Yeah yeah right, whatever. I hear that sort of thing all the time too, all low limit players suck, they never fold, they stack off, yada yada yada.

The average low limit player is WAY better than 10 years ago. I play in games constantly where that never happens. And occasionally it does.

It's apparent to me you don't know what you're talking about either so why don't we just drop it.

I was thinking about this while I was playing today... A little while ago I got into a similar argument with SBAR...

The end result is that we just both conceded that we play in different areas.

He plays in some city with a very static poker player pool in which the same players play against each other all the time and as a result, his pool is more on the nittier/competent side.

I play in Vegas and Bay Area California. Lots of tourists on vacation, lots of big money, lots of Asians that love to gamboool. This really changes the dynamics of the table and you get tons of light stack offs.

I can concede that if your poker area is in one of those towns where poker is limited and the same players play each other day in and day out that you get a nittier type of poker in which 100bb stack offs with TPGK, TPTK, and over pairs don't happen all that often.

Fair enough.

Its just that i've never played poker in those areas. All my play has been in big cities with a pretty decent sized poker population, so plenty of fish and aggros that didn't drive 30 minutes (or fly in on vacation) to the casino to fold for hours on end.

See post 33 for correction

This 50bb issue comes up all the time in So Cal due to the caps on the games. I play a 2-5 game where the buy in is 100-300. I miss a lot of sets because the pre flop raise size can be$25 to $40 especially at night.
I just never open limp with a pocket pair and raise pre with them. I will c bet the right flop and hope to take it down this way I win money without making a set. I have to fold a lot to a raise in front of me pre flop which sucks unless we have both built up stacks.

It can be more complicated. I play in many different games, and in one where a certain culture plays with many friends/family, they play differently against friends/family than "outsiders". One minute they're all in with 97s, the next they're showing you the nuts. Difference? One was a 3 way hand all in the family, the other is 4 way hand including you.

Obviously there are donkeys everywhere. But there are also 2+2 members, book authors, and tournament professionals in the local games I play. It runs the gamut.

That does kinda suck. Usually position matters less when flopping a set, but in your game playing pocket pairs makes more sense in late position and seeing your direct post odds and number of players (talkign about set mining, not how you're playing it.)

True, but that's less than 5% of poker players. And even players that know about 2+2 aren't active members. A lot of times they come here to the site, spend a few weeks on it and then stop coming back because it didn't turn them into instant Poker After Dark superstars.

I've found that at 1/2nl level, less than 5% of players even know about 2+2.
At 2/5nl, less than 15% of players and out of that 15% less than 1/2 are active members.

Coming to 2+2, reading poker books, reading magazine articles, learning poker math, etc is a blow to one's ego. Most players like to believe that they are natural poker talents and just like Phil Ivey, Durr, Hansen, etc. and that they can figure the game out on their own because obviously they've been playing for 5, 10, 15yrs

If I had a nickel for everytime poker players argued "against" reading poker books or learning poker math beyond pot odds or using poker software then i'd have a lot of nickels.

The other day someone brought up the subject of poker apps to track bankroll and immediately players starting saying, "Well I don't need to track, I know i'm a winning player..."

The truth is, the vast majority of players just aren't 2+2ers and one of the biggest leaks I see on this site is that we tend to think that villains think like us and 90% - 95% of the time, that just isn't going to be the case.

To the average rec player, there is nothing wrong with calling 15%, 20%, even 25% of your stack to see a flop when you have your "favorite" hand because you got to get lucky to win right? Another popular subject of conversation among the fish is their "system" for gambling. They will say, "Yeah, when I'm running bad at poker I'll go to blackjack or Pai Gow..." which means in their mind, there is no difference between a table game and poker...

Just sayin

EDIT: I made a slight mistake in my earlier posting and will ask a mod to delete it. When I was adding multiple villains, I forgot to include their preflop calls to the raise. The below models incorporate the change and are correct.

So, I updated the model, made it more equity based and used poker stove to determine equity.

The generic situation that is modeled is that "when" we hit our set, we have 66 on a T 6 3 rainbow flop.

V1 has a range of AA, KK, QQ, AKs
Additional Villains have a range:
-- Range #1 22 - JJ, 54s+
-- Range #2 22 - JJ, Axs, Kxs, 54s+

Villains will continue and call the c-bet 35% of the time and out of that 35% they will stack off 25% of the time. If they decide to stack off, equity determined by pokerstove applies.

I did two initial scenarios vs one villain to show impact of dead money. DEAD MONEY just applies to preflop money in the pot (i.e. limpers). I also increased the villain raise from 3bb to 7bb. In the live 1/2nl games, opening raises to 7bb (i.e. $14) are incredibly common. C-bet is 10bb. Hero only continues with the hand if hero flops a set, otherwise, Hero folds. Hero will also occasionally lose with a set and get stacked, that is covered by pokerstove equity that is integrated into the model.

As you can see below, setmining at 50bb isn't really profitable vs 2 villains are less under these conditions, ie big opening raises. I know, shocking right?












EDIT: The last model says V2/V3 it should say V2/V3/V4

So, the basic take away is the setmining vs 2 villains or less under these conditions is -EV and not profitable. Setmining with 3 or 4 villains is profitable with 4 villains being almost three times more profitable than 3 villains.

EDIT: Sorry, at the bottom of each model it says "...profit calling the 3bb raise" when it should say "... profit calling the 7bb raise"

Here are the results for 100bb, going from 1 villain to 4 villains. Same conditions as previous models except we are at 100bb













The take away here is that +EV means profitable, but you want to look at the Y-axis to get a sense of "how" profitable. The more money we have the more money we make which is why you always hear winning players talking about the importance of buying in full. Not only does it mean we make more money, but as you can see by the models, it actually impacts whether a certain line is profitable or not.

In a nutshell, when we are 100bb deep, Setmining vs just one villain is basically 0EV which is why folding OOP when its likely you will be heads up is the way to go. And doubly so if your villain has a decent post flop game.

Setmining vs multiple villains is extremely profitable and we should be licking our chomps when we have the opportunity to setmine in a 3-way or more pot

Yes, just mentioning extremes for drama.

It's a very bad problem, I'm not arguing that.