Nuts

Variance comes in many forms.  It’s the difference between getting dealt a bad streak of starting cards vs. getting dealt monsters six hands in a row.  It’s the fluctuations of your bankroll around its hopefully increasing average.  It’s the differences in playing styles among your opponents from table to table.

For me last night, variance was not getting paid off on monster hands when on most nights I would have.

Rarely do you have the stone cold nuts.  Often times you have close to it where you are pretty confident you have the best hand, and if push comes to shove, that’s exactly what you do with your chips.

Last night, I had the stone cold nuts three times.  Each of those three times I was bet into heavily.  On one occasion, when it was 3-handed on the turn, someone bet, the other player tripled that bet for a raise and I pushed.

And each time, everyone folded.

Those three hands, had they gone differently, were the difference between a winning and losing session.  Throw into the mix a cracking of AA by a draw chaser and you have a –0.4 buy-in result instead of a +2-3x buy-in result.

Variance.