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June 5, 2014
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I know that there is no way that you can eliminate variance entirely, but during my last two cash sessions I have been trying a new strategy that has yielded good results. I am playing cash as I would the beginning stages of an MTT. I will min-raise/call or limp/call with many premium hands (except AA, KK & QQ in most situations, notice that I didn't include AK), and over limp with them as well. I find that by doing this I am putting less money in the pot pre flop thereby losing less when I don't flop well, am played back at when I c bet, and am forced to fold. In addition, by employing this strategy when I do flop well my hand is under repped, and I tend to get paid off by someone betting his AT on an ace high dry board vs my AK. Of course, I do attempt this strategy from a positional advantage as much as possible. I realize that good players will catch on quick to what I am doing, and adjust their play. However, the $2/$5 games are not populated with good players, and as I said this has been working.
I am always looking for ways to reduce the variance that exists in this game, and if anyone has any ideas I would appreciate them. Plus, if there is anyone that disagree's with this strategy I welcome your feedback both negative and positive. Thanks!
TPE Pro
December 6, 2012
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There really isn't that much you can do to reduce variance, especially not without also reducing your winrate, which is what you are surely doing by not putting money in the pot when you have extremely strong hands. Yes, you lose less when you get outflopped but you also win less when you make the best hand, and AA makes the best hand a lot more often than not on the flop. Focus your efforts on increasing your winrate and give up on the idea that variance is something you can control.
October 6, 2010
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i would have thought the best way to reduce variance would be to drop to $1/$2.
Variance is your friend in these games – most of your winrate should come from the big pots where you get it in vs a second best hand, and if you are playing too passively it will be very hard to do this. consequently you will find yourself on the losing end of bigger pots than you win, because other people driving the action will put in bigger bets than you do.
June 5, 2014
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I understand what you are advising. I have just been getting discouraged by the seemingly constant suck outs, and am searching for a way to minimize the losses when this happens. I realize that I may be losing some value by not raising or 3- betting my monsters pre-flop, but I am also minimizing money lost, and isn't money not lost as good as money gained? Plus, the players at these levels are terrible, and will pay me off anyway if I flop well, and they have a piece of the board, or a decent pocket pair. I am not advocating limping with AA, KK, or QQ unless you have a specific reason/read, and I do believe in balance. I am just trying this strategy on an experimental basis, and I had two sessions so far that have been successful. The sessions have lasted for no more than 4 hours with a respectable win rate. I know that I will need to put in much more volume to get a more realistic win/loss rate, but I like to try out new ideas. LOL to $1/$2! Thanks
April 8, 2013
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I agree with you that most players are terrible at 2/5 but even terrible players will pay attention enough to understand what you are doing. They may not understand the adjustments necessary to play perfectly against you but will know enough to decrease your winrate. I play alot of 2/5 and passive tight players definitely arent crushing the table even in the best games. I think if you really want to decrease the “variance” you need to start looking back at hand histories and being able to decipher negative variance from possible mistakes. I hear alot of hand histories where people are essentially complaining about a bad beat but from the sound of it they make serious mistakes and then chalk the results up to coolers or run bad. I think this section of the forum is massively underused as I personally love discussing hand histories from live cash games and Andrew has been very generous with his input.
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