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Message: [QUOTE="zachvac, post: 738328, member: 26306"] So most people by now realize that poker players who play badly are a good thing in the long run. But people are still frustrated when they get sucked out on (myself included once in a while). They curse variance but accept it as a part of poker. But if you asked anyone if they would rather play the current version of poker or poker where there was no luck involved, most would pick the 2nd one. I'll take the current poker all day long. If poker went so that good players consistently went up and bad players consistently went down, it would be much more obvious whether you were good or bad. If you played poker, barely won a pot, and your graph was a straight line down as time goes on, how likely are you to continue to play poker? So as time went on there would be new bad players but for the most part the good players would continue playing and the bad players would stop because they were broke or realized they were throwing money away (or a third alternative is they'd realize they're bad and get better). Any of these 3 provides an increase in the percentage of good players at a site. Not only that but now that there are only "good" players, the bottom 50% of the "good" players are now bad players, and consistently start to lose. Continue that a few cycles and none but the world class players would be left. They'd beat the new people who came and take some money from each other, but the average winning player now would end up not able to win any longer. But the way it is now, bad players will remember a time when they won and assume that was the norm. Honestly, how often have you heard of someone who "won x dollars in y days and now I can't win anymore"? Do you really think these are good players? They experienced positive variance and because of that gave it back and more to the poker population. This is true in so many other parts of life. Think of golf. I gave it up as I committed myself to baseball, but when I played I would always do horrible, average 5-6 on each hole, but at the end I'd always remember the one hole that I parred or once in a while actually birdied. This would keep me coming back and I'd never quit when I did horribly because I knew that I COULD do better. Now equate that to poker, they know they CAN win, it's just that in the long run they won't. But they don't understand that so will continue to play, once in a while winning a little and re-enforcing the "fact" that they are a winning player who has bad luck in their head. And that isn't the end of the amazing good that variance does. If you are a winning player, a bad streak can be extremely stressful on your mental outlook on the game. I know several good winning players who gave up on poker because they simply couldn't handle the swings. And you know what, I'm happy that they do. It's more money for me. Even for people who don't quit, there are countless winning players who tilt a lot of their winnings away during downswings. All this money goes into the general poker population which will tend towards you if you are a winning player. So if you can simply understand variance and the fact that it is your friend, you will make so much more money in the long run. Variance helps you win money from bad players who wouldn't play otherwise and good players who tilt because of variance. If you are mentally tough and can handle the swings without tilting, variance is the reason you make so much money. [/QUOTE]

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