There's a wonderful leftist legal theorist named Duncan Kennedy, who had a famous comment about legal scholars with a background in economics. He said that they made conservative political conclusions that "all seemed to rely on data that nobody had at hand". You don't need to understand the background of why he made this statement-- his point was that in the absence of real data, people make assumptions about the empirical world that just happen to coincide with what they want to believe.

This is one of those assumptions. I doubt you have actually taken detailed notes about your play and analyzed whether you really make money in these spots, as well as whether it affects your table image in other hands, and compared it to the loss in rake as a result of not chopping. You just assume it to be true, because it justifies what you want to do anyway (i.e., not chop and play hands heads up).

I, of course, don't have data proving the contrary either. But I do know that the rake in low and mid stakes games is significant enough to make heads up play costly absent a discount, and I also know that keeping the table happy generally means bad players stay longer and that can only help our winrates.

Further, I know that even if chopping really is EV neutral or -EV, there is a benefit to not having live poker, a social activity, be an unpleasant experience. We've all had to sit at one of those tables where some complete douchebag is acting nasty towards the other players. Maybe we stayed there because there was good potential to make money, but was it a pleasant experience? Is that the type of poker table you generally like to play at? Or do you prefer playing with relatively nice people whom you can talk with about sports or what's going on in the world, who enjoy the activity as much as you do even if they lose some money, and who will continue to come to the casino with some disposable income because they see a lot of friendly faces there?

So, I don't really care if I am costing myself a bit of EV when I chop. But I also really do know that, when it comes to live poker play, many players, including many ostensibly "good" ones, are completely clueless about whether all their complex poker "thinking" and "metagame" concepts are really +EV. They don't keep records, they don't compare long stretches of play where they played in a different manner, and they don't make any EV calculations. They just assert, without evidence, that "I do this and I take all the fishes' money!", and they only remember the wins and don't notice the negative aspects of their play.

I think that if you really understand what live poker is all about, and you consider all of the relevant factors in EV (including the EV of playing in an enjoyable game rather than a hostile one), you will chop the blinds if it is considered standard in the game that you play in.

If you have the Jesus seat on a fish who plays every pot, it would be silly tyo chop. It would also be very embarrassing and rude if a reg notices you chop with certain players... + it's just plain bad for the game

Someone mentioned etiquette a while back which is really what it is about (along with the monster "drop if flop"). No one I know really minds always chopping or not chopping as long as there is consistency. Chopping until you pick up a good hand get usually gets you played against to your left and your right. It doesn't tilt me but it leaves me free to focus my goodwill elsewhere around the table.

As for me I go with the flow, chop if they want to play if they don't and always play short handed when the drop get reduced to 1+1

Keeping the table happy does make bad players stay longer, but bad players are not usually ones concerned about chopping.

Interesting read tho.

I don't like to chop because I generally enjoy playing heads up and because I play poker to make monies while playing hands...and folding is way less fun.

This. I always chopped back in the day playing low stakes lhe and would if I played games where chops are common now. Most games where chopping is a common practice chopping is a good practice.

I'll chop in a limit or NLH game until we get down to 6 or 5 players, depending on the table. Then I don't chop. I never look at my hand until it's my turn, so if I'm in a chop situation, I don't go through the "ooooooh, could it be the Bad Beat? Could we win the lottery" crap. I muck without looking.

If a player doesn't chop, then I'll play. Someone crass enough to look at their hand in the BB and if they think it's a good hand, they don't chop will never play an unraised blind vs blind pot against me after that event, and certainly won't be chopping.

Had a belgian kid (18 yrs old) to my left in a 1/2 nl game yesterday, i hadn't looked at my cards and offered a chop, he looked at his cards and said no, i said, "if you don't chop here we play EVERY hand and I won't chop w you" he said no again so i raised to $8, he called, i cbet $8 (into $12 after drop) and he folded.

he said "i had 22" and i explained i'd rather let him keep his $$ than pay the casino there.

But he had a jackpot hand!

i know!

Chop if raked,
Don't chop if you pay by time

But you don't make money doing it. The rake/tips destroy you because your winrate in a blind vs blind scenario when there's no other money in the pot isn't going to be very high to begin with.

A lot of the younger players on here way over-value the concept of "putting people on tilt" and so forth. Chopping the blinds has occurred for decades, as in general it is difficult to beat the rake in these situations. Even when you can beat the rake, the extra couple of bucks won in these generally small pot minus rake situations might not make up for the time spent involved in the hand.

Also, as WuhOh said, much of this goes out the window in a time-raked game. Unless I believe both of the players to the right and left of me to be extremely competent (and thus a relative wash and waste of time), I want to play every hand out in a time game.