, I wasn't saying anything about gauging win rates
 
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bjj_mat

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No. 500K is a lot. After 100K of consistent play you can start to gauge and look at graphs to see patterns.

But I do agree with Micro that your playing style can obviously contribute to the variance. If you are up 42 buy ins after 47K hands I'd say you are on a pretty good heater actually.

Best of luck,
Cheers

Maybe it's a heater, but I'm not sure. I started playing 25NL 2 days ago since I'm bankrolled for it at 20BI's, and the players are just as bad as NL10. I'm up 11 buyins after about 5k hands. There's lots of money to be made at micro stakes I've come to realise.
 
bgomez89

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You're probably just not as good as you think. Keep learning and be patient when you're not winning as much
 
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bjj_mat

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This is possible too. If it is a strong heater, I hope it lasts longer :D
 
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cotta777

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I deposited money 20 days ago on PS to play micro stakes and in that period of time (20 days) have played 47k hands on exclusively NL10 holdem zoom.

During those 20 days, I had one day where I lost 12 buy ins, one day where I lost 18 buy ins, one day where I won 14 buy ins, and on average the movement was +/- 4 buy ins per day, generally on the + side.

And while these 20 days were quite positive (up 42 buy ins), I can't help but wonder if these huge swings are "normal"?

I hear of very bad runs, but I wouldn't expect in only 20 days to have more than 1 of them. I had thought losing 5-6 buy ins was rare in a day, but it happened various times, and the big wins were also just as often.


I have never played much volume (I have a total of 108k hands on pokerstars, 47k which were these last 20 days, those other 60k hands were over a period of maybe 2 years) so I have no experience with the swings.


Curious to see from more experienced people what they think about this. Is it just mainly due to my playstyle (only logical reason I can think of if these swings aren't normal), are the swings normal with this much volume, or did I just run into a very weird 20 days?

I personally think the pokerstars variance and most other sites variance are designed to in sync dish outbad beats and intensive spells of bad or good variance,
I know this is debatable as inevitably going to happen at some point.

But I honestly feel the format is in sync you can sometimes notice a pattern, such as winning a tournament then playing cash and getting dealt huge hands pre flop and either put all in or snap called...
this is overly commen

again if some sites use bots who's to say they dont favour them with variance .
I guess your answer is it may well be abnormal but we have to make adjustment for online as the bad beats are more extreme and the variance is sometimes ridiculous
 
RodneyC86

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Holy crap that's swingy. I play around 1.5k to 2k hands too on days I get the chance to but I hardly ever swing more than 5BIs in either direction in a single day and I have played 200k hands or so on 5nl 10nl. Don't wanna include 2nl, those I can get 10bi ups on good days.

Seriously, what's your stats??? Or am I just too nitty?
 
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bjj_mat

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It's hard to say my stats because I have no tracking software. But I play extremely aggressive and like to bet 150% pot in various spots, be it bluffs or value hands where I believe I'll get a call from a good hand. So I do tend to jump up and down. Thankfully it's been up so far.
 
Aces2w1n

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Well take full advantage of it but remember when things change you may need to drop down gears.
 
naruto_miu

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It's hard to say my stats because I have no tracking software. But I play extremely aggressive and like to bet 150% pot in various spots, be it bluffs or value hands where I believe I'll get a call from a good hand. So I do tend to jump up and down. Thankfully it's been up so far.


Curious how do you know how many hands you've played during this time without a tracker?
 
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