All good poker players know there will be times when your hands just fail. Your nut flush draws keep getting trampled on the river. Your pocket rockets get cracked by a set of 2s on the flop. These poker downswings can happen over and over again. It may seem that luck is against you, but it’s all just variance, and it’s an integral part of the game.

But those who claim that success is purely down to luck in poker have either never played the game or are just not very skilled players. If your strategy is watertight, your knowledge solid, and you adapt where needed, you’ll be aware of this. When the variance does get a bit much, take time out, study more, and come back at a later stage, refreshed and ready. You’ll soon be on track again and ready to take on your opponents in online poker.

How Much Does Luck Really Matter in Poker?

Is poker mostly luck or skill? Success at the poker tables is a balancing act between the two. Understanding luck in poker is like understanding lightning – it can strike anyone, anywhere, but there is a certain set of variables. You can safely assume that a bolt of electricity from a blue sky on a summer day is less probable than one in a thunderstorm. You’d hardly take cover when it’s warm and balmy outside. Unplugging all electrical appliances when there’s a storm raging or avoiding shelter under a tree? That’s strategy.

And why is poker strategy important? Well, luck will only get you that far before you find yourself with a bankroll that has seen better days, or the sign “Your tournament has come to an end. Please try again next time!” flashes across your screen after being the first player eliminated in an online game. A well-thought-out and well-executed strategy is essential to winning long-term at the poker tables.

This comes down to decisions you make at any given moment. Will you check, fold, call, bet, raise, 3-bet, 4-bet, or shove, among other fun poker terminology? Will you go stand under that tree in a thunderstorm? Hello? Golf, anyone? Strategize, and once you’ve taken into account most variables and made your play, then it’s down to luck.

Is Poker Really About Math?

Poker is many things, it seems. It’s luck. It’s skill. It’s strategy. But is poker really math too, as it’s claimed? In fact, the importance of poker math can’t be stressed enough. Without even a rudimentary grip of poker maths, you might as well be holding your pocket aces drifting in a lifeboat out at sea. You’d have no idea of their intrinsic value apart from that it’s the strongest possible starting hand preflop. The flop will change everything. So will the turn. The river is called that because it sweeps your poorly played and weakly strategized aces downstream.

Applying math to poker is a boss move. With the math behind Texas Hold’em, for example, you’d be able to calculate fold equity, your pot odds, implied odds, and your outs on the fly. Taking all of these into consideration would allow you to be able to make that final decision: check, fold, bet, raise, shove? However it pans out from there with the set of skills you’ve grinded for and that poker math brain of yours, you can be assured that you’d have made the right decision given a particular set of variables.

How Do Luck and Skill Intersect in Poker?

The intersection of luck and skill in poker could go by the name of “educated guess.” The beauty in poker is exactly that element of luck. It’s exactly why it attracts all the fish too (poker players need the fish). It can be frustrating that even after doing all the maths, strategizing all the strategies, and bluffing all the bluffs, the final say will always come down to luck. For good measure, there are even different types of luck in poker. We’ve all experienced beginner’s luck. Blind luck is that guy in the lifeboat. Luck in persistence is the one you want to aspire to.

Underneath all the variance, though, numbers are your bedrock. There are 52 cards in a deck, 13 to each suit, four of a kind. Each player gets dealt two cards. There are five community cards to a player on the board. Those are solid numbers. They’re your stability, your base. That’s what you get to play around with. Learn all the rules, the strategies, the maths, and then get creative. That way, when poker variance runs your way, you’ll be able to exploit your lucky break to the hilt.

Skill-Based Strategies That Minimize Variance

With the growth in popularity, poker has changed. Strategies have evolved. The game isn’t the same as years ago when legal online poker was a twinkle in the eye of some developer. How poker strategy has changed over the years is largely due to the larger pool of players online poker has brought to the game. Play, on average, is more aggressive and the skill divide between recreational and professional players is narrower.

That said, there’s no technique you can use to minimize poker variance itself, but there are strategies you can use to reduce its impact on your bottom line.

Bankroll Management

Effective poker bankroll management is the best way to deal with variance. Basically, you need to have enough money in your bankroll to weather the downswings that will come your way. Many players will set aside at least 20 to 30 buy-ins for the game they’re playing.

Expected Value

Expected value (EV) is how much you can expect to win or lose on a particular play on average over the long run. Focusing on EV helps make better decisions and results in a lower level of variance than a focus on short-term results.

Discipline

Always stay disciplined, especially when variance isn’t going your way. Avoid getting emotional and you’ll run a lower risk of making lousy calls. Stick to your game plan – such as using implied odds in poker to make better decisions – and you’ll weather the storm.

Take a Time Out

Sometimes a downswing can push you close to tilt. After all, you’re only human. When you feel the emotions churn after a bad beat, it’s time to step away from the game to recharge your mental batteries and come back with a fresh perspective.

Acceptance

Always bear in mind that poker is inherently about risk. Those afraid of risk frankly shouldn’t play. Accepting variance and embracing risk will help you stay focused, deal with temporary upsets, and make a profit in the long run.

Why Even the Best Players Go on Downswings

Losing and dealing with losses is part of the game of poker. Even the best players should expect to lose a significant number of the games they play. This isn’t usually a problem for skilled players, because losses are less than wins over time. 

However, occasionally, a player will experience a downswing – an extended period in which they are consistently losing their games. Downswings say nothing about a player’s ability – they’re purely down to poker variance. 

Handling poker downswings, though, is what sets pros apart from amateurs. A pro will continue to make the correct decisions based on equity and value. This will minimize losses, and eventually the downswing will pass. An amateur may be tempted into changing their game, which will mostly likely compound their losses, even driving them into tilt.

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