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[QUOTE="Robochick, post: 4069961, member: 203583"]
I think of it in a couple of ways, but others might disagree.

As a mathematician, I think of it as a deviation from probability, which happens a small percentage of the time but is always possible.

As a poker player, I have a less formal definition and one that is perhaps a little influenced by experience:  I think of it as the certain number of hands that you will lose occasionally because of the random factor no matter how well you played the hand.  If you are focusing on statistics, you should also expect that every once in a while some idiot gets "lucky" and factor that in when you consider whether you played the hand correctly.  But that is the tricky thing, isn't it?  You might play the hand over and over in your head and ask yourself when you might have bet just a little more on the turn to make someone fold when they have very few outs and statistically they should not continue; but maybe not, perhaps they were never going to fold.  Perhaps that is where reading your opponent comes in and statistics end. Basically, you played the hand correctly as best you could (maybe with some minor tweaks), but sh*t happens and you lost; you have to anticipate that you will statistically have a bad beat every once in a while...but in the end, if you keep playing with a good plan, you will end up ahead.

When I have someone say to me, "You can chalk that one up to variance."  That means to me, "You played the hand correctly, you just had bad luck...get over it and move on."
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