A Tag steals 35% of the time he has a steal opportunity. A Tag folds his blinds to a steal 83% of the time...

Just sayin' is all.

But I just explained that if your red line drops 1 dollar because your folded a blind, the red line of the person who raised increases with the same dollar because he made you fold! Therefore the blinds have no effect on the shape of the red line. It is impossible that the red line for everybody goes down, because where does all that money go to??? Not to the pokersite, because you don't pay rake over preflop-folded hands.


The other 48% percentage comes from all the other positions you raise from, 3-betting from the blinds, people who cold call the button when you are the big blind, and most of all the fish who call to the river then fold because they didn't make their draw. Seriously, the blinds can not be the reason for a negative red line, because you pay your red line losses ONLY to the other players if you fold a blind, and those players are in the same position as you are because the button changes every game. Also if you know that there are some TAGs in the blinds, why would you fold most of your hands if you know that they are going to fold 90% of theirs if you raise them?

So the cards dictate the shape of the blue line, and your playing style dictates the shape of the red line. This is why you have much more influence over the red line than over the blue one. The green line is just the result of them together.

...well i tried. gl with things!

Our red line is affected everytime we put money into the pot and we fold or the villain(s) fold before showdown. The blinds are a mandatory bet, and most players fold their blinds pretty regularly. How does that does make the line go down? Our Red Line is not dependent on what is contributed more than the blinds, Our red line is zero before we put in the blinds.

If we were to play every hand other when we were in the blinds (assuming we always folded pre while in the blinds for simplicity sake) to showdown our red line will always be negative simply because there are no other contributing factors left to improve our redline.

Yeah, what *Split* said.

XLPoker, Your argument makes so little sense that I suspect that you are just trolling. In any event, please just stop.

I was not trying to troll, so if my posts look like that I'm sorry.

Of course the red line is going down when somebody posts a blind and then folds, but what I was trying to say, is that this can not be the reason that our red line is going down in a straight line like it does with many people, because the correct play in other positions is to raise our good hands, and as a result other people fold which makes our red line going up. All people pay the same amount of blinds, so if the reason of the red line going down would be primarily caused by the blinds, it would have to go down for everybody. So where does this money go to? Not to the rake, because when you fold your blind, there is no rake paid. It goes to the other players, which red lines go up. So the sum of all the red lines of all the people for all the preflop folded hands must be zero, it's just mathematics! You can not blame the blinds for your red line going down, that is the point I was trying to make. If you just fold your blinds and steal them from the button the result for your red line is absolutely zero. But OK, if people don't want to believe me I'll stop trying to explain and leave it to the ones who like to believe that "folding the blinds leads to a negative red line", which is mathematically not true if you raise your good hands in other positions. Many people have positive red lines and they are paying and folding their blinds too.

And again, I am not trolling, but I am just convinced that I am right so I try to explain it to others.

What Mpethy was trying to say earlier is that the majority of players nowadays fold and lose their blinds a lot more often than players steal them back and immediately get folds.

Since the Micro's are filled with players that don't know how to use their fold button, most of a micro player's wins come at showdown where players over value their hands.

It is one thing to attempt to steal, but if we are called that now requires us to win the hand before showdown to negate our blind losses if we are only concerned with red lines.

For your theory to be true, you basically are saying that every time we steal we win without getting to showdown. Which at these stakes will never be true. Therefore, if that is the case it then requires a player to be more aggressive on earlier streets and hand read better to get players to fold prior to showdown. Something that is probably one of the last aspects of hold em that micro players get comfortable with.

What he is saying is that when one players red line goes down, another player's red line must go up. This is not entirely true since rake is a huge factor at the micro stakes.

right. and since he is trying to only look at PF (which is impossible to really do as eluded to by Saber)...he is getting a very odd opinion on the RL ordeal.

This is partially true. Because if we are called from one of the blinds, we are in position in a raised pot, plus we have the initiative. This is a huge advantage. Also when we are called out of position, we are usually heads up against a worse player who plays too many hands. These things are only advantages, and when our opponent folds on later streets, our red line goes up even more than if he would have folded preflop. So also if we are called, we are still a favourite to win the hand, and in the majority of hands our red line will go up.


Absolutely true. Playing aggresively is a must if you want to improve your red line. It also leads to a worse blue line, but it's possible to have both lines going up. The problem is, that many players, including myself for a long time, had a postive blue line, and a red line that is almost exactly the opposite, resulting in a green line very slightly going up, and most of your wins come from rakeback and bonuses. But if you improve your game, this automatically leads to a better red line, but not necessarily a better blue line, because the blue line depends so much on the cards (the luck factor). Of course people can still be winning players with a negative red line, but your winnings will improve a lot if you are able to stop the downward going red line, i.e. try to avoid situations where you put money in the pot where you probably have to fold on later streets. Of course the blinds are obligatory, but if you raise your hands in other positions the other players have to fold their blinds to you, and so this balances the effects the blinds have on your red line. Only if you are cold calling a lot instead of raising, you have a huge leak and the blinds will make your red line going down, but it's one of the basic strategy rules of hold'em to raise your hands if you decide to play them, so I thought this speaks for itself.


This is true, the rake is an influence on the red line, but NOT when you fold or steal a blind, because there is no flop, and thus no rake is being paid. But for example in split pots your red line will drop a little because of the rake, and so the rake is the only factor the red line suffers from. For the rest it only depends on your playing style.

You are right. But I was replying on these sentences from OP:

"Folding your blinds most of the time is fine. It is correct. It is smart. And it leads to a negative red line. Thus, A NEGATIVE RED LINE IS NOT A LEAK."

So what he says, is that folding the blinds automatically leads to a negative red line. This is not true, because you usually raise your other hands, and in most cases from late positions, which makes other people fold, or at least call and play OOP against you. These things are so big advantages, that it balances the effects of folding the blinds. Thus, a negative red line is the result of your playing style, and not from folding the blinds. And so, if you improve your game, your red line will stop going down, and remain horizontal, or even go upwards. But again, many players will still be winning players with a negative red line, and feel more comfortable playing the way they play. So improving your red line is not necessary to be a winning player.

Bold statement

How do you explain these graphs from the OP.

Overall:


Filtered for non-blind positions:


Filtered for blind positions only:


My graphs show a similar pattern when I used the same filters. Negative redline overall, but positive when the blinds are filtered out.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to go back through and delete his posts. We have here a pretty common occurrence: a poster says something after superficial thought that turns out to be spectacularly wrong and then massively derails the thread trying to justify his wrongheadedness rather than backing down gracefully.

Standard; it's the same sort of thing trapz got banned for 6 or 8 times. Some people just refuse to acknowledge when they're wrong.

+1. Hehe

I respect your views, but I would also like to remind you that in case you simply refuse to even think about my explanation then you can't also make a judgement about it. It is so easy to say that somebody is living in a dream world, is spectacularly wrong etc., but then at least explain to me why your theory is so true and mine is wrong, because it's better to discuss the content than making judgements and tell me I should stop trolling. This thread is about the red line, so I don't derail the thread, I'm just discussing the topic. Nothing wrong if people disagree, because forums are there to discuss things, but I hope everybody just respects each others views, even if we disagree.

XL.

Everybody's red line is different, because everybody has a different playing style. Of course if your filter out the blinds, it's going upward a lot more, because when you fold a blind, your red line is going down. I don't deny this. But this is only the result from folding a single blind, and folding a single blind doesn't shape your red line. Your red line gets its shape from your actions in ALL positions together, not only the blind positions. If the blinds would result in a downward going red line, like OP said, it would mean that everybody's red line would go down because everybody pays the blinds, but this is simply not the case! I had an upward going red line for the last 12,000 hands, and I still paid the blinds, so I am very curious how people who disagree with me explain this. And if people still don't believe me I'll post my images:

This is overall, including the blinds:


This is ONLY from the blinds:


This is WITHOUT the blinds:


As you can see, the blinds only cause my red line to go down -400 BB, but the other positions cause my red line to go up +900 BB, resulting in a red line going up +500 BB, because of an aggressive playing style.

it is 12k hands sir. a day grinding..... wtf is this

XL, it's not that I simply refuse to think about your views. It is that I have spent hundreds of hours thinking about and calculating the impact of folding from the blinds on a player's non-showdown winnings. I dismissed your arguments hundreds of hours back in my thought process.

Had you approached this thread with humility, you would have received an entirely different reception. But you came into this thread making an absolutely absurd statement

with absolute certainty.

Some of the best strategy posters on 2+2 (*Split* and SammyG-SD, among others) promptly and politely pointed out to you that you were way off base. Yet, to this moment, you have not addressed a single one of the legitimate criticisms of your argument. Instead, you continue categorically asserting a position that even casual thought proves incorrect.

But I will try one more time to get through to you on this subject. Look at the graphs that you posted. Now try to realize why they demonstrate the point that I made in my OP, that blinds are the major drag on a red line.

Well, first of all thanks for taking me seriously then. And I agree with you that folding the blinds are a huge drag on the red line. But they are not the major reason that the red line is going downwards after thousands of hands. SaberTJ said exactly what is in fact the major reason here:
Now think about this example:
When you play in a full ring game, you have 2 positions that make your red line go down, the BB and the SB. But you have 7 positions to make up for these losses. Of course the early positions are not the ideal positions for this, but by tightening your range in these positions, you should normally make a profit also here in the long run. The more aggressive you play, the more your red line will go up, because it makes people fold. Of course you can also win a lot with a downward pointing red line, but in my humble opinion it must be a leak, because if you constantly put money in the pot and then fold on later streets, you do something wrong. Not in the blinds of course, but in the other 7 positions.

My 12K hands are from a month playing, so about 1 hour a day, and obviously if you play this number of games in 24 hours like CrazyNL, it is impossible to keep your concentration on the game for so long on so many tables, and this probably results in a red line going down. You can still be a winning player, and maybe by playing for so long you even make a lot more profit than when trying to improve your red line, but what I did this month was playing less games and less tables to find out any leaks, and it resulted in my red line going up. If people say that this could be due to variance, they are wrong, because variance is in the BLUE line, not in the red. So the only conclusion is that improving your game leads to a better red line, and thus a downward going red line is a leak because it takes down your BB/100.

Some people have an upward blue line and a horizontal red line. They are doing nothing wrong, their winnings come from showdowns. Other people have an upward going red line and a horizontal blue line. Their winnings come from bluffing other people off their hands, instead of their showdowns. But if your blue line goes up and your red line goes down, what actually happens is you give away your showdown winnings to the other players, which is a leak. On the other side, if your red line goes up and your blue line goes down, you are much too aggressive, and you are losing your red line winnings due to bad showdowns. In the ideal situation, if one of your lines goes up, whether it is your red or blue line, it's best when the other is at least horizontal. Which one the upward is, depends on your playing style. The only thing that really affects your winnings is the rake (both red and blue line), but not in the case of preflop folded hands.

And if there is something in this explanation that I am missing, or if there is something that makes no sense, please tell me what it is so I can reconsider my opinion. At least it worked for me and it made my BB/100 double up, and that's what counts.

I think he is over/under thinking math, is high, obtuse, or a troll.

OK, I'll just try to find some articles that support my theory then.
I read a lot of them and they helped me to improve my non-showdown winnings.

Here is one of them:

It's called "No Showdown Wins" will help keep money in your bankroll!! and "No Showdown Wins" equals red line!

http://www.cardschat.com/f11/no-showdown-wins-will-help-keep-161504/

It's a great article that gives some good advice on how to prevent a downward sloping red line.

sigh,
that is not the point.

The reason for the argument is that you stated that blinds have nothing to do with non-showdown wins, when mpethy and everyone else who understands math will state that the blinds have almost everything to do with a negative red line. The problem is that you are confusing absolute numbers with relative numbers. Yes relatively, blinds shouldn't have a factor since everyone pays them, but in absolute values they do.

You can make up for the blinds based on a lot of advice, like he one in your article, the COTWs etc. BUT YOUR ARE TRYING TO OVERCOME a very real value from the blinds.

Let me put it this way, Say you are earning money for a day by selling pipes, but need to pay someone $10 for a huge bag of pipes. You sell each pipe for $1. At the end of the day you turn in your pipes to the person, and keep the money you make. So you start a the day out -$10. If you sell $11 pipes, ypu make $1, but if you had a pipe dream you would make $11 dollars. If you were a really good salesman, and say stood outside day showing of "Cheech and Chong", you could sell 40 pipes, and net $30. Now the $10 you pay didn't seem like that much and you can buy all the trapper-keepers you want. But if you didn't have to pay the $10, you would of made $40!!!. So no matter how good of a pipe handler you are, the bag of pipes you pay at the beginning affect how much you make. Just when you sell only 11 pipes it seems like a lot more than when you sell 40 pipes.

Do you get it yet?

I have a positive red line, and my Showdwon line is above my non-showdown and my WR is fairly good. But I am still not sucking from the pipe long enough to even remotely believe that the blinds do affect my winnings.

The necro on this thread is LOLtastic.



FYP

For this to be true either you have a huge leak or your opponents have a huge leak.

Either your opponents NEVER raise you or you NEVER fold when you get raised.