Variance and Volatility Data

What are long and short runs?

Volatility is our worst enemy. On the other hand, if we merely won exactly 1% of every hand we played, we would have the most boring job in existence, and,  we would never be allowed to play.

There are four charts in this topic displaying results starting with the short term (1,000 hands) and moving through successively longer terms (up to a million hands). We start with a chart displaying the amount won or lost for a card counter playing 1,000 hands. The 1,000 hands are displayed in 100 groups of ten hands each. Each group of ten hands is a vertical line showing the minimum and maximum overall result from the start of the chart during those ten hands. So the last bar in the chart shows that in hands 991 through 1,000, our results varied between  -220 to -226 units. We can see a few large swings denoted by the long vertical lines. This is not a surprise. Most of the time we make small bets. But when the count rises, we can make several max bets and experience a large swing. This chart shows these occasional large swings and the fact that we can easily end up behind in 1,000 hands.

Now we move to 10,000 hands in groups of 100. The y-axis has been expanded to a larger range. We see some very large swings. The tenth line shows a range from about 1,300 to 1,800 units in 100 hands. At some point in those 100

 © 2009 Norman Wattenberger