Poker tools come in all shapes and sizes. Some, like poker solvers, are elaborate and complicated, and you need to spend a lot of time working with them to get some real value. Some others, however, are fairly simple and designed primarily to help you with planning, but they can be just as important in the grand scheme of things.
The recently launched free poker variance calculator, created by none other than the BetRivers Poker ambassador Phil Galfond, falls into the latter group, and it’s one of the coolest little tools we’ve seen in a while.
Variance calculators, in general, serve to provide you with mathematical and statistical expectations in terms of upswings and downswings, based on your perceived win rate in a particular game. They tell you what kind of swings you can expect, how likely you are to experience them, and what this means for your bankroll.
Galfond’s new app ticks all of these boxes and introduces a few new features, such as calculating variance in different backing deals, showing what both the player and the backer can expect based on the provided information.
Highly Customizable Tool for All Players
Banking on his vast experience in the poker industry, Galfond came up with a poker variance calculator that introduces a number of useful features that he couldn’t find in other similar tools. And, for a free and completely web-based app, this one is quite comprehensive.
The calculator consists of several main areas. In the top section, you need to enter basic information, such as:
- Blinds: from $0.25/$0.50 up to $25/$50 (or you can enter custom blinds)
- Winrate: from -10bb to 30bb/100
- Standard deviation: between 50bb and 200bb/100
- Sample size: from 10k up to 500k hands
- Bankroll: from 5 to 100 buy-ins
When you enter these parameters, you’ll immediately see how the Results graph shown below changes. The graph displays different possible outcomes, showing you the likelihood of these outcomes happening, and how you can expect to do financially.
The graph breaks down the top 1%, 5%, and 25%, bottom 1%, 5%, and 25% of results, as well as the median result, which is the most informative number of them all. It tells you how much you can expect to win, on average, over a given sample of hands, presuming you have a good grasp of what your winrate is.
Downswings, Bankroll Management, and Backing Deals
Galfond’s variance calculator goes beyond offering this basic information. You’ll notice that there are several different tabs next to the Results tab, and these can help you better understand how to properly plan your poker career based on your specific circumstances.
In the Downswings tab, you can enter a number (expressed in $) representing a loss over a selected number of hands. The calculator will then tell you how likely you are to experience such a downswing based on your parameters.
For example, as a 3bb/100 winner, your chances of experiencing a downswing of 10 buy-ins over 100,000 hands are just 10.3%.
The Bankroll tab can help you determine how big a bankroll you need, depending on your risk tolerance (i.e., risk of ruin). Of course, all of these calculations are based on your winrate, so that’s one number you need to get right for the calculator to be actually helpful.
On top of all these features, you’ll also find the Backing section, which tells you how much the player and the backer can expect to win over a certain number of hands and profit chops, what the backer’s risk of ruin is, and more. This one is particularly interesting, as it can be quite helpful when planning staking arrangements.
As mentioned, this tool is completely free, and you can play with it for as long as you want. Even if you don’t currently have a need for it, it provides some solid insights into what you could expect if you were to take up poker in a more serious capacity, so make sure to check it out.
