He is considered one of the best italian players, he is "the one who crushed the Big Game", he is Massimiliano 'Visidiabuli' Martinez who, from his Facebook, advertises his not-so-lucky run at the tables. But is he the most unlucky? John Doe is a poker player that in his Facebook status writes that in the last few month he has lost more than 250 buy-in (circa 50.000 euros) among MTTs and SnGs played in various poker rooms. If I asked you point-blank an assessment on the player I guess you would have no problem in calling him a fish - and as a matter of fact that's what Sharkscope says since, besides this Mr. X's name, it places a fish thank with a nice fish happily jumping around. The problem is this: John 'Mr. X' Doe is Massimiliano 'VisiDiabuli' Martinez. We go in the tank.

 

It may be anti-democratic, it may be unfair and biased, but now that we know who we are talking about it comes naturally to ask ourselves if variance may strike so deep and so hard. Massimiliano's answer is a straight yes: «It's not a whine, it's just to say that you may easily lose 250+ buy-in in this game without an actual reason. (I'm talking about MTT)». Now that we know what Visidiabuli thinks, let's try and see if something similar ever happened to other know italian players as well.

 

I found some of them online on Facebook. Not so many, it's 12.30, dawn for a poker player. Here's what I asked to each of them:

 

"How many games lasted (more or less) your worst badrun period?"

 

First to answer is Alessandro 'Bubukonan' Fasolis: On a base of 600 MTT he lost 12.000 euros «But in MTT that is standard» he specifies. His early 2012 has not been good, as well, given that over 200 tournaments he is in deficit by 8.000€. With Gabriele 'Galb' Lepore we talk about a consistenly higher number of games: 3.000 tournaments and up to 200.000 hands played in cash tables under EV. Among the answers we also have the one of Simone 'I'm Corvetto' Follini who gives us another staggering figure: 1.500 tournaments played under EV. Question asked to Filippo Candio, too, who answers: "I'll tell something funny: I lost almost 20.000 straight hands, all together, in a downroll in 2009». Later on he adds: «I really was losing big time. However, to be precise, they were 18.670 consecutive loosing hands» So many players, only one answer: variance is able to make us end up with the fish tank on Sharkscope even when, actually, our potential is much higher. All we can do is hold our nerves and hope the bad period ends just like it started.