Hemorrhaging money in the Blinds.

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CaptainKout

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I know everybody loses money in the blinds. I lose more. I've been playing really aggressively from the blinds. 3 betting steal attempts and popping it up when it limps around(4nl). I did the math, not hard math, and discovered that if I just folded all my blinds I would have made over 1000bb(yah thats thousand) more over the past 6k hands. Which obviously would have increased my winrate a smidge. lol. So now I'm gonna tighten the hellz up.

Is supertight the only way to play the blinds? Can you recommend an article on blind play? Whats a typical win/loss rate from the blinds to aim for?
 
micromachine

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Can you show us your stats by position? And how much you have won/lost in each seat?

Losing 10buy-ins over 6K hands in addition to the loss incurred by posting seems pretty bad, but then again the sample is small.

On PT3 I have a stat called 'Won without blinds' or something which shows how much you would have won from SB and BB if you hadn't posted any blinds, and it's always positive. Maybe your 3betting too much and getting exploited?
 
Arjonius

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I'd guess that you're applying certain concepts too widely / inappropriately. For instance, 3-betting apparent steals is much better vs. players with high attempt to steal %. It's not just a matter of "oh, be opened from LP or the button, so I'll assume he's stealing."

Another example is punishing limpers. It's much better to do so in position, which means you should try it much less often when you're OOP. Here too, all opponents are not the same. You should prefer those who tend to limp-fold over those who limp-call. And how many there are is another meaningful factor.
 
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I have to agree with what's been said so far. Are you playing with HEM or PT3 when at the tables? If so, are you taking the stats into consideration? If not, are you taking notes on players and referring to those notes?

It sounds like you're applying blind defense ideas to all situations. Who you're up against should factor into your preflop decisions, instead of blanket defense ideas.
 
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CaptainKout

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I have stats for the past 25k(since last comp crash) hands roughly but my game has changed considerably over that period. In the past 7k, which is this month, I'm losing at 35bb from sb and 29bb from bb(was even worse before last nights awesome session,10 and 32bb over two months). In middle position through the btn I'm winning at better than that. EP fluctuates around break-even. Its a small sample yada yada but I don't think I need that many hands to identify it as a leak. The other standout statistic was that my vpip in the blinds is around 40%(too high) and my w$atsd is 30-40%(way to low). Seems pretty clear that I'm just playing too many hands oop without enough fold equity and without the card strength needed to play pots for value.

I also read that seemingly-great-odds in the blinds are really misleading because what odds you have are countered by your positional disadvantage. Basically your only continuing in the pot if you flop a monster which isn't likely to happen with the hands you would complete with. Add to that the times when your small flush comes in only to get overflushed or two pair runs into a set and it just isn't worth playing. Or at least thats what I'm finding.

I'm really just looking for some conceptual thoughts on blind play because I think for the most part I understand the first step needed. Which is tighten up.
 
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CaptainKout

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Its worth stating that I play extremely loose and aggressive. So where nits have plenty of fold equity post flop, I don't. So in my case, I conject, that blind defense is going to be counter-productive.
 
sam1chips

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(I play a lot more tournament play than ring games, so my advice may be itnerpreted differently)
Whenever i see people 3-betting from the blinds, I look at it almost as ego, or attempting to be the more dominant. "The blinds are supposed to be pushed around, but YOU aren't going to push ME around when I'm on the blinds". Sometimes it can work obviously, as the person trying to push the blinds around could be doing just that, trying to steal blinds without a hand.
I agree with arjonius. If the player is trying to steal blinds a lot, then they're probably doing it with marginal hands a lot of the times. Taking the concepts of assuming that the person is trying to steal blinds with a raise from late position all the time is obviously exaggerated. However, deciding to fold to every raise on the blinds may be extreme as well. Try to find a medium, but it might not be a bad idea to swallow the pride and give up the blinds a couple times. Losing just the blinds is not bad compared to 3-betting, and getting a big 4-bet from the original raiser...Best of luck
 
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CaptainKout

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I'm not suggesting to fold all from the blinds. Just using that as a benchmark. My thought was that I might be better served by playing maybe a 10% range from the blinds, entering with a 3-bet. Or even tighter if thats what the consensus is. I don't think my ego is in the way anymore. Not at the tables anyways, but I might have an ego problem on the forums lol.
 
MediaBLITZ

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I'm not suggesting to fold all from the blinds. Just using that as a benchmark. My thought was that I might be better served by playing maybe a 10% range from the blinds, entering with a 3-bet. Or even tighter if thats what the consensus is.


That sounds about right. Maybe you have been operating with a tournament concept of blind defending that you picked up long ago form a book or video or post or something and didn't realize cash is different (until now)?

Pretty common to get all that info thrown at you and have to sort out later what applies to cash, what applies to tourney, what applies to no limit, what applies to limit, etc
 
John A

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Its worth stating that I play extremely loose and aggressive. So where nits have plenty of fold equity post flop, I don't. So in my case, I conject, that blind defense is going to be counter-productive.

As a coach, when I hear this at small or micro stakes, alarm bells go off.

My best suggestion is to learn to walk before you start running. Learning a solid TAG style is important FIRST, because then you'll have all of the fundamentals down. Then you start learning to adjust your game from there.

If you're playing LAG at micro stakes, you are probably making things too difficult on yourself imho.
 
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CaptainKout

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I reread Harrington on Cash Games's section on blind play and attacking limpers(all nicely placed together). In the small blind he's playing 80% when its folded around!! And probably like 40%(pairs, 2 high cards, any ace, and suited connectors down to 76) from the blinds to a raise. His reasoning is purely mathematical. Basically your odds are good from the blinds and especially the suited connectors do surprisingly well against typical ranges.

I'm starting to think that even if you have equity with these hands its just too hard to realize it from the blinds. Thus fold everything but the best with occasional re-steals if the lp players are getting out of control.
 
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CaptainKout

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You do understand Harrington did not write that with 4NL in mind?

HAHAHAHAHA!!! I truly did not think about that. Now that I do, I probably know more about cake poker 4nl than almost any poker author around. But I don't trust my judgement when it comes to general poker theory. At other stakes, how are you guys playing the blinds?

Conclusion: I'm gonna play super tight in the blinds at 4nl and I'll report how it goes.
 
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To John A.

I did kinda skip the solid TAG stage of learning. Despite the cc regs constant orders to do so. But I'm crushing 4nl over the past 25k hands(not big enough to trust the win rate but enough to know I'm a winning player) as it is with returns I would love to brag about (see my challenge thread :D ) despite really neg ev blind play. So I'm looking to improve further. LAG is the game I feel comfortable with and my computer is too slow to mass table so I have time to concentrate on player dependent moves. Its a personality flaw that I could never sit tight and do the 15vpip/12pfr thing that everyone says is profitable, and I don't doubt it against the 4nl fish, but I felt like I was missing equity and it was killing me.

The biggest thing, and don't freak when I say this because i'm sure many of the regs here are winning tags, but I've never seen/played against a winning TAG unless you include rakeback(couple of these). Speaks to the quality at 4nl more than anything, but it was part of my rationalization. The apparent TAGs I play just seem weak tight to me and I have position on them so much that they have to get spewey to fight back which plays exactly into my hands. TAGs hate getting called behind and putting people in awkward situations is what we're supposed to be doing riht? Or I can just stay out of pots with them, which even the fish seem to understand.

So I'm off and running and don't want to try walking again, until something changes to ruin my run. Which could be easily happen when I move up in stakes or go on a huge losing streak from over aggression. Cross that bridge when it comes.
 
Cafeman

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Biggest winners in the games I play (50NL 6max) are the solid TAGs.

Just sayin' :)
 
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CaptainKout

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Biggest winners in the games I play (50NL 6max) are the solid TAGs.

Just sayin' :)

I absolutely believe that. And Its verifiable with ptr.

Maybe its just how 4nl plays. Or it could be that the good TAGs move up too quickly for me to run into them. There could be any number of reasons but I honest to god, have yet to run into big winning TAGS in my time at 4nl. Where can I find who the big(well still really small) winners at 4nl are? I can check the analysis page at ptr, but it doesn't account for sample sizes. The scatter plots include people who've played with a winrate of 140bb so I can't really get any usable data from there.

Also, by big winners do you mean winrate or net earnings?
 
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CaptainKout

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LOL. Talking about me? Probably (bashful face emodicon). I think I've come a long way since my first few posts on cc. OK, I'm gonna stop with the defensive nonsense. I got upset because I posed a question about playing the blinds and someone posted the same usual blanket "play TAG" thing that is just too broad to be helpful to my specific question.

I apologize.

**this was in response to a post that i think got deleted. The poster made a fair point that I came to cc as a total fish with a defensive attitude, and I'm falling into that same routine. To cafeman or mediablitz, no hard feelings. I appreciate the input.
 
Cafeman

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My player pool is relatively small, so I have 1000s of hands on regs. They either have a very good winrate when I'm at the table (lol) and/or PTR shows them to be winners (over a good sample).

Preflop stats are one thing, but the winners in the micros know how to value bet well imo. I've studied a few of them in my db, and that appears to be the main difference between them and the BE/losing regs (with almost identical preflop stats). They won't check back rivers to see who won (because they don't want to fold to a c/r), they will either make your life difficult or throw in a value bet that you just can't resist calling. They are also better at hand reading than average, which is why they can do the above and also make calls where others might fold.
 
Cafeman

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LOL. Talking about me? Probably (bashful face emodicon). I think I've come a long way since my first few posts on cc. OK, I'm gonna stop with the defensive nonsense. I got upset because I posed a question about playing the blinds and someone posted the same usual blanket "play TAG" thing that is just too broad to be helpful to my specific question.

I sincerely apologize.

Haha, yeah I get you. I guess it's a knee jerk response because of the stake you are playing (play TAG, win money)? You need to move up to where they respect your blind defense or something ;)
 
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CaptainKout

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The title is "Hemorrhaging money in the blinds" so clearly they had reason to disrespect my blind defenses. lol.
 
Arjonius

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To John A.

I did kinda skip the solid TAG stage of learning. Despite the cc regs constant orders to do so. But I'm crushing 4nl over the past 25k hands(not big enough to trust the win rate but enough to know I'm a winning player) as it is with returns I would love to brag about (see my challenge thread :D ) despite really neg ev blind play. So I'm looking to improve further. LAG is the game I feel comfortable with and my computer is too slow to mass table so I have time to concentrate on player dependent moves. Its a personality flaw that I could never sit tight and do the 15vpip/12pfr thing that everyone says is profitable, and I don't doubt it against the 4nl fish, but I felt like I was missing equity and it was killing me.

The biggest thing, and don't freak when I say this because i'm sure many of the regs here are winning tags, but I've never seen/played against a winning TAG unless you include rakeback(couple of these). Speaks to the quality at 4nl more than anything, but it was part of my rationalization. The apparent TAGs I play just seem weak tight to me and I have position on them so much that they have to get spewey to fight back which plays exactly into my hands. TAGs hate getting called behind and putting people in awkward situations is what we're supposed to be doing riht? Or I can just stay out of pots with them, which even the fish seem to understand.

So I'm off and running and don't want to try walking again, until something changes to ruin my run. Which could be easily happen when I move up in stakes or go on a huge losing streak from over aggression. Cross that bridge when it comes.
This looks like classic penny wise, pound foolish thinking. If all you want to do is beat 4nl and even the next couple of levels, you can do that by just making fewer poor plays than average, and this is true whether you play LAG, TAG, weak right, etc., although not to the same degree.

But if you plan to move up to 50nl, 100nl and beyond, you're best chance at doing so with the fewest potholes in the road includes having a solid foundation to your game. Many excellent players are LAGs. But I bet they can all play a very good TAG game when the situation calls for it.
 
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CaptainKout

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ok this is my last thing on this topic, forever(or a long time at least). But seriously this thread is about blind play. I stopped posting on 2+2 because of the off topic bickering that came with each question I asked.

LAG vs TAG thing is just a matter of degree, right? I feel comfortable opening slightly more hands in co and btn especially with fish in the blinds. And since there are almost always fish at the table, I end up opening a few extra hands. When I say I'm loose, ptr says I'm looser preflop than 54%(vpip 28) of people at my stake. When I say aggressive, ptr says I'm more aggressive than 94%(I probably need to calm down a bit, cbet 70% isn't totally out of control tho but way above 4nl average) of people at my stake. It might sound like I'm displaying a LAG badge proudly or thinking I'm superior for opening more hands, but its not like that, I just feel this stake can be played most profitably with a wider opening range. When there is a 60/12 fish in the blinds who I know will call with 93s because he "already put money in the pot" or whatever, I feel comfortable raising my Q9 or K5s in lp, which isn't in the typical TAG range. I made a thread way back about opening my range against bad players and thats what I've tried to do(how best to do it is still in experimentation phase). My aggression is probably really high because I'm one of few people at 4nl who will value bet the river when the flush comes in(thanks to cc hand analysis) and one of even fewer who play draws aggressively, probably too aggressively against certain players. I'm still figuring out my game. I'm convinced that the biggest reason I can open so many hands is because 3 bets happen so rarely at 4nl(average in my db is 5.3%, just premium pairs and a few strong aces) and many fish never ever 3bet without kk or AA. Sure I've complained about getting felted by passive players but I'm starting understand the bet-fold(again thanks to cc hand analysis pages) which has allowed me to visit value town a lot more regularly. Sticking with the value-town analogy(its a stretch of analogy), theres more real estate available then just tptk. tp no kicker, even second pair, can make money when they'll hold onto their dueces for 3 streets because they decided before the flop that you're always bluffing. I'm 100% convinced that if/when I move up stakes I'll need to narrow the range and there are occasions when I play tight at 4nl(against maniacs for example).

For a lot of the cc regs, its probably been a long time since you played with several really bad players at each table. Maybe make a challenge thread or something. But I'm sure you could help a lot of us newbs by taking a look at the micros and talk about adapting. I get that you're trying to drill in the foundations for us but a lot of the foundational stuff doesn't truly sink in until we see for ourselves why we need it. And adapting to poor players is part of that foundation, and I think I'm adapting well at 4nl. I for many months misunderstood TAG to mean tight opening range, cbet occasionally, otherwise just bet your tptk and fold when theres a chance someone has you beat. People don't stress enough how often the other guy doesn't have trips on a paired board(they do this well on the hand analysis page but less so on the newb threads asking for general advice) or how often your straight is worth another bet when the 3rd spade comes in on the river. That was the realization that turned my game profitable. It had little to do with sticking to the opening hands chart.
 
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