One of the more common sayings at the poker table is one that has always really annoyed me: "I'd rather be lucky than good." What does "lucky" even mean, anyway? I personally deem it to be a word created by leprechauns and state lottery executives to give people a reason to believe that maybe one day they'll catch their big break. You hit the jackpot you say? You must be the luckiest person in the world! False. What people perceive as "luck" is actually called variance. Variance is a measurable constant, subject to regular laws of mathematics and not some arbitrary phenomenon of the universe. Contrary to what you may believe, you didn't win the random drawing at your son's high school basketball game because you are blessed. You were simply the beneficiary of positive variance. Variance can apply to anything in life, but it is a very popular term among serious poker players. According to professional poker player and author Mike Caro, variance is "A measure of the spread of a statistical distribution about its mean or center. With respect to poker, the distribution of your results over a set of hands or sessions, or the swings in a positive or negative direction ...