It surprises me again and again that many players playing decent hours are not certain of their EV and expected variance! This is something I would really recommend players add to their counting arsenal 
THIS CAN REALLY HELP YOU TO BECOME A MORE (THEORETICALLY) PROFITABLE PLAYER!!! To me, this translated to decent $$$ once i figured out these steps and made changes to my game.
IMHO any serious player should know how much EV and variance to expect in their game and be able to provide for changes in all the EV-driving variables (pen, rules, bet ramp, hours of play, index plays, hands/hour, empty/full tables) - with a simulation program (go CVD!!) or otherwise - else you are allowing yourself to play with a weakness. A player should also be able to calculate EV and variance for a certain number of hours and ideally even if the variables vary from session to session. They should be able to know what the likelihood of them being so far above or below their EV after x hours. There are plenty of threads on this forum to get started on this topic
The big plus is here that once you understand how much or how little impact each variable has, you can then go into a casino and know what to look for! and it will help you decide whether you should play at the full $5 table with 4.5/6 pen with rules X or the empty $10 table with 5/6 pen with rules Y etc etc. Or how much impact it would make if you combined your BR with another player etc etc For me this was massively insightful and it helped me to really accelerate my game!
Since then I have managed to put together some calculations for bottom carding, bonus exploitations and some promotions. For the promotion in particular the calculations gave me a surprising insight which i was able to use in changing my playing strategy (and increased my EV some 30-40%).
So i really want to encourage players to look into this if they have not done so by now
THIS CAN REALLY HELP YOU TO BECOME A MORE (THEORETICALLY) PROFITABLE PLAYER!!! To me, this translated to decent $$$ once i figured out these steps and made changes to my game.IMHO any serious player should know how much EV and variance to expect in their game and be able to provide for changes in all the EV-driving variables (pen, rules, bet ramp, hours of play, index plays, hands/hour, empty/full tables) - with a simulation program (go CVD!!) or otherwise - else you are allowing yourself to play with a weakness. A player should also be able to calculate EV and variance for a certain number of hours and ideally even if the variables vary from session to session. They should be able to know what the likelihood of them being so far above or below their EV after x hours. There are plenty of threads on this forum to get started on this topic
The big plus is here that once you understand how much or how little impact each variable has, you can then go into a casino and know what to look for! and it will help you decide whether you should play at the full $5 table with 4.5/6 pen with rules X or the empty $10 table with 5/6 pen with rules Y etc etc. Or how much impact it would make if you combined your BR with another player etc etc For me this was massively insightful and it helped me to really accelerate my game!
Since then I have managed to put together some calculations for bottom carding, bonus exploitations and some promotions. For the promotion in particular the calculations gave me a surprising insight which i was able to use in changing my playing strategy (and increased my EV some 30-40%).
So i really want to encourage players to look into this if they have not done so by now
