Okay I've heard this repeatedly (here and elsewhere) that there's less variance in NL compared to LHE. Personally I don't feel I have enough of a sample to determine and I'm guessing there's people here who have decent samples of either both or can compare a large LHE sample to a NL sample. I was always under the impression LHE has less variance (just considering the BR requirements makes enough sense). Unless everyone is joking when they say NL is less variance.

Here's the deal if anyone can do it: I'd like to see some good eveidence backing up either theory...Stats, links to threads, SD/100 numbers, etc. Anything that can prove one actually has more/less variance over the other.

I don't have any numbers to prove this but from what I've experienced with LHE and NLHE, I would have to guess that LHE has greater variance.

I think that's what happens when 6 people see a showdown, capped on every street.

I have played limit and no limit. I originally moved to limit because I heard there was less variance, after a month or so I moved back to NL because the variance was ten time what I expected it to be. The variance could have seemed higher though, because I am a much better NL player than I am a limit player.

Queue the drumroll for Xaston and his graphs.

What I don't understand is if NL has less variance why is the recomended BR minimum for NL is 30 buy ins (or 3000 BB) while LHE is 300BB?

Piers' graph shows the limit variance better than Xas, IMO. NL has less variance LONG term, but short term can have wicked variance.

regardless of the true variance and sd numbers, the fact is that you can play perfect LHE and go on a MASSIVE downswing, while the same is rarely true for NL.

if you listen to the circuit episode with the guys from live at the bike (the first time they were on), they describe the difference in practical terms. iirc, they said something like they won about 55% of their sessions at LHE, and that was REALLY good, while they won about 80% of their NLHE sessions.


also note that variance and SD are related to winrate. a good winrate at NLHE is quite a bit higher than LHE in therms of BB/100 (even standardizing the BB quantity), so it can fade a slightly higher SD with regards to the proportions of winning and losing sessions.


[edited for spelling and ambiguity (thanks, low dough)]

A good player in say 5/10 FL HE is somebody making 1bb/100 hands, while good player at NL$100 is smeone making about 4PTBB/100hands. $3K is the bankroll for both stakes. Since your edge is smaller in FLHE, the impact on variance in your short term results is higher (as kuso said, you will have fewer winning sessions in FLHE).

The fact that you CANT give improper odds sometimes in FLHE as you can do in NLHE makes it worse in terms of SD. People calling you down are more frequent in FLHE. As bobby said, there is no comparisson...

I don't have much to add except that August is my first full month of just NL FR. It is also my biggest win as far as dollars goes. I just happen to have looked back at the last 12 months of results and Im glad I quit playing limit.