First off great job mpeth. Newman this sentence is gold and you're a sicko....

Great post mpethy! I no longer feel as bad about my ugly red line anymore. And now I actually have a baseline idea on how to go about fixing it. Thank you.

You definitely have to control for variance when you are looking at small samples of hands.

Your process is sound. It is the same one I use when reviewing databases.

Just one point you might try: when you run these filters, select groups of hands to increase your sample size. In the examples you gave, being down with 66 and being up with 55 looks like variance. But what is your average of the two hands?

Same thing for KJ and KT; logically one explanation for being down with KJ and up with KT is that you might get attached a bit more to KJ and lose hands that average 1.8 streets of betting, whereas KT is easier to pitch when you are dominated, and might cost you only 1.4 streets. So if I am looking at win rates for those hands, the first thing I would do would be to look at my losses, and see if I could see such a pattern of calling two streets with KJ and calling less than that with KT.

More likely is that it is just variance, so, again, I would look at my average for those two hands to determine whether I was doing ok with them.

Here are some common groupings I use when filtering for calling raises from the blinds:

A9s-A2s; 54s-98s and 64s-T8s; J9s-KJs and T9s-QJs; ATs, AJs, AJo, AQs, AQo and KQo and KQs; 22-77; 88 and 99; TT and JJ.

When going through a group of hands, use the holecards report in HEM; this allows you to look at your win rate for each hand in the group (PT3 sorts this way automatically). In general, I am satisfied if the group has a positive win rate (the exact win rate that satisfies me varies by group).

I also ask:

Does my win rate correlate with hand strength within the group? How strong does the relationship appear?

Is there a logical explanation for my win rate not varying with hand strength, or is it likely variance?

Did I suffer an unreasonable number of coolers/set-ups/bad beats?

Did I NOT suffer any coolers/set-ups/bad beats?

What is my adjusted win rate if I control for the presence or absence of coolers/set-ups and bad beats by adding or subtracting an appropriate number?

For pocket pairs, I also check my flop a set % and adjust my win rate upward or downward by the average win for a set out of the blinds.

This is a really good post.

I thought about adding a section on bet-sizing on later streets, but decided my post was too long already. Getting into spots such as this, where focusing on your red line would cannibalize your blue line, would have added significantly to the length.

Betting too much on later streets can be a decent-sized leak, though, no doubt about it.

Also, +1 on the good hand readers point.

Has HEM ever offered you a spot within their organization? There is little doubt in my mind you could launch your own little website, or eBook, on HEM stat/filters/analyzing.

My problem is I'm a "concept" guy, not a hardcore analytical by nature, which made me a success in sales. I could work with analyticals, but expressives and drivers were my sweet spot. After going back and reading a number of your "HEM Treatises" , I'm now forcing myself to spend 20-30 minutes going through HEM every few days. Thank you sir.

heh, afaik, the good folks at HEM a. don't know I exist, and b. are doing perfectly well w/out me.

Wow. Just wow.

The link to this is going to wind up being posted in the Beginner's Forum about five times a day. Every day. Forever.

Very, very nice work!

Holy crap this is what i've been searching for my entire poker career. Ever since I started seeing people's graphs with positive red lines I turned into a super LAG who plays ATC often in bad spots and my redline actually went down cuz I would have to fold to any aggression because I usually am bluffing with complete air. I would also rarely fold to 3bets as long as I had any suited cards because I kept trying to outplay people with pure aggression postflop. The worst part was because I was playing like a maniac no one gave me any respect but I kept trying to bluff in marginal spots so it was like a cycle of people never folding but me trying to keep bluffing.

Folding to improve your red line was NEVER talked about in any post I've ever read in my life and it seems counter-intuitive at first but now it makes so much sense. Can't believe no one talked about this sooner!

Awesome CoTW, thanks!

A+ COTW Matt.

I've taken a look at the "Players on flop is bigger than / equal to" = 2 filters in my HEM db along with additional filters for cbetting and just plain betting the flop. It definitely supports the following statement and I had never thought of this before:

I generally don't have separate criteria for cbetting/betting based on # of players and it's more on the quality side, so there isn't really a large gap between my HU cbet and my MW cbet %. I would say position and texture are the big things to look at here obviously. Interestingly enough, my cbet success in MW pots is only 7% lower than my success in HU pots which supports the idea that you can live off that dead money.

*** I would really like to see a betting and bet sizing on later streets wrt redline from Mpethy and/or Newmanmi.

Great post and thanks.

Based on your analysis the LAG would experience more variance as they exploit smaller edges? and the TAG would be steady eddy?

Very nice post, a lot of math/filters

But answered a ton of questions about the evil red line.

Bit of a ninja bump but +1,000,000 from me.

Its an amazing initial post and developed into an even better thread and probably should be a must read for anyone playing NLHE in any form.

I have been playing for years was a ok taggy regular at $200 6 max doing well playing part time. Tag rocky play is natural to me so I was generally running around 16-18vpip with a dipping red line to prove it. With the advent of cardrunners and the other sites then the more laggy style became fashionable and the red line the obsession. Everyone would be envious of the "sick" graphs of the lags and the upward red line.

Clearly for a tag the obvious way to go is to become more laggy and to get that red line going up blast people out of pots, to me it seemed the only way to get that red line going up was bet bet bet, bluff in bad spots in huge pots but the reverse I cant fold here what about my red line (this was with me even the past couple of weeks at Rush). Cue a huge down swing of 30 buy-ins (I was out of work so the pressure of that added to it ended up playing a 10 buy in roll cos I couldn't afford to move down) a decimated bankroll and totally busted confidence.

Cue the revelation going through the COTW posts and there was one on analysing your data and that look at the red line without the blinds, oh it is upward, all that obsession for nothing. Then reading this thread and the obsession is well and truly over and while the red line wont be ignored it is not going to be my be all and end all.

Sorry bit tldr but I think this is the best, most unique thread on 2+2 and I thank all the contributors for it.

Micro Full Ring is the best forum on 2+2

We would love you to contribute your experience to the forum.
Feel free to post in advice to our micro players.
The more good ssnl players giving advice the better.

Great bump at a great time for me! I was needed to re-read this. There is a gold mine of information here.

Now, please delete this thread.

For the COTW content I think it may well be, although I have been out of the strategy loop for a while now. It has ignited my poker passion again and looking at my stats based on some of the other threads given me a lot of confidence as well as lot of things to start reworking on.

However the forum does suffer from a noise ratio that a lot of the small and micro forums suffer from as so many people want to post bad beat and cooler hands and people want to give pointless one line advice that is generally worthless.

I will look to post more although I am definitely behind the curve of a lot of the guys to offer really good advice.

Well writing advice particularly if you put in alot of effort - is one of the best ways to sharpen your thinking and thus your game.

There are a couple of points to make here:

1. One line advice is not normally worthless. It usually carries the implicit message that the situation being reviewed does not require serious analysis. It is usually an implicit statement that this is a standard situation. An important step in a player's development is to realize what is a standard spot and what is not, and to be able to explain the factors that lead to the distinction. One line advice can help a player learn to spot situations he should not be overthinking.

2. Similarly, a lot of what you call noise--players posting bad beats and coolers--is also an important step in a player's development. For a new player, it is important to start learning to distinguish between a standard cooler or bad beat and a situation that he can get away from. Or, also as importantly, to recognize situations where he manufactured the cooler.

I say that this is an important step for a new player, but, in fact, it is an ongoing education. I play $200 FR, and I still wonder about at least one hand per session in terms of whether it was a cooler or a spot I should have gotten away from.

If a bad beat thread is treated respectfully (that'd be the day) a lot of educational value can be derived from a lot of them. Yes, even an AIPF KK v. AA.

This is the micro forum, and people are still learning things that some of us have long since taken for granted. Things like some situations are set ups where you are basically destined to lose a stack. Or that you can have long periods in which you run bad, or that there are almost an infinite number of ways in which to run bad. Probably the most vital thing that a player can learn from posting a bad beat or a cooler is that the results of the hand are not important, but whether you played it correctly is all that matters. This is actually a very counter-intuitive and difficult to grasp concept, and the best way for people to grasp it is to post bad beats and coolers and to be told, "nice hand," Or to post a hand where they lost less on a hand than they should have, and be told that.

That "noise," is really just new players learning things that the player calling it "noise," learned a long time ago. No offense intended to you, but calling almost any strat post in uFR "noise," in my opinion, implies an incorrect understanding of the mission of uFR.

mpethy makes me aware of not having a big brother to watch over me and dole out bits of sage advice drawn from his own personal experience, in critically key spots of my life as I grew up.

Mpethy just owns threads so hard. Nice hand, sir.

I do disagree with a lot of what you said in your post generally, but a lot of it really is to do with how 2+2 has grown and changed over the years and maybe my more ideal way of looking back at the past, as well as seeing how quickly SSNL six max went downhill at certain points due to waves of standard hands.

I wont go into a great debate on your post and derail the thread more, what I will say though is that quality tops quantity always, when there is too much quantity you find the people you want posting in the forum giving out good advice stop posting. Its interesting to me that some of the great posters in the COTW threads dont appear to get involved in the day to day hand posts which sadly is a loss for the forum.

I would disagree with you here DM. There are numerous hands where "some of the great posters in the COTW threads" are appearing. IMO, these posters have no obligation to appear in a majority of the day to day hands, even though they are found there. Many of these posters are found in the SSNL Reg thread - as well as the uNL Reg thread doling out advice to the beginning players, much as this thread was offered up for. And if one is able to read between the lines and follow the subject matter which might be buried in some of the LOL and fun-poking going on, there are solid pieces of information to be found and gleaned there as well.

Mpethybridge,
Thank you for sharing your uberness. I feel like my poker knowledge has increased x 1 billion from reading this thread.

It looks by your example that a winrate of 1bb/steal attempt is strong. Is this correct?

Will you please characterize various other potential win-rates? For example, how weak/strong is a 0.50bb/steal attempt winrate? Or a 0.75bb/steal attempt winrate, etc.? I'd like to know better how to interpret this number.

Thank you.

Hello,

I dont know where to ask about that so i write it here.
Is it legit for me to translate some posts (for example COTWs) to other language
and publish it on my webpage? Off course with link to original post and author??? I you cant provide me an answer, maybe you can advice me who should i ask about that?


Artur

/level