Christian Harder Downswing Due To Variance

US pro Christian Harder is one of the game’s most consistent winners having earned $2,347,855 playing live tournaments since 2008, and a further $2,692,920 online since 2006 playing under the screen name “charder.”
However, 2012 has proven somewhat less of a stellar affair for the 24-year old, who has earned roughly $160k this year with that figure fairly evenly split between online and live tournaments. Harder’s 2012 results pale in comparison to last year when he won $586,471 from live tournaments alone.
Consequently, Harder is currently ranked just 104th in this week’s GPI update, although outside of the top 20 places Harder argues the GPI is more geared towards who’s running the hottest, and not whose the best.
“There’s so much variance in poker, you want it to be about consistency.. If you look at Card Player or Bluff’s player of the year, you haven’t heard of half the guys in the top ten.”
Christian Harder spent his first two years online losing and dumped around $2,000 before his online poker results steadily improved providing him with greater confidence at the same time as impacting his live results. In 2008 at the $7,800 PCA he then placed 7th for $200,000 before a few weeks later at the  €7,700 EPT German Open finishing 8th for €85,500 ($125,481) to help propel his game to a whole new level. As he then explained:
“I was scared money. Eventually, I made those scores and that made me more confident. With confidence, you don’t think about the bad results or what will happen if you lose. That helped a lot. Since then, I’ve just slowly gotten better.”
This year, however, Christian Harder seems to be facing one of the inevitable downswings most pros have to face at various times throughout their careers. Nevertheless, Harder now has many years of experience, not to mention a bigger bankroll behind him and is not about to let a leaner spell dampen his play. As he explains:
“In 2012, I haven’t really done anything and I don’t think I’m playing any worse. Maybe I’m just saying that to myself to make myself feel better, but I really believe it..It’s just variance and a lot of people don’t really understand that. Jason Mercier has had a terrible 2012 after great years before this. He’ll tell you the same thing.”