If you’re planning on turning agen idn poker into a viable business, then you’ll need to plan for failure from the get-go. Plan for failure? Shouldn’t I focus on winning?

Of course, you should focus on winning. After all, poker is a game like any other. And like other games, you’re able to play it professionally. But with professional gambling, comes responsible gambling. 

Knowing your Variance

As a poker player, it’s important to keep track of your variance. Variance is a term that normally refers to a measurement between numbers in a specified data set. The further the numbers are from each other, the larger the variance is.

In poker, variance refers to how often a player can expect wins or losses according to luck.

For example, let’s say you played 100 hands of poker. Luck dictates that you should have an even number of wins and losses, 50/50. If you win 57 of those hands though, then that’s a positive variance. Conversely, if you win 43 of those hands, that’s negative variance.

This is where using a variation calculator is beneficial to your career as a poker player. It’s important to use a calculator because you’re able to project how much your bankroll should be.

If you can expect how often you’ll lose, how often you’ll win, how long your downswings will be, and the percentages of how often they’ll happen, then you can adjust your bankroll to withstand these negative variances without going bust.

How to Compute Your Variance

When calculating your variance, the first thing you need to figure out is your winrate.

Normally in live poker, winrate is measured as the number of big blind bets you make every 100 hands. In online poker, your winrate is measured as the number of big blinds you win per 100 hands.

Typically, if you buy into a 2/5NL game, that counts as one big blind. But that wouldn’t count toward your winrate, as less you won that hand.

 A regular person can play 25 hands in an hour, which would be 100 hands in 4 hours or $2500 in 4 hours. Let’s say in this example you won 20BB/100 hands, that’s $5 in an hour. A winning player would have a range of 1BB/100 to 40BB/100 hands.

Therefore, it’s important to track the number of hands you play per month. The more accurate the data you put into the calculator, the more precise the result.

Some Variance in Numbers Explained

Take note that most of these results should be multiplied by 5.

Expected winnings  – this is where you’ll see how much you should win based on your current skill level. If you play and realize you’re no longer making this much, you’ll need to adjust your bankroll to compensate;

95% confidence interval – This is where you’ll find the specified range of results you can expect per month; the first negative number are your losses, the second number is your wins;

Probability of loss after 2000 hands – this is where you’ll find how often during the year you’ll lose. Again, learn to adjust your bankroll to withstand this hit.