Variance — can’t live with it, can’t live without it. Otherwise known as the element of luck (good or bad,) variance is the one thing that poker has in common with chance-based casino table games such as blackjack, roulette, and baccarat. Without the role played by variance, online poker would be a completely skills-based game like chess or checkers. In other words, it just wouldn’t be poker at all. Variance treats all players equally, leveling the playing field so that, one sunny day, even the most unskilled player can have a chance to win the pot. At the same time, variance can rob the most seasoned veterans of their hard-won money. You could say it’s a double-edged sword. That said, there are ways to reduce the impact of variance on your bankroll. Let’s take a look at how you can tame the beast next time you play poker online.

Defining Poker Variance

So what exactly is variance? The simplest way to put it is that variance is a term for the upswings and downswings that every poker player experiences from time to time. What are the odds of flopping a pair in a Texas Hold’em game? Look at a statistical chart and you’ll see that the probability is 32.43 percent. If life conformed to mathematics, you could confidently expect to flop a pair one hand in three and tailor your strategy accordingly.

The sad fact of the matter is that the numbers don’t tell the whole story. Similar to RTP in online casino games, poker statistics are only accurate in the very long run. In the space of a poker session, you simply can’t count on flopping any given hand based on theory. Sometimes variance will be in your favor, and you’ll flop trips two hands in a row. Sometimes you’ll be dealt trash, hand after hand.

The same goes for your opponents. It’s not uncommon to play your hand correctly and have the strongest hand all the way to the river, only to be defeated by a lucky opponent who makes a back-door flush and takes the pot you built up with such skill. If that seems unfair to you – welcome to poker.

How To Deal With Poker Variance

The first step to dealing with variance in poker is to accept that it’s here to stay. Whether you’re playing with friends or somewhere in the poker metaverse, ups and downs are all part of the game, and you have to learn to roll with the punches. But that’s not to say the law of large numbers doesn’t apply. It’s just that the hand of chance treats every player slightly differently. The funny thing is that the more you develop your skills, the less unlucky you’re likely to get. Bad players who rely on luck too much will never make money in the long run.

That said, there’ll come a time when variance will hurt you. How to mitigate the impact? Think of it like driving a car. The safer you drive, the less likely you are to have an accident. Sure, you can never rule out accidents entirely (which is why it’s called an accident,) but you’re not a total victim of chance either. It’s the same with continuous personal development in poker. The more you study, the more you’re likely to win in the long run. As a result, you’ll make more money, which can compensate for the times when variance takes a bite out of your bankroll.

Another strategy is to play poker online more often. The more hands you play, the more predictable your results will be, with the result that variance will affect your profitability less overall.

Finally, players can embrace variance and seek to position themselves in such a way that they can actually leverage it. Think about online poker tournaments. They’re less profitable than cash games in the short run, but they can offer much bigger payouts. If your bankroll doesn’t stretch to high-stakes cash games, tournaments can be a way to access the type of big pots that may normally be beyond your reach. In other words, a streak of good luck could have a disproportionate pay-off.

Variance and Money

Speaking of bankrolls, bankroll management is absolutely critical to dealing with variance in online poker. Make sure that your bankroll is big enough to weather the storm. Say, you’re playing a 10NL Texas Hold’em game with a $300 bankroll. Suddenly you have a deluge of downswings that robs you of 10 buy-ins, and your bankroll is diminished by a third. To avoid catastrophe, you’ll either have to grind away at lower-stakes tables until you get it back or reload from your savings. With a $1,000 bankroll, a 10 buy-in downswing will only shave off 10 percent of your bankroll, allowing you to continue playing at your preferred poker starting stake without too much pain.

The bottom line is that poker is a game in which you risk money to make money. So how big should your bankroll be? As a rule of thumb, cash players should have enough to cover 35 to 65 buy-ins and never risk more than five percent of it.

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