Which game has lower variance?

wilpinsi

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WHAT GAME HAS LESS VARIANCE IN poker online
the more you play, will have more sampling to reduce the variance, I think that by doing this we decrease the risk of losing for variance
 
John A

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Full ring cash games. Maybe double or nothing or triple up S&G's at really low stakes.
 
detroitjunkie

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freerolls - no! This is actually the epitome of variance.

A high variance in poker means you are not winning what you should be because of many different factors.

My opinion of the top 5 factors, in order, of what makes the game high variance are:
5. You are a loose aggressive player
4. Your opponents are loose aggressive players
3. The limits of the game - NL vs. PL vs FL/SL
2. Game - Texas Holdem, Omaha Holdem, Stud
1. Game type - cash, SnG, MTT, Satelliets, Freerolls

loose aggressive play causes more variance because hands that typically shouldnt win do win more often

No limit games have high variance because the bets can be exponentially larger than the blinds and antes, and the more money you can risk the higher the variance can be

Omaha Holdem has less variance than Texas Holdem because Omaha hands generally have less of an edge against each other when all in, variance is losing when you should be winning, and in Omaha there is no super advantage from one hand to the next, in Omaha the average of one hand winning against another is 60/40, whereas in Texas Holdem its more like 75/25, the higher the expectation that you should win and dont = higher variance

With this being said, the least variance game would be limit omaha or limit stud games, yes they are boring, but thats the thing - variance is exciting and addicting.

The more people that play the more variance because the likelihood of you winning is so low to begin with, plus the more styles of play you will encounter.

So this means that 6 seated cash games are better than 9, and smaller tournaments are better than bigger. Heads up obviously has the least variance of all in either cash or tourney.

SNGS are best, especially the dbl or nothings, for tourneys.

So lets look at the freeroll - way to many people, way to loose and aggressive play, usually no-limit Texas Holdem - most variance EVER
 
detroitjunkie

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Oh and yes, the more you play any game the less variance you will have, unless you are a terrible maniac player
 
XXPXXP

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Freerolls - no! This is actually the epitome of variance.

A high variance in poker means you are not winning what you should be because of many different factors.

My opinion of the top 5 factors, in order, of what makes the game high variance are:
5. You are a loose aggressive player
4. Your opponents are loose aggressive players
3. The limits of the game - NL vs. PL vs FL/SL
2. Game - Texas Holdem, Omaha Holdem, Stud
1. Game type - cash, SnG, MTT, Satelliets, Freerolls

loose aggressive play causes more variance because hands that typically shouldnt win do win more often

No limit games have high variance because the bets can be exponentially larger than the blinds and antes, and the more money you can risk the higher the variance can be

Omaha Holdem has less variance than Texas Holdem because Omaha hands generally have less of an edge against each other when all in, variance is losing when you should be winning, and in Omaha there is no super advantage from one hand to the next, in Omaha the average of one hand winning against another is 60/40, whereas in Texas Holdem its more like 75/25, the higher the expectation that you should win and dont = higher variance

With this being said, the least variance game would be limit omaha or limit stud games, yes they are boring, but thats the thing - variance is exciting and addicting.

The more people that play the more variance because the likelihood of you winning is so low to begin with, plus the more styles of play you will encounter.

So this means that 6 seated cash games are better than 9, and smaller tournaments are better than bigger. Heads up obviously has the least variance of all in either cash or tourney.

SNGS are best, especially the dbl or nothings, for tourneys.

So lets look at the freeroll - way to many people, way to loose and aggressive play, usually no-limit Texas Holdem - most variance EVER

freeroll Yes
because, when join in freeroll
invest =0
expectation = the worst case is 0
therefore no loss

if you win anything it is positive.

any other game if you invest your own money it is always possible to get negative results.

therefore no matter what , freeroll either 0 or Positive result.
therefore, no variance.

0 in , 0 out, no variance
0 in positive out, net gain.
:D

don't care about how loose the table is, how donk player plays, invest nothing in any freeroll.
 
vinylspiros

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double or nothings for sure but why play them and move up at the pace of a turtle?
 
Sakolik029

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Don't even know,but I'm on poker stars really like ,and not as it often happens accidentally,but that's just my opinion,but in my opinion the lowest disperse hold'em
 
pescaofish

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for me is 2-7 Triple draw since you get 3 chances to discard and ensamble a decent hand. :jd4:
 
detroitjunkie

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freeroll Yes
because, when join in freeroll
invest =0
expectation = the worst case is 0
therefore no loss

if you win anything it is positive.

any other game if you invest your own money it is always possible to get negative results.

therefore no matter what , freeroll either 0 or Positive result.
therefore, no variance.

0 in , 0 out, no variance
0 in positive out, net gain.
:D

don't care about how loose the table is, how donk player plays, invest nothing in any freeroll.

My time is money. You can be doing something else and be making money. You still have EV in freerolls it just can't go negative. If I spend 2 hours playing a freeroll and win nothing I have lost a lot. Guess it depends on how you value your time and whether or not you have any money in your account. But if you don't have any money then you have no reason to care about variance anyways.
 
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Muzyka1996

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of course it is freeroll, because can't lose money)
 
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ph_il

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Double or Nothing SNGs have the lowest variance, but they're also the slowest ways to build a BR. So, if you play these, you have to be able to put in a ton of volume. I believe top players that grind these have single digit ROI's and make profit through volume.

With that said, BRM for DoNs are a lot more lenient than other SNGs. So, you can play these with far less buy-in than you would playing reg SNGs or turbo SNGs.
 
XXPXXP

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My time is money. You can be doing something else and be making money. You still have EV in freerolls it just can't go negative. If I spend 2 hours playing a freeroll and win nothing I have lost a lot. Guess it depends on how you value your time and whether or not you have any money in your account. But if you don't have any money then you have no reason to care about variance anyways.

time cost make no sense here.
because, no matter what game you choose. you still going to spend sane tune,

in your case
if you add time cost , you spend money to play, the possible negative results will be much worse, the difference between negative and positive will be much bigger.

but for freeroll, the difference even adding time cost, it is much more like fixed.

so no variance here.

Don't know what's your understanding of variance

variance is something the difference in amount between possible results per try.- esp the negative part.
therefore freeroll, humm, 0.

it is regardless, time cost, money in your account, game type, player poor, prize poor.
 
detroitjunkie

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To me it depends on who you are. I play the lowest variance games with positive results, and its a package of games that I play, and stick to that package and have maintained a positive hourly rate for quite some time doing it. If I were to play freerolls during the time I should be playing games from my designed package, then I will be losing money. This is what I am talking about. If you are already making money doing other games on a consistent basis then why would you ever go play a freeroll during that time and consider it part of a bankroll builder (which is the only reason we are having this discussion). Freerolls are very hard to win for very low amounts of pay, and typically take a long time. So I will concede to only that it depends on what type of player you are and why you play poker. If you are a total rec player with no hourly rates at stake then go ahead and play all the freerolls you want. Remember - variance does not have to only included buy-ins vs payouts, there are other things to consider, its about how much you spend to play and how much you lose on your hourly rate. Freerolls to me are typically too expensive.

If none of this matters to someone, then there is no reason to be discussing variance anyways.
 
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makisaa

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As seriously as you take each game the most variance it has!
 
BuzzKillington

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freeroll Yes
because, when join in freeroll
invest =0
expectation = the worst case is 0
therefore no loss

if you win anything it is positive.

any other game if you invest your own money it is always possible to get negative results.

therefore no matter what , freeroll either 0 or Positive result.
therefore, no variance.

0 in , 0 out, no variance
0 in positive out, net gain.
:D

don't care about how loose the table is, how donk player plays, invest nothing in any freeroll.
But statistically speaking there is variance. Suppose that you can win either nothing or $100 with a probability of 1%. Then your EV = 0.99 * 0 + 0.01 * 100 = $1. Then your variance is Var = 0.99 * (0 - 1)^2 + 0.01 * (100 - 1)^2 = 0.99 + 98.09 = 99.08.

So the variance is actually huge.
 
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Assuming you can play multi-tables at a lower stake, then 2NL MT would have the lowest variance (ie Nanonoko). The other one is double or bust. It's essentially a flip whether or not you're in the money (payout is top 50%). Likewise, an MTT would have a payout of top 15%. That would be a higher variance as it'll probably take more games to make that top 15% on average.
 
TeUnit

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Its one of the split format games, games like stud hi lo and plo8 should have the lowest variance. But the real driver of variance is going to be ability - the higher your roi or win per BB the lower your variance.
 
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Hahahahaha, bahahahahaha someone said Omaha has low variance
 
playinggameswithu

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Floor limit NLH is the lowest variance I know to play. Just remember cash game 60-80 buyins tournaments 100-250 buyins
 
cranberry

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If we consider Texas Holdem, I think that in SnG and small MTT - variance is less. But also all depends on play style.
 
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