Upswing

An upswing is an extremely common phenomenon, which is expressed in a series of well-played poker hands. It is expressed in time equivalent or in the number of played hands.

How does upswing work in poker?

The series of victories and failures truly exist and follow the mathematical laws, or rather, the theory of probability.

There are two key concepts in mathematical statistics:

• Probability theory (expected value);
• Statistical dispersion.

Let’s try to figure out what these mathematical theories have to do with the gambling industry and how they can help the player when planning a strategy in poker.

Mathematical expectation and variance in poker

In the context of poker, the mathematical expectation (or expected value) is the number of chips that, on average, each individual player expects to win or lose.

By calculating the variance a player can see the real luck impact in a certain discipline. In order to calculate variance in poker, people use special poker calculators.

And how does all this relate to the term “upswing”?

It’s simple: white and black stripes don’t exist. Unfortunately, the percentage of luck is rather small and mostly everything strictly follows the rules of mathematical statistics and probability theory. Therefore, if you want to be successful at poker, knowing how the expected value and variance are calculated is essential.