Red Line Confession

I have played over 200k hands of shorthanded no limit cash games.

The majority of my hands have been at 200NL.

I have lost over $5,000 in non showdown pots.

In other words my red line goes down.

SHOCK……HORROR……OMFG……..CALL THE RED LINE POLICE

Ok seriously this whole red line thing is getting a little bit silly now and I think it’s time everyone started focusing on what is really important – winning at poker.

I strongly believe that many ‘break even’ or ‘slight winners’ own themselves day in day out and don’t improve because they aspire to play a certain style more than they aspire to win money.

Obviously they aspire to both and think they go hand in hand but unfortunately this isn’t always the case.

There seems to be a misconception that a straightforward TAG is not profitable anymore and you need to play ‘small ball’ or ‘LAG’ or ‘red line poker’ (I just made that up but you know what I mean) if you are to be a regular winner.

People watch a coaching video, or read a book, and then hit the tables to try and copy the style. Most choose their spots badly and own themselves because they don’t understand why they are making these plays. They just think they ‘should’ be making these plays and want to be like *insert pro here*.

The biggest problem I see is that these players do not understand a TAG style at all.

They do not understand TAG and they do not want to. They want to be a LAG.

They do not understand that all winners play a style that has TAG foundations.
The biggest winners may have built a wonderful game on top of those foundations but the TAG style is still there.

In fact the very best players are able to effortlessly switch between TAG and LAG at just the right time. Yes a LAG will play TAG sometimes too!

So back to the red line.

I am not saying that a positive red line is bad. It’s usually good.

What I am saying is you should look to improve your overall game and focus on making the best decision on every street of every hand and make your decisions based on the information available.

As your decisions improve your red line may shoot up, it may level out, or it may crash like the stock market.

Who cares?

I guarantee that as your decisions improve your most important line (the green one) will only go one way - UP.

Aspire to maximise your green line.