From a Czech poker blog, we get a condensed and clean look at what makes a beautiful redline—but more importantly, what can take it in the opposite direction. To read the original, check the blog at Pokerpower.CZ.
I would like to start this article with a question.
Do you know how you can tell if a poker player has a rising (or at least non-falling) redline (a curve showing non-showdown winnings)? Usually, it's because they have it on the graph at all. In fact, almost everyone only brags about their redline when it's not falling. Why is that? Should we be ashamed that the long-term development of the redline is, for example, -9bb/100? Does this mean that we are bad players, or that we can't possibly be profitable?
Your Poker Redline – Should You Even Address It?
I'll answer the question with another question:
Have you ever seen someone crush their limit and have a significantly decreasing redline at the same time? Me neither. While it is certainly possible to achieve relatively good results with a decreasing redline (meaning up to -10bb/100, worse results are often incompatible with a positive long-term win-rate), we will probably never be among the best limit poker players. So, from my point of view, it makes sense that most players only want to present redline when its trend is not decreasing and that we are dealing with it at all.
But now let's think about another question – is it difficult to have a non-decreasing redline? It certainly is not, after all, it is enough not to fold and prefer to bet or raise in every hand. This is why maniacs have a beautifully increasing redline, but they do not make money. Therefore, we can say that a non-decreasing redline does not automatically guarantee us a positive win-rate. So what should we generally do and what should we avoid when talking about redlines?
How to (Not) Improve Your Redline
- You attack a tight range.
Tight range generally means less room for a fold. If you decide to make bigger bluffs on multiple streets and for the whole stack and you know that your opponent's range must fold even relatively strong hands (in some situations this may mean trying to fold even two pair, or even a stronger hand), you need to be aware of your opponent's level of thinking. At higher poker limits it can be interesting to bluff in situations where we know that our opponent's range is strong. If the opponent is experienced enough and realizes that his range is strong and we are still willing to play for the stack, then he may evaluate our range as extremely strong and make a hero-fold. Unfortunately at lower limits the player will play his hand too isolated and call you without thinking twice.
If you want to improve your redline, definitely try to increase your aggression and exploit your opponents in late positions, where they play looser and make more mistakes. Many people have various bad patterns like "I call TP+ against a raise", which can be fine on the UTG, but completely wrong on the BTN, where we often have to bet/call some Ace-highs and the like.
- You are attacking a range that is not capped.
This is a very similar problem to the first one. Being capped means that in a certain situation there is a very small chance that we have a strong hand. Usually this means that our opponent will check somewhere, or will only call us on a coordinated structure, or it can be a result of the preflop range construction itself. If he is aggressive in situations where his opponent may have a lot of strong hands, he will not generate such fold equity.
To improve your redline, try to exploit your opponent in spots where they are holding range at some point in the decision-making process. This increases the chance that they will bluff in a situation where players tend to fold too often in practice.
- You are too aggressive on boards or runouts that are better for your opponent.
It's too hard to say a rule that will help you solve this problem. There are so many situations in poker, and if you want to improve your feel for those where your opponent's range dominates yours, you'll have to work consistently away from the poker tables and analyze honestly over and over again.
In any case, these are situations where the opponent has either higher equity (i.e. share of the pot), or more strong hands relative to his range (if both opponents have exactly 6 nut combinations, but one of them has a 3x narrower range, he will have nuts relatively more often and his expected value will be higher).
- You don't think one step ahead.
Absolutely every poker player I know who has a sexy redline excels in being able to think one step, or even several steps ahead. By this I mean that he is able to think before his action whether and with which cards he will continue on the next streets. In the case of a bluff for what sizing. In the case of an aggressive opponent, he is able to fold before he is exposed to further aggression and thus not to add more money to the pot. In the case that opponents are not bluffing a certain position preflop, they will be able to resolve the situation before the flop and not to add more money to the pot.
So, before your action, always try to recap what and why you are doing, who you are up against, how you want to play the next streets against them and for what sizes. Where will you bluff-catch a lot, where will you fold more often. Where will you continue to be aggressive and where will you slow down. If you are experienced enough, you can also try to project the ranges that are up against each other so that you can evaluate the range asymmetry on different runouts, etc.
If you play too many tables and can't think deeply, I recommend reducing the number of tables.
- You are passive from the BB.
I'm pretty sure this applies to about 99.9% of people who play mid-stakes and most mid-stakes players as well. I know this because I've checked leaks of hundreds of players and all winnings players have this problem. BB is the only position where we have a wide cold-call before the flop, we're closing the action and so it's more intuitive to click the call or fold buttons. Few people achieve sufficient 3-bet frequencies. And if you think about it, it doesn't really matter if you slightly overfold in MP against an open from UTG. If you fold a tight hand, it won't show up on the redline because you haven't invested anything before the flop yet.
But on the BB we have already (albeit involuntarily) invested 1bb into the game, so every fold before the flop immediately goes to the redline. If you defend your BB honestly and at least don't overfold, there is a good chance that this result will be better, however, it will still be miserable on the BB 100% if your action is calling too often. Aggressively defending the blinds has an extremely large impact on what redline you will have on the BB and therefore a significant impact on the overall redline.
To give you an idea (you can compare it with your stats) – 3-bets from the BB should be around 11% in total and in terms of position it works out roughly like this: 6 vs UTG, 8 vs MP, 10 vs CO, 15 vs BB, 18 BvB.
Of course, you should continue to improve in 3-bet OOP pots, as you do in other areas of your game, but 3-betting alone generates FEq (if you use the sizing we recommend – which is around 4-5x OOP depending on your opponent's sizing), so you'll be collecting pots more often preflop. All those small pots add up, so don't ignore them!
