Poker Variance Calculator
How much swing is normal? Monte Carlo your next 100,000 hands or 10,000 tourneys and see where you actually land. Downswings, risk of ruin, and what your "Am I a winner?" math really says.
Poker variance is the natural up-and-down swing of results around your true long-term winrate — the reason a genuinely winning player can still lose for weeks at a time. This free calculator runs a Monte Carlo simulation of thousands of possible futures from your winrate and standard deviation (for cash games) or ROI and field size (for tournaments), then shows the realistic range of outcomes: expected versus actual profit, the depth and frequency of downswings, your risk of ruin, the bankroll you need to ride out the swings, and — through the Bayesian ‘Am I a winner?’ tool — how much you can trust a winrate measured over a given sample. Pot-Limit Omaha players face far higher variance than No-Limit Hold’em — roughly 120–150+ bb/100 of standard deviation versus 80–100 — so a bankroll that feels comfortable in Hold’em can leave you badly under-rolled for PLO.
Poker Variance Calculator — FAQ
How it works
A Monte Carlo bankroll simulator for cash games and tournaments. Enter your winrate and standard deviation (or tournament ROI and field size) and it plots thousands of possible futures — expected vs realised results, downswings, risk of ruin, required bankroll, and how confident you can be in your winrate.
What is poker variance?
Variance is the natural swing of results around your true winrate. Even a clear winner endures long break-even or losing stretches; this calculator simulates thousands of those stretches so you see the realistic range of outcomes over N hands or tournaments.
How much variance is normal in PLO?
Far more than most players expect. With a standard deviation around 120–150 bb/100, a solid 5 bb/100 PLO winner can still be break-even or losing across a 50,000-hand stretch, and downswings of 15–25 buy-ins are routine. Run your own numbers above to see the 5th-to-95th-percentile band for your sample size — the spread is usually much wider than intuition suggests.
What bankroll do I need for PLO cash games?
Because PLO’s standard deviation is so high, the 20–30 buy-in guideline carried over from NLHE is too thin. Most winning regulars keep 40–60+ buy-ins for their stake, and more if they take shots or play a short, aggressive style. The calculator’s risk-of-ruin and required-bankroll outputs let you size this precisely for your own winrate rather than leaning on a rule of thumb.
How is risk of ruin calculated, and what level is acceptable?
Risk of ruin is the probability your bankroll reaches zero before it grows, given your winrate, standard deviation and starting roll. The calculator derives it from the simulated trajectories — the lowest point each run reaches — rather than a single closed-form approximation. Most serious players target a risk of ruin under 5%, and many keep it nearer 1% for the stakes that matter; raising your standard deviation or lowering your winrate both push it up fast.
What standard deviation should I use?
Take it from your tracking software (PokerTracker or Hold’em Manager) — the per-100-hands standard deviation, ideally the all-in-adjusted figure. As a rough guide it runs around 80–100 bb/100 for NLHE 6-max and 120–150+ bb/100 for PLO; the default reflects a typical PLO 6-max number.
How deep can a normal downswing get?
Even a clear winner will periodically endure downswings of 15–20 buy-ins or more and break-even stretches of tens of thousands of hands. Downswing depth scales with your standard deviation and shrinks, relative to expectation, as your edge grows. The simulation reports the worst trough each run reaches, so you can see how deep a downswing is realistic for your numbers before it says anything about your skill.
How is tournament variance different from cash-game variance?
Tournament variance is dramatically higher. Top-heavy payouts mean you cash a minority of the time and rely on rare deep runs for most of your profit, so even strong MTT players need hundreds of buy-ins and can go through long, deep downswings. Switch the calculator to tournament mode to model this from your ROI, field size and the payout structure rather than a cash winrate.
Can I be a winning player and still be down — or losing and still up?
Yes, and over normal samples it is common. Results across a few tens of thousands of hands are dominated by variance, not skill, so a true winner can show a loss and a true loser can show a profit. The built-in Bayesian “Am I a winner?” analysis turns this around: it estimates the probability you are genuinely a winner given your observed winrate and sample size — far more honest than reading your raw graph.
How does backing or staking change my variance?
Being staked transfers downside variance to your backer in exchange for a share of your profit (and any makeup you carry), which lowers your personal risk of ruin but also your expected take. The backing tool models a markup or profit-split deal so you can see your effective winrate and downside after the backer’s cut — useful when deciding whether a stake is worth taking.
Does multi-tabling reduce my variance?
Not per hand — if anything your standard deviation per 100 hands edges up slightly with less information on each table. But playing more hands per hour means you reach the long run sooner, so your bb/100 results converge faster in real time. The trade-off is only worth it while your winrate holds up across the extra tables.
Why is PLO variance higher than Hold’em?
In Omaha every player holds four or more cards, so ranges run much closer in equity and big pots are contested far more often — pre-flop favourites are smaller, draws are huge, and multiway pots are the norm. The result is bigger swings around the same edge: more standard deviation per 100 hands, which is exactly what this calculator turns into downswing, risk-of-ruin and bankroll numbers.
How many hands or tournaments should I simulate?
Use your real sample, or the volume you are planning. The point is to show how wide the outcome band is at that scale: at 10,000 PLO hands the spread is enormous, by 500,000 it narrows considerably but never vanishes. Comparing a few sample sizes is the fastest way to build a realistic sense of how long variance takes to settle.