Bleeding from the blinds

[SoBeDude]

Evaluating my play by position in using pokertracker I've come to a startling conclusion.

My blind play sucks.

I'm making money in every position on the table except the blinds, and there I'm losing a fortune.

I have less than 10,000 hands in my database but it seems that the money I'm losing is clearly indicative of serious arterial damage.

Now I always thought I played my blinds fairly well. Thought that I didn't play crap, didn't play into raises unless I thought player was on a steal or I had good cards, etc.

Now maybe I'm supposed to bleed from the blinds, by their very nature. I pay, get "average" cards, and fold.

So my question is how can I figure out if my losses in the blinds are appropriate and inline with where they should be?

How do I figure out if I'm defending too much or incorrectly?

Some possibly relevant stats from pokerstat:

BB: Saw flop 62%, win when see flop 27%, went to Showdown 23%, won at SD 54%, raise % PF 5%

SB: Saw flop 41%, win when see flop 29%, went to showdown 26%, won at SD 49%, raise % PF, 9.5%

One thing they don't give is loss/win per position per 100 hands, which would be awesome.

Please remember these are loose online games, mostly 2-4. I can see many flops for free (BB) or for 1/2 a bet (SB).

I'm good about not calling EP/MP raises unless I have top cards. I will however aggressively defend against a cutoff/button open-raise with many hands.

Now doing the math, I'm losing 0.33 BBs per BB.
In the SB I'm losing .47 SBs per SB.

Is this good? bad? horrible?

Any and all insights/ideas would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

-Scott

[rigoletto]

Now doing the math, I'm losing 0.33 BBs per BB.
In the SB I'm losing .47 SBs per SB.

Iuse BB for Big Blind here

These figures show that you are actually winning from the blinds! You'll allways bleed a lot from the blinds, but look at it this way: You pay 1½ BB to participate in 10 hands, so you need to make 0.15 BB per hand to make up for that. As I see it you are making almost 1 BBin the blinds alone.

In other words: your blind play is +EV

[Tommy Angelo]

"BB: Saw flop 62%"

"SB: Saw flop 41%"

I don't know how often you are facing raises, and I don't know jack about how to win online, but at a glance, I'd say you are seeing way too many flops from the blinds. Try folding everything QJ and down from both seats all the time no matter what for a month or so and see if that helps.

Tommy

[rigoletto]

I'm making money in every position on the table except the blinds, and there I'm losing a fortune.

You'll allways loose from the blinds - to not loose money from the blinds would mean that you have to win on average ½ Big Bet from the big blind and 1/4 big bet from the small blind. You can't even win that from the button.

If you folded every blind hand you would allways lose the blind. By playing some of the hands you can either lose more or win some of it back on average. Your figures shows that you actually win a lot of it back from your blind play.

[SoBeDude]

These figures show that you are actually winning from the blinds! You'll allways bleed a lot from the blinds, but look at it this way: You pay 1½ BB to participate in 10 hands, so you need to make 0.15 BB per hand to make up for that. As I see it you are making almost 1 BBin the blinds alone.

I'm not sure I understand. I do see that I'm making back almost 1 big blind's worth of money while spending 1.5 big blinds. Specifically I'm getting back $1.87 for every $3 spent...a little better than half.

But I'm definitely not winning from the blinds, I'm losing many hundreds of dollars from both positions.

If every time I was in the big blind I folded, I'd lose exactly one big blind bet. In fact I'm only losing one third of my blind bet each time I play, so I'm doing better than if I folded EVERY time I was in the big blind.

In the small blind, I'm losing almost half of my SMALL blind bet each time I play. Which is still better than losing the whole thing (like if I folded EVERY time I was in the SB).

But I don't know if I should be doing better than this...

-Scott

[SoBeDude]

I know those numbers look rough. I did mention I can see many flops for free in the BB and many flops in the SB for half a bet. The 2-4 is pretty passive.

Does this chance your feeling any?

-Scott

[rigoletto]

You are of base here Tommy. In the most passive of passive games you'll see 100% of the flops from the big blind. 63% could mean that he only calls raises with top 10% of his hands).

[Tommy Angelo]

"Does this chance your feeling any?"

No. 41% from the small blind is way too much, IMO, even if they never raised a single hand.

More to the point. You think something is wrong. And you think it can be fixed. And you want to fix it. The smartest next step, IMO, is to change something you do. Doesn't so much matter what you change, but that you are willing to. And what experiment could be easier and simpler than to simply fold more often?

The biggest mistake I think you could make on this topic would be to assume that your leakage comes from your postflop play. That would strike me as a rationalization to continue gambling, not as an honest approach to improvement.


Tommy

[rigoletto]

He's still winning 1/4 big bet per small blind when seeing 41%. How can this be a leak????

[SoBeDude]

Well I'm posting this to get input and I'm open to listen to any and all ideas and suggestions.

To be honest I was hoping to hear from you specifically Tommy. I remember a post you several months back where you mentioned you fold the blinds a lot. And I greatly value your opinion although I think I play at a very different game than you do.

And I think you may be right about my SB play. I'll play many cards for half a bet. I have lately been trimming that down and I think thats better play.

But I guess my question is because I don't want to blindly change something and make it worse (yea, I know I can just change back). I'm looking for input, hence my post, to help guide my "experimenting".

But Rigoletto makes a few good points. Perhaps my blind play is actually good and I just have an unrealistic expectation?

Thanks for your input!

-Scott

[pudley4]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
Now doing the math, I'm losing 0.33 BBs per BB.
In the SB I'm losing .47 SBs per SB.

[/ QUOTE ]

.33 BB per BB - does this mean you are losing .33 Big Bets or .33 Big Blinds? Also, does this mean you are losing .33 BB in addition to the Big Blind you post, or is this just your net result? If it's your net result, it seems like a good result to me - you're actually making 2/3 BB per hand when out of position and getting completely random hands.

[SoBeDude]

sorry.

I am losing 0.33 big blinds, not big bets. I should clarify that.

and no, that is NOT in addition to the 1 big blind already posted. I would have posted that as 1.33.

So I'm actually winning back 2/3rds of my big blind.

-Scott

[Tommy Angelo]

"He's still winning 1/4 big bet per small blind when seeing 41%. How can this be a leak????"

rigoletto,


I realize that I don't speak the same language as you guys do so please extend me a little patience. For example, I don't know what it means to "win 1/4 big bet per small blind." I'm sorry, my brain just doesn't just work that way, and sadly, I'm too old, stubborn and lazy to force it to.

What I do know, or at least I think I know, is that limit hold'em is a game of high cards and position. High cards = good. Low cards = bad. Last to act = good. First to act = bad.

So, if someone tells me they think they have a leak in the small blind, my first reaction is, well of course you do. Everyone does. It's the worst position. I try to counter the inherent leakiness of the small blind by playing high cards and throwing all the others away. I believe it works for me. So when someone asks me, I say try it, it might work for you too.

Tommy

[rigoletto]

Hi Tommy

It's exactly because you speak poker differently from me that I allways enjoy your posts: they are very inspiring. This time I thought you might have seen something in the numbers that I didn't (I should have know better ). /forums/images/icons/wink.gif

[SoBeDude]

Lets look at it this way, there are two extremes: one is playing every blind, and one is throwing every one away. Both lose a lot of money and cost truckloads of $$.

Somewhere in the middle is "proper play" that is playing the right number of blinds under the right conditions to minimise this inherent loss. I don't think the loss can be negated, but it can be minimized. This "minimized loss" is thus proper play.

I'm trying to look empirically at the data I have and determine where I am in relation to proper play. It's tough to quantify, and maybe too easy to get a very subjective feel that's incorrect.

Now if I'm playing about right, then throwing more blinds away will cost me more money. If I'm too lose it'll save me money.

To just wildly experiment is expensive. Hearing from some other winning players with larger databases would be great to help me figure out where I am. At this point, I don't know if I'm ahead or behind the curve.

-Scott

[Bob T.]

I don't see what is so controversial about Tommy's suggestion. I think the numbers of flops you see are way to high, and I think that playing tight especially out of the small blind is an easy way to save money.

[Bob T.]

Because maybe he can lose less if he's less loose. (The entire purpose of this post is so I could put that sentence in somewhere)

I see about 20% less flops than he does, and in my records, I lose about 1/3 less per hand when I am in my blinds. I think this is a good idea. I usually find that I only play slightly more out of the small blind, than I do from any non blind position. The main reason that I play those hands, is not the discount, but the chance of being raised has gone way down, when it is limped all the way around to the small blind.

[ACPlayer]

I've lived with numbers all my life. I can breath, sleep, eat, juggle, and twirl numbers. But this BB stuff in this thread has left me clueless.

I agree with Tommy Angelo throw away more hands in the blinds. I understand TA saves lots of money by smoking when it is his turn to be UTG and UTG + 1. If so, cant hurt to throw away SB (UTG-1 for goodness sakes) for half a bet. You make tons of money by throwing the hand away, gotta love it!!

[Tommy Angelo]

"I've lived with numbers all my life. I can breath, sleep, eat, juggle, and twirl numbers. But this BB stuff in this thread has left me clueless. "

I think I know more now about what it is. It's partly in the accounting.

As best I can tell from this thread, because of the nature of the tracking software, it becomes convenient and sensible to speak of actual dollars (or bets) won or lost from each position. And with the blinds, the actual money put into the pot before the cards are dealt must be worked into the accounting. And that's what makes everything sound weird, as least to me. To say that the small blind shows a minus result is meaningless to me, because it is vacuum accounting. It doesn't take into account the main thing, which is, I believe, reciprocalness, the comparison to the performance of the betting decisions we did NOT make.

Tommy

[Tommy Angelo]

Because maybe he can lose less if he's less loose. (The entire purpose of this post is so I could put that sentence in somewhere)

I see about 20% less flops than he does, and in my records, I lose about 1/3 less per hand when I am in my blinds. I think this is a good idea. I usually find that I only play slightly more out of the small blind, than I do from any non blind position. The main reason that I play those hands, is not the discount, but the chance of being raised has gone way down, when it is limped all the way around to the small blind.
-----------------------------

Excellent post, Bob.

[ACPlayer]

Can you query your software along the following lines (SB and BB below refer to Small Blind and Big Blind):


-- Look at only those hands where you are blind vs blind.
-- Add up the results for each of these positions
-- Compute two number as follows:
1. The results for the SB position - num times played in SB * dollar value of the SB
2. The results for the BB position - num times played in BB * dollar value of the BB
-- I would be very interested in the results from above and the num times played in the BB and num times in the SB.

This would let us know whether you would be better off chopping the blinds or playing with real empirical data, within some confidence.

[SoBeDude]

Not currently.

If I get motivated I might try to write some direct SQL queries directly into the database to calculate such things.

For me, the issue of chopping is minimal because my live games are friendly and usually chop, and I can't chop online at all.

-Scott

[SoBeDude]

There is some wonderful information that can be gleaned from software such as this. Things you can't learn sitting at a live game.

In this case, I get an actual breakdown of how much money I make from every seat across my lifetime of online play.

Wouldn't you like to know that you're making money with A2s from every position except UTG? wouldn't that give you confidence that your play of A2s is correct but you should avoid it like the plague UTG? This is the level of detail it provides.

The specificity of the information can really be an eye-opener to the true financial realities of one's play.

When I look at the "position stats" window, I see beautiful green numbers for every seat INCLUDING UTG (meaning I'm profitable in my play in those positions). I crack a smile.

Then my eyes gaze downwards and I see these BRIGHT RED and VERY BIG numbers in the blinds (the red indicates losses) and I think, "Hmm, I'm bleeding from the blinds".

These are actual dollars made/lost from these positions. Now simply divide that by the number of times in the seat and you have dollars won/lost per time in that seat.

I converted that into a fraction of a big blind because I thought that would be easier for everyone to digest, and it makes it no longer game-size specific (1/3rd of the big blind in 20-40 and in 2-4 are very different numbers, but represent the same type of loss).

-Scott

[J.R.]

If you folded every blind no matter what, you would lose 1.5 big blinds per round.

By playing, you are losing roughly .565 big blinds per round. How is this a leak?

You took what would be a 1.5 big blind lose if you just folded, and thru positive EV play have lowered that loss by almost a full big blind per round. /forums/images/icons/laugh.gif

Sounds good to me, especially given your: 1) position and 2) unenviable starting hands. Bravo!

FYI: I see about the same percentage of flops from the big blind in Party 2-4 games, but see only 27% of the flops from the small blind in Party 2-4 games. Hope that helps.

[rkiray]

To answer your questions, I have a bigger database (Pokerstat database with over 92,000 hands over 31,000 of which I'm in). I lose .106 big bets/small blind and .130 big bets/big blind.

[Jeffro]

I will agree with everyone else here it is about minimizing your losses. I've posted my stats below it's from over 10,000 hands only at paradise 2-4. I think I did the math here correctly just to try to match to you numbers but I'm losing .01 SBs per SB, and .13BBs per BB, please correct me if I calculated these wrong. I think you are seeing way too many hands from the SB, Tommy is right on the money here. We are much closer on the BB and I am going to have to take a look at my own numbers becuase I see some room for improvment. I will comment on "Please remember these are loose online games, mostly 2-4. I can see many flops for free (BB)", by your own numbers at least 38% of your big blinds are raised pre-flop, aggressive and loose are two different things. Not knowing your play but I reviewed some of my hands over lunch, by throwing these hands in SB I keep myself from catching pieces of the flop, and losing more . I will take an extreme example from last night I folded K10o from the SB after six limpers, one limper this is a raising hand for me, this hand does not play well multiway why play it.

SB Play
Fold percentages:
preflop:69.53% (947/1,362)
flop: 30.02% (121/403)
turn: 20.70% (53/256)
river: 11.96% (22/184)

Showdowns: 10.06% (137/1,362)
Won without a showdown: 6.02% (82/1,362)
Did not fold preflop: 30.47% (415/1,362)
Voluntarily put money in preflop: 30.76% (419/1,362)
Went to showdown after seeing flop: 33.91% (137/404)
Folded to a river bet: 35.48% (22/62)
Showdowns won money: 54.74% (75/137)

Total won/lost: -$226.50 (-56.63 BB)
Average per hand: -$0.1663 (-0.041575 BB)
Showdowns won money: 54.74%, lost money: 45.26%, even money: 0.00%

Total rake paid: $107.50
Limit games played (in big bets): $4.00

Raise first in preflop: 1.84% (25/1,362)
Raise not first in preflop (excluding limp/call-reraise): 2.28% (31/1,362)

Fold to steal raise when small blind: 80% (66/83)
Fold to non-steal raise when small blind: 87% (464/532)

BB Play
Fold percentages:
preflop:34.22% (462/1,350)
flop: 46.59% (396/850)
turn: 22.14% (95/429)
river: 17.87% (52/291)

Showdowns: 15.19% (205/1,350)
Won without a showdown: 10.37% (140/1,350)

Did not fold preflop: 65.78% (888/1,350)
Voluntarily put money in preflop: 16.59% (224/1,350)
Went to showdown after seeing flop: 24.06% (205/852)
Folded to a river bet: 43.33% (52/120)
Showdowns won money: 43.41% (89/205)

Total won/lost: -$1,406.00 (-351.50 BB)
Average per hand: -$1.0415 (-0.260370 BB)
Showdowns won money: 43.41%, lost money: 56.10%, even money: 0.49%

Total rake paid: $118.00
Limit games played (in big bets): $4.00

Raise first in preflop: 0.00% (0/1,350)
Raise not first in preflop (excluding limp/call-reraise): 1.41% (19/1,350)

Fold to steal raise when big blind: 46% (31/67)
Fold to non-steal raise when big blind: 71% (430/607)

[J.R.]

.106 big bets/small blind and .130 big bets/big blind.

This is .472 big blinds per orbit, which is about the same (a little less) than the .565 big blinds per orbit Scott loses.

[Tommy Angelo]

"Total rake paid: $107.50"

Just wondering, how many hands was that? (I looked and couldn't find it within the stats.)

Tommy

[SoBeDude]

thats almost 10% better, which adds up very quickly.

I've actually been able to push my Small Blind number down a fair bit, which makes me happy, and makes this exercise worth the effort.

thanks to all who responded.

-Scott

[SoBeDude]

Jeffro,

I'm calculating some different numbers for you:

SB play:
Lost $226.50 over 1362 small blind plays.

since the small blind is $1 just divide the two:
loss of .166 small blinds per play in the SB. nice number.

Big Blind isn't so pretty.

Loss of $1,406 in 1350 plays in the big blind.
With a $2 big blind, that 1406 /2 then /1350.
That gives a loss of 0.52 big blinds per play.

Your small blind play is far superior to mine.

Thanks for sharing your info!

-Scott

[Bob T.]

To me this doesn't seem insignificant. I play about 100 table-hours of online a month. If I could find an improvement that meant this much every lap, that would be an average of about 40 Big bets a month for me. I think that that is something that could make a real improvement in your long term results, and also in your bank balance.

[SoBeDude]

Bob I couldn't agree more. When you consider how many rotations we do PER HOUR, even a very small improvement will have a real impact on the "bottom line".

would you mind sharing your blind numbers as well so we have more info to compare?


-Scott

[rigoletto]

I believe it was sb's played in a database of about 10000 hands, which would make it the rake for 1000 hands.

[SoBeDude]

It says he won 137 hands at showdown and 82 without showing from the BB, and 205 and 140 from the small.

So thats 564 pots.

$107.50 pain in BB and $118 paid in SB rakes.

Thats only ~$0.40 per pot. how it that possible?

-Scott

[Jeffro]

That rake figure is based on hands I won that were raked. I posted a total of 1362 small blinds, I was raked on the 158 of these hands I won. The rake figure is quite telling, I currently have a total of about 21,000 hands I've played in this database. Over the past few months I've been playing break even poker so I've watched my total won stay at about $1700 but the rake has gotten up to about $2400, really makes you think about how much you could be winning without the rake, and how well you need to play

[SoBeDude]

your stats showing you folding to a steal-raise about 83.5% of the time!

My instincts tell me that is far too often...

Anyone else have an opinion on that?

-Scott

[Jeffro]

80% in the small blind and 46% in the big blind. I probably do fold these in the small blind a little more then I should. I have been playing for about 2 years now and am still not completely comfortable in my post-flop play in heads-up situations with less then premium cards, this is a part of my game I really need to work on, so at this point I would rather fold these hands becuase I think its +ev for my game currently.

[J.R.]

Scott,

From your original post:

My blind play sucks. I'm making money in every position on the table except the blinds, and there I'm losing a fortune.

The point is that in comparison to rkiray, you are losing .093 big blinds, or .093 small bets more per orbit. So every 100 hands, rkiray's earn is, on average, almost 1 small blind better than your's out of the blinds.

The point is you are not losing a fortune. Yes, as other poster's numbers have pointed out, you probably play too loose out of the the small blind. Yes, your blind play could improve. I was just trying to offer encouragement to show how close you really are to other's results out of the blinds. Many players lose more money from outside of the blinds.

I sensed discouragement in your initial post, and confidence in your decision-making ablity is worth far more than 1 small blind/100 hands. Good luck, and congrats on the diligence you put into analyzing your play and your efforts to improve. You will be rewarded.

[eMarkM]

Homer had a post on EV from the blinds and I had gone to pokerroom.com to get a feel for the overall EV for every hand ever played at pokerroom (the only site I know that has EV stats like this) and came up with the following for per hand expectation:

SB: -.113 BB
BB: -.171 BB

UTG is -.01. The button is +.06, everything else is between those.

All of these are in terms of big bets. Converting yours from SB/BB to big bets you have -.165 BB in the BB and -.11 BB for SB.

Unless I made a mistake here, you're right in line with expectations, at least with your average pokerroom players. BTW, my own stats came out to -.13 and -.20 so you're better than me, and I appear to need work on my blind play.

[SoBeDude]

Hi J.R.

I sensed discouragement in your initial post, and confidence in your decision-making ablity is worth far more than 1 small blind/100 hands.

Well yes and no. On one side I was disappointed in my numbers, but on the other I was excited to find a leak.

Hey, identifying the leak is 90% the battle for me I think. If I can objectively find the leaks in my game I'll spend the time and effort to remove them.

Good luck, and congrats on the diligence you put into analyzing your play and your efforts to improve. You will be rewarded.

Thanks so much for the kind words. In light of some of the comments I've recieved on here (not this thread), your words are much appreciated.

-Scott

[SoBeDude]

Hi Mark,

Thanks for your reply.

I must say that 'in line' with the average pokerroom player does not excite me that much. I would have expected I was a good bit ahead of the average fish.

Sigh /forums/images/icons/frown.gif

-Scott

[Rick Nebiolo]

Jeffro,

I play low limit online (and medium limit in B&amp;M) mostly to practice new games and have fun playing the one or two table no limit and other tournaments with Hero. I hardly have notes on competition and no stats.

Anyway, I am considering stepping up my online play. Is it correct to assume you use PokerStat for your stats? If so, are you able to gather the stats automatically or do you have to download hand histories and then transfer the data. I just need a rough idea as to how much work is involved.

I'm sure this is on the Internet Forum but there is an awful lot to wade through so any help is appreciatted.

Regards,

Rick

[SoBeDude]

UTG is -.01. The button is +.06, everything else is between those.

I'm right in line for the button, +0.057 actually. I'm well ahead UTG with +0.07. Funny thing I'm +0.114 from the cutoff. Must be my small sample size.

-Scott

[Rick Nebiolo]

SoBeDude,

If only had time to do a rapid scan of the thread but if you in fact are losing only a third of your big blind per play then IMO you are doing a fantastic job in the big blind (I'm having more trouble decoding your small blind stats). This assumes that if you simply folded your big blind no matter what you lose your entire big blind every play.

~ Rick

[MarkD]

Assuming you are at Paradise:

1) Get hand history emailed to you.
2) Check your email and then save the hand history as a text file to your hard drive.
3) Import it into the program. The program will eliminate duplicate games for you.

I just downloaded the trial for pokerstat which gives you 1000 hands or 15 days to evaluate. The process is easy, the only problem I could see for myself is remembering to request my hand histories from paradise every 100 hands.

[SoBeDude]

Hi Rick,

This assumes that if you simply folded your big blind no matter what you lose your entire big blind every play.

Thats correct. Folding every time I'd have a loss of exactly one big blind per hand.

Yes I'm losing about 1/3 of my big blind per play. Which now that I've had feedback I guess isn't too bad.

In my small blind I lose almost half of it. But I've actually been able to improve that since I made my original post on this thread.

-Scott

[Jeffro]

Yes I am using pokerstat and it does only work with Paradise. I find it to be a invaluable tool for tracking my play as well as my opponents, this is one of the greatest benifits of playing online. The procedure is a tad cumbersome to request the hand histories and same them as a text format then read them in to the database(if you have a regular pop email box it can get and read them without having to open them and save them as text). I started playing at party over the past week and am lost with no info on my opponents, going to have to look at poker tracker if I think I'm going to continue to play there.

[rigoletto]

Pokerstat has an automatic hand request feature - pretty cool.

[SoBeDude]

Pokertracker is what I use and it works with Paradise, Pokerstars, and Party.

-Scott

[rkiray]

That's weird. I don't have my database open right now so I don't have the numbers, but I remember being surprized that I also win more in the cut-off than on the button. Anyone else notice this? Any idea why?

[rharless]

Scott,

For what it's worth, I would guess that it's hard to get much of an edge over the average fish when both of you are required to take the first same action on the hand. Yes, I think a 2+2er's blind numbers should exceed Mr Tuna's, but I don't know that the difference will ever be that huge. I would guess the position where the most delta can be achieved over a default Fishie play would be UTG?

Good job on identifying the leak. You've inspired me to do some SQL queries on my own hand database to figure out some stats. (I play at pokerroom whose hand histories are incompatible with any of the software out there, but accessing their SQLite database is feasible /forums/images/icons/wink.gif )

rh

[rharless]

Scott,

Actually your numbers are definitely exceeding pokerroom's average fish. It occurred to me that eMarkM might have simply straight-averaged each hand EV to get the EV by position. This is not exactly correct, because we do not receive each hand an equal number of times. To average AA equally weighted with 76o (which we get 3 times as often) gives us false results.

Therefore I did a weighted average to get the EV, taking that weight (frequency of hand received) into account. The EV numbers go down, because the higher EV hands (e.g. AA) tend to be received less often.

Here is what I calculated from pokerroom's stats:

#/ EV
SB: -0.157
BB: -0.219
3: -0.038
4: -0.004
5: 0.009
6: 0.012
7: 0.016
8: 0.018
9: 0.031
10: 0.034

Roughly, we receive offsuit : suited : pair hands in a ratio of 6 : 3 : 2. I used pokerroom's actual frequency numbers in the calculation, however, since their frequency by hand is so easily available.

Hopefully any one of you math geeks out there will chime in to say if this approach is correct or if there are yet other factors that should be added.

Rachele

[Terry]

&gt;&gt; win more in the cut-off than on the button. Any idea why?

Notice, too, that you're raising most often from the cutoff, right?

You're buying the button (and increasing the pot size) in good position with good hands against weak limpers.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

Try this. Don't complete from the sb or call a raise from the bb with a hand you wouldn't open-raise with UTG. Don't raise from the sb with a hand you wouldn't reraise with in EP, and don't reraise from the bb with a hand you wouldn't cap with regardless of where you were or where the action came from.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

a)Your opponents are more likely to put you on a steal from the button than from the cutoff, or

b)You're raising with some weaker hands on the button than on the cutoff.

[SoBeDude]

I think you're giving up way too much here.

-Scott

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

I'm not the one bleeding from the blinds.

[rigoletto]

I'm with Scott on this one: to play the blinds like you are UTG is giving up to much. When in the blinds you have much more information to act on then UTG!

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

To clarify. This is *not* how I play from the blinds. This was a suggestion for how to address "bleeding from the blinds"; an example of a strategy to take for a month or so and then recheck the stats.

That being said, I don't play a whole lot looser than the guidelines I set. Yes, you have more preflop information in the blinds than you have UTG, but you also have worse position. I'd prefer to err on the side of being too tight out of position.

[SoBeDude]

...and you are playing for a partial bet, which does improve your drawing odds.

-Scott

[SoBeDude]

What has really come out of this thread and my analysis is that i'm not doing too badly from the blinds.

At initial assessment (seeing the red columns) it looks like I'm losing a fortune in the blinds, but in reality I'm earning back a big portion of money I'm forced to put in with average cards and out of position.

I have also heard from a few others via PM who's game I respect that have shared their numbers with me. That let me know I'm doing fairly well. Yes a little room for improvement, but still doing a good job.

And of course everyone's input has been greatly appreciated and valuable. But I was uncomfortable with the concept of just "try something different for a few months and see" approach a few have suggested.

I'm more the analyitical type. I'd rather do my homework, find the actual culprit, then take steps to correct it. I'm not a big fan of the "trial and error" approach to my money.

Thanks to all who have contributed to this thread!

-Scott