A line from a movie I was watching online last night caught my eye. "Only the dead have seen the end of war"  Interestingly enough, it made me think of poker.

Lately, I've been going through a lot of variance in my play.  Everywhere I turn I read of various poker bloggers struggling to deal with their swings.  Brian Townsend was mentioning how he's down $2.75 million lately in his best game PLO.  He has worked the hardest on that game the last couple years and his results have been terrible of late. The past few days I also watched Patrik Antonius play a few hours online.  He's obviously one of the best players in the world with tremendous results, but he couldn't win.  He would get it in as a 60-40 favorite, a flip, top set on the turn against naked FD and lose them repeatedly. Over and over the odds broke against him.  He was dropping buy ins like it was going out of style.

The association with the initial quote is this...poker is war.  Anyone who chooses to play will face variance.  Assuming that they work hard to learn the better EV+ lines to take, they will still regularly win when behind and lose when ahead.  The odds will go against you for extended periods of time.  Only those who quit the game, those that are dead, will see an end to variance.  Anyone who remains in the game will have to battle on.  Manage your battles well and live to fight another day.  Plan well and you can win the war.  History tells me so.