Quote Originally Posted by Jason View Post
I don't understand why people look at or care about their red line. The only one that matters is the profit GREEN line. If you could have a steady upwards red line that peaks @ $40 and a steady blue line that peaks @ $60 giving you $100, would you pick that over a $300 blue line and -$100 red line that give you $200? Make the most money however you can make money whether that's by getting to showdown or not.

If someone can clearly prove why having a good redline is needed to do that, I'm all ears. The blue line is EQUALLY as important as the red line but I never hear anyone critiquing that their blue line is underperformed. It's always the red line because that's the one that's most visible and usually negative and difficult to get positive.
This is pretty naive if you ask me. People care about their redline because it affects their green line. The whole point of poker is to win as much as possible and saying to forget entirely about redline is like saying to not play optimally. Also, in response to your second point, the reason people don't say anything about blue lines is because it is so much more concrete. You either win with the best hand or you lose when you don't have the best one. Blue line is far easier to control and I agree that a lot of focus during the micro stakes should be on having a positive blue line.

To say that redline doesn't matter, is just foolish though. The game is evolving and there are more nitty players than even before so why not take advantage of that? Why not be one of the few to make the adjustment and ALSO make money with the red line. Yes, the two lines are kind of inversely related but this doesn't always have to be the case. If you are truly better than people you are playing then there is no reason for your redline to cancel out over a 1/3 of your winnings for the month. Sure it may not seem like much at the micro stakes but if you are winning 10K a month in blue line and losing 8K in redline (something I see ALL the time in 2+2 grinder's graphs) then you do have a leak.

Of course this is not me advocating bluffing all the time either, I'm just saying that it is definitely worth it to learn to analyze flop texture and player tendencies to level out your redline to some extent. Hell, in FR and even 6m you don't have to have a positive redline while playing ABC poker but if you can even get it to be a less steep downward trend then you can save yourself a lot of money in the long run.

As I said, it's all part of the adjustments that everyone has to make in an ever evolving game and the current state of the game is to nit it up hardcore. So make a small adjustment and crush. Simple as that.