Poker Variance Simulator

Head over to the Tools section and check out the Variance Simulator (requires Excel).  Just enter your winrate and standard deviation and keep pressing F9.  It will automatically generate what your next 100,000 hands might look like.  You might be very surprised how much variance you’re likely to experience, even over a pretty significant sample size.

With a 3PTBB/100 winrate and a standard deviation of 60, I got the following results over ten 100,000-hand samples:

1: +40 buyins
2: -20 buyins
3: +80 buyins
4: 0 buyins
5: +40 buyins
6: -5 buyins
7: +60 buyins
8: +85 buyins
9: +20 buyins
10: +40 buyins

How to Find Your Standard Deviation in Poker Tracker 3

Just open up PT3 and click on “More Detail” in the “Session Notes” tab.  As an alternative, refer to this 2+2 post.

How to Find Your Standard Deviation in Hold Em Manager

Open HEM then go to the “Reports” tab.  On the left, click on the + sign.  Add Standard Deviation in BB (not bb).  Click save, refresh, and you’re done!

Note: I actually posted this on 2+2 a while a back but I forgot to post it here.  Whoops.  Also, I’d like to give credit to the person that actually developed this spreadsheet but unfortunately, I have no idea who it is.

Hero (SB) ($100.00)
Button ($100.00)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 9♣, T♣
Button bets $3, Hero calls $2

Flop: ($6) 8♣, Q♣, 2♦ (2 players)

Sure you can plug the information into PokerStove, but that’s pretty time consuming and you won’t always have access to a computer when you’re playing poker (AKA brick and mortar casinos).  The good news is that there is an easy and pretty accurate way to predict your chances of winning in 3 easy steps.

Step 1:
Figure out how many outs you have.  In this case, there are 9 clubs remaining in the deck and I can hit an additional 3 jacks to make a straight.  That’s a total of 12 outs.

Step 2:
To predict your chances of improving your hand on the turn, multiply your outs by 2.  So in this case, I have about a 24% chance of hitting a flush or straight on the turn.

Step 3:
To predict your chances of improving your hand on the turn and on the river, multiply your outs by 4.  So in this case, if we get all in on the flop, I’ll have a 48% chance of having the best hand by the river.

Easy, quick and accurate.  Use it wisely.