There’s so much talk about variance in MTTs that eventually it becomes difficult to separate the useful information from the noise. Players will talk about minimizing variance in a variety of different contexts, and they’ll often justify a wide variety of different choices – from what games to play, to a myriad of different in-game decisions – with the reasoning that it’s ‘lower variance’.
In order to figure out whether players are correct in doing this, we have to dig a little deeper and analyze the reasons why they tend to make these choices. Are the things we assume to be lowering variance actually doing so? There are a few tools we can use in order to do this, as I’ll explain, but first we have to figure out exactly what types of variance to which we’re referring.
The different types of variance
Variance comes in many forms. There are the obvious ones – the bad beats, the suckouts, and the times you get one big pair versus another preflop – but there are also a lot of other types of variance that aren’t immediately visible if you’re not looking for them. A particularly obscure example might occur if you tend to play a certain tournament every day during your regular schedule – the variation in which players are actually in the field of that tournament from day to day is actually going to affect your ROI to some small extent. Some days it’ll be very slightly tougher, some days very slightly softer.
This goes for in-game situations too – sometimes you’ll be in a very specific spot with a hand that is at the top of your range, and sometimes you’ll have the very bottom of it. These small variations are going to impact your EV substantially – every situation is different, and if you have three or four instances in one day where you happen to get into a big pot with the bottom of your range, it’s going to feel like you punted off a bunch of chips that day.
We couldn’t possibly factor in all this variance when evaluating our game, so in order to start analyzing variance in a somewhat more structured way, we have to divide it into two categories – variance that comes from game selection, and variance that comes from in-game strategy. Obviously, these are the only areas in which we can really exert a great degree of control, which is why they’re the only ones worth analyzing.
Analyzing your game selection choices
When it comes to game selection, many people take a simple approach – play the games they feel they can afford to play, based on their current bankroll. It often doesn’t go too far beyond that. Many people don’t have an accurate idea of their ROI in certain tournaments, or the extent to which the size of the field in any given event influences the variance they should expect to see in their results.
What this means, therefore, is that most players end up leaving themselves vulnerable to a significantly higher degree of variance than they would like. They end up being surprised at how easy it is to ‘run bad’ over a certain sample, and thus they end up questioning their own game – or, even worse, questioning the randomness or legitimacy of the games they’re playing in. The solution to this problem, and the route towards evaluating how much variance exists within your game, is the same as many other solutions – you need to do some math.
A variance calculator (like the one at www.pokerdope.com – I’m not affiliated with the site, it’s just a great tool that I often use for coaching) is the way to go when it comes to this. You’ll be able to look at the games you’re playing and how many of them you’re playing in a month or a year, and figure out your potential level of variance based on your presumed ROI with different field sizes. It’s crucial to run different calculations for best-case and worst-case ROIs – you’re never going to know for sure what your real ROI is without a massive sample of games to work with.
Running these calculations helps you to get an idea of the worst-case scenario for your individual game selection processes. You may find that with your current daily tournament schedule, you have an 80% chance of losing money on each individual day – that’s obviously pretty extreme, but if you’re playing low-stakes MTTs with big fields and a middle-to-low ROI in the 10-30% range, you might find this applies to you. Reducing your field size could have a huge impact on the variance you’re forced to endure, even if your average ROI doesn’t change.
In-game variance and how it affects you
The second factor playing a part in how much variance you’re subjected to is, fairly obviously, how you actually play. If you’re a very aggressive player who plays a lot of big pots and likes to push the thinnest of edges then it’s natural to believe you’d be subjected to more variance than a tighter player…right? Well, actually, no.
In general, more aggressive players are actually subjected to less variance over time, for two reasons. Firstly, if they’re pushing every small edge they can find, then their overall winrate in terms of EVbb/100 will be higher, and thus their ROI has a much better chance of increasing in tandem. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, they’re not reliant on actually making a hand with showdown value in order to win pots. They pick up non-showdown pots on a much more frequent basis, leaving them less vulnerable to the variance that comes with trying to ‘flop big’ or ‘get paid off’ – obviously most of the time these things don’t happen.
Most players attempt to minimize variance through playing tighter and taking as few all-in spots as possible – this is the opposite of the right approach. In order to minimize variance, you should be looking to pick up as many non-showdown pots as you can, in order to decrease the disadvantage placed upon you by the existence of antes in MTTs. If you keep folding, you lose chips – if you stop folding so much, you only need to break even on a given hand to be doing better than you otherwise would.
While the vast majority of your chips will still be won at showdown – after all, you can’t win someone’s whole stack by bluffing – your non-showdown winnings (the red line on HM2 or PT4 graphs) will have a big say in whether you’re subjected to a high level of variance or not. Stop ‘waiting for a better spot’, and you’ll find variance gets lower, not higher.
The bottom line – always be improving your edge
In the end, whatever approach to game selection or playing style we might choose, reducing variance is simpler than it seems. It’s not really about waiting for ‘better spots’, or playing tight, or playing loose, or playing smaller fields or bigger fields. The most tried and tested way to decrease the level of variance to which you’re subjected has always been to continuously improve your game, and ensure that your edge in whichever games you choose to play is as big as possible.
Whatever else you do, if your game is stagnating, you’ll never have much say over how much variance there is in your game. Working to become the best player you can possibly be will always be the best solution, so make peace with how little control you truly have over your results, and continue taking every edge you can find.