Variance Much?

I almost never write off losing sessions in poker as just being variance. I mean, variance obviously exists in poker, and a bad run of cards can put a serious damper on a game no matter how well you're playing, but if I lose a couple games in a row, I hate to just say 'variance!' and then not think about it. I know that, variance or not, there was some leak in my game I could've patched, some problem with my play that I need to work on, and that if I look over how I've been playing, I'll likely see something to work on and then I can go about improving it.

With that said, my recent run of losses in the ultra-turbos really seems like a bad dash of variance to me. My reasoning? My current stats:

6-man Ultra Turbo Hold 'em .50+.05

First - 3
Second - 6
Third - 6
Fourth - 3
Fifth - 2
Sixth - 2

By itself, those stats don't show much - but if you compare them to my stats from the last post, you'll see that out of my last five sit n gos I've placed 1st in two, 2nd in two, and then fifth in one. The thing is, I don't feel like I've been playing really any differently than I did for the other eight that I lost before that. I mean, maybe a few small tweaks, but nothing to account for such a huge change in fortune all of a sudden.

Granted, my sample sizes for this whole set of sit n gos so far are grossly under what is needed to get a real feel for how I'm doing, but based on what I have so far, I'm still feeling good about my ability to beat the low stakes ultra-turbos. Besides, by the basic nature of an ultra-turbo, there's bound to be higher variance.

But Wlokos, how do you know that the variance wasn't really in the winning sessions - what if the losing sessions were the norm?

I suppose it's always possible that I've got my variance backwards and I've just been lucky on the first and last batch of games, with the middle set being what I'm truly capable of. It certainly doesn't feel that way, though, and I find myself hard-pressed to believe that I can't even beat the 50 cent sit n gos.

Well, the results of these next few days as I continue to cram as many of these as I possibly can into my playing time should give me a better idea, one way or the other, of how I'm doing. Hopefully I can start pushing myself beyond breaking even and start progressing towards the $50 I need to move up in stakes to the $1 SnGs.

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In other news, if anybody else plays on Ultimate Bet and wants to join me in an SnG or two, I'd love to play with any of you other bloggers. Granted, my stakes are pretty much guaranteed to be lower than yours, but if you feel like just playing a round for fun, I'd love to do so.

My AIM screen name is oksokol, so just toss me an IM or something if you want to play.