Variance PLO?

I think its highly unlikely on NL10. Most of the PLO variance comes from agressive play on higher stakes where a lot of preflop 3/4betting is going on and then postflop bluffraising and light stackoffs.

But on nl10 the game plays pretty passive so variance really isn't that bad. Most people are just nutpaddling and calling and don't get agressive untill they have the nuts so its a fairly easy game and your edge should be really high so a 20BI downswing is quite unlikely.

Those who say that PLO doesn't have huge swings in micros haven't played them.

Yesterday I played a small session, and lost 18bin. Last 100 hands of the session I run 10bin under EV. Sometimes it just happens. Either you lose all the flips and flops, or you get sucked out before the money goes in (like you 4bet aces and get 75% of your stack in, guy calls with a pair and hits a set).

You can reduce variance by not 3betting and sort of nutpeddling (small ball until you hit), but on the other hand that might not be the way to maximize your EV.

Things that increase your variance:

- High VPIP (you will hit marginal draws and made hands a lot)
- 3 betting a lot (when you start to 3bet, your variance is a LOT higher than without 3betting)
- Trying to bluff bad players off their hands (common mistake. When opponent plays all kinds of hands, you think that he can't hit hard all the time. And you make big bluffs and he calls with middle pair and takes your money).

I have made simulations about the normal swings in micros. If you play normal TAG and mainly 3bet when you get enough of your stack in with aces, you will have about 10bin swinges every now and then. When you start to 3bet more, your expected swings rise up to 15 or 20bin.

So what I would recommend when you start to lose, is to tighten up. What usually happens is you lose few buy-ins, and see that opponents are playing badly. So instead of tightening up you open up your game. You might not even notice it. You start to 3bet them more, you stack off more lightly etc. And then luck becomes a big factor. As you play bigger and bigger pots, with more and more marginal hands, variance hits the roof. And when you lose more, it hits you mentally even more. And snowball effect is on.

Tightening up might reduce your EV. But at least you stop the snowball, and you won't lose that much EV. If only I had remembered it yesterday...

Originally posted by MatejM47
I think its highly unlikely on NL10. Most of the PLO variance comes from agressive play on higher stakes where a lot of preflop 3/4betting is going on and then postflop bluffraising and light stackoffs.

But on nl10 the game plays pretty passive so variance really isn't that bad. Most people are just nutpaddling and calling and don't get agressive untill they have the nuts so its a fairly easy game and your edge should be really high so a 20BI downswing is quite unlikely.

The variance in PLO doesn't entirely come from aggressive play, it's to do with the much more narrowly distributed equity edges than NLHE. The prime example being that getting AIPF in NLHE with AA gives you at least an 80% equity advantage, whereas getting it in with AAxx in PLO you're looking more at 60% edges. This comes into play when you get it in postflop too, with big draws and wraps often having an equity edge over a good made hand on the flop.

The part about preflop 3/4 betting and postflop bluffraising is actually a lot more relevant to NLHE than PLO, as people play their hands more straightforwardly in general in PLO, even on higher stakes. You will very rarely see a 5bet preflop in PLO without it being AAxx, whereas in NLHE a preflop 5bet in an aggressive game could easily be any pocket pair and AQ+.

And since equity edges do not change between limits i'd say it's easily possible to have a 20BI downswing in PLO, no matter what limit you're playing.

Just for a bit of comparison, my Std Dev on NL25 SH was ~80bb/100, on PLO10 SH i've got a Std Dev of ~120bb/100. Quite a large difference there.