Konstantinos "Duncan" Palamourdas

Nothing invokes larger emotional response to poker players than the word variance. Defined simply as the expected fluctuation of the average result, variance is meant to quantify the uncertainty around a typical outcome generated by the luck of the draw. Stochastic events (such as expected amount of money won, number of times making the nuts per session, or even life expectancies and...

If you're like most poker players, you've felt legitimate pain while playing the game. Such pain is usually caused by bad luck, which can come in many forms: Getting the money in as a favorite and losing; Having a long streak of unfavorable results to no fault of our own; or (even more subtly) Running into the...