Hi, I've been reading these forums for several years but have never posted much. I play low stakes live 1/2 and mainly 2/5. I've had a lot of success with an hourly combined of about $50 over roughly 400 hours. Most of this money has been made in a certain room with, from my point of view, very bad players. Calling down very light and having no clue how to value bet.

I have now been playing in a larger room and the players appear much more knowledgeable. Raising more, calling less, etc. Nearly everyone seems to understand the game at least pretty well and have more explanation than "I had a feeling"

I'm being aggressive, pulling some bluffs when appropriate, value betting my good hands strong, but I'm wondering - If everyone is playing a very similar, solid style, is the money only coming from fish? If it is all regs, is anyone winning? Or are people perhaps not as good as I'm giving them credit for?

Not factoring in rake, you should be able to win money long term even at a table full of decent regs assuming you're a very good player. They all have leaks, not as much as fish. They likely fold too much to pressure or hero call too much by levelin themselves, etc etc. so either bluff them alot if they fold too much or overbet the nuts if they hero call too much. playing lag and 3bet bluffing a lot and runnin lots of bluffs can be a good idea at some of these tables. Lag doesn't work well at loose tables, but at the tighter tables its super effective. People always adjust horrendously. They either just wait for the nuts, or they call down much lighter.

A big leak that nearly all regs have is that they play too many hands. Fish play 60% to 90% of hands. Most regs, even good ones, play 40% to 60% of all hands. Playing 30 vpip at most is often correct long term, but folding pre flop is boring which is why people don't do it. So there is a big edge to have there just by playing tight pre

This'll probably get locked because its too general but maybe we can save it.

Too continue TRM's point, yes the regs all have leaks and some of them are really obvious and really common. One really common leak I see from "good" regs is calling preflop raises with rio hands like KJ. A second one that goes nicely with the first is foldin too often to cbets. When these two leaks happen, you have someone who is slowly but surely donating $15 to the table every other hand. Basically, they play ABC poker with some obvious leaks, and if we play black belt ABC poker we will make money from them. A lot of this is set up by playing a superior preflop game.

In the private room, you may be a a tuna in a sea of sardines. When you go to a casino with better players, you are among other tuna. But there are sharks who can feed on the sardines AND the tuna. And then there's the megalodons that can feed on the sardines, tuna, and sharks. Be the megalodon.

Hashtag megalodon.

Thanks for the responses, this all makes a lot of sense. Sunchips, for what it's worth, that's a very appropriate analogy. Tuna can still be eaten by sharks. And megaladons...

I'm sure the terrible players you're using to playing with have bigger and more obvious leaks, but I guarantee you that absolutely everybody playing 1/2 or 2/5 in your new room is beatable. It's just a matter of being better at plugging your own leaks and identifying and exploiting theirs than they are. And yeah, that means not playing exactly the way you did in the old room. But don't just change for the sake of changing. Identify what's different about their styles and adjust yours in whatever way is appropriate. For instance, if some players are capable of opening light frequently, 3bet them light sometimes. If they cbet often but rarely double barrel, float more often, etc. etc.

No money in poker everyone solid.

This.

And this.