It's been a wild week

I mention variance so often that I sometimes wonder if it's too much.  I also wonder if I do it, at least in part, to remind myself.  Then this week happened.

It's Friday night, with just one more day left in the week.  Last week I ended with a bankroll of $163.69 and now it's $166.09.  That doesn't sound like much variance, except that I started the week with a downswing of over $40, and now I'm back to even.  I lost, and regained, about a fourth of my bankroll in the same week!  And that's while playing nothing but one-table SNGs, which by definition (1/3 to 1/2 of the field gets paid) are low variance.

A few days ago I was listening to the 2+2 Pokercast, and a young and very successful tournament player (I regret that I forgot his name, and I deleted that podcast) was being interviewed.  He talked a lot about money management, and he said that it took him three years to get his bankroll up to $20,000. He is considered one of the top online pros. 

While other pros are touring the world playing $10,000 tournaments and going broke, he makes a very nice living playing online playing tournaments that cost at most about $200 to enter.  He said that he hasn't done anything really expensive except "a little travel.'

That player understands variance, and he understands bankroll management.  He'll still be playing a year or two from now, while still more millionaire tourning pros will have gone broke.