In another interesting update on his blog on Cardrunners.com, Brian Townsend talks about his frustration after losing more than $2.7 million in PLO in the last two months despite his All-in EV showing an expected profit of $440k. "In theory I would like it to not bother me, but it does bother me and effects my life outside of poker," he says. However, in the end he finds some comfort from an old poker wisdom.


After wallowing in self-pity for awhile, Townsend got control of his emotions and realized that he cannot control the deck and shouldn't let it affect his life. So he went back to play some PLO - and lost $500k more in just 250 hands.

"After all this time one would think these things wouldn't bother me and that I would be unphased by these blips in variance.  That's great in theory but in practice these blips that last month at such huge stakes take a toll," Townsend says.

However, finally Townsend comes to the conclusion that there's no reason to be frustrated by variance, but instead love it. "Its this variance that creates the illusion to people that they are winning poker players.  Its this variance that has given action and made millions of dollars for me over the years," he says.

Simply put, if the weaker players never get lucky, they won't come back to play better opponents.

"Without this luck I would still be in grad school in a dark lab or office working on my PhD a much unhappier person than I am today.  I hope for the rest of today I can appreciate my downswing and what these downswings have brought me," Townsend concludes.

In the entry, Townsend also talks at length about chess and backgammon and how they relate or don't relate to poker. Read the whole thing on CardRunners here.

Source: CardRunners.