Variance in PLO

I’ve constantly read that there’s a lot of variance in PLO. I have only recently started tracking my results (using Poker Tracker and my own Luck Calculator) and had found that my luck-adjusted results were fairly steady. This is good news, as obviously it shows that overall I have been getting the money in when in good shape.

Luck-wise, I had been on a steady upwards curve, to the point where at one point in the $200 game I had been lucky to the tune of over $2,000 - 10 buy-ins! This came down a bit but the last two days – only 730 hands – I have seen this continue a further $1,450 down. The good news is that for the two days my luck-adjusted result is a profit of $30.

I note from my records that I have played 252 big [1] pots in the $200 PLO game in a period of 8,451 hands. This works out at one big pot every 34 hands. Compare this with 385 out of 20,267 hands in the $1000 NLHE game – just one every 53 hands.

So what does this tell me? Good question. Well, it looks like there are more big pots in PLO than NLHE. Maybe that’s why they call it the action game. Apart from that, there are no solid conclusions that can be drawn without looking a bit deeper.

My edge so far in PLO is 14% whereas it was only 6% in NLHE, so it’s a bit like comparing apples with oranges. The higher edge in PLO should indicate that the long-run is reached in a much shorter time frame than in NLHE. This is good news.

However, anecdotally, many more pots in PLO are 55/45 or 60/40 than in NLHE. This would indicate that in a short time frame, it’s possible to have a really big swing up or down by winning or losing a high proportion of these coin-flips. I guess this is what’s happened to me these last two days.

The good news is PLO involves a lot less guesswork than NLHE and I believe the pot-limit structure adds to the skill element too. This enables me to play 2-3 tables at once whereas I was unable to maintain a winning style playing more than one table at NLHE.

All in all, it looks like the PLO $200 game can be as profitable for me as the $1000 NLHE game. This is great news, as the bankroll requirements are probably at least 50% lower. The bottom line is: although PLO has huge short-term variance, because a winning player can gain a bigger advantage the long-term is reached much quicker and so variance becomes irrelevant. This assumes that you have the bankroll to cover the short-terms swings and you can remain unaffected by bad luck, continuing to play the same solid game whether the chips make it your way or not.


[1] defined as total value $80 or more.