Quote:
Originally Posted by angry_man
I'm a bit confused about *deliberately* seeking out the low players to flop tables. You can exploit the TAGs, but surely it's still always going to be far more profitable to exploit the drooler fish, especially if you have the postflop skills to play LAG in the first place?
If you deliberately seek out 5-15% players to flop tables, you're seriously cutting down on the number of 50+ VPIP opponents you'll see.
I just ran through my DB at 25nl (kind of a median level for the micros). Filtering for players with over 20 hands (less than that, even I can run a 40 VPIP in certain situations), players with a VPIP over 50 are about 10% of my DB. So far, so good. However, they only represent 5% of the hands played against me and more importantly, only a couple have more than 100 hands. Since I usually sit at a table for about 60 hands, it suggests that I see them only once.
That means they really aren't searchable. The vast majority are shooting stars, showing up for a brief moment before losing all their money and leaving for good. If the rest of the table is playing 15% VPIP, even a 50 VPIP raises the table average to 19% VPIP. Once they leave, everyone nits up again. The problem with a waiting list on a high VPIP table is that it is likely you are replacing the shooting star and everyone is nitting up again.
I'm not saying they aren't important to the ecosystem. Everyone else in my DB at 25nl with 20 hands or more who doesn't play a VPIP of above 50 is actually profitable as a whole. These fish are feeding everyone else.
Therefore, I look at them as like getting AA. Glad to get them, but I can't base my whole game on having them and can't really do much besides start/join new tables to get more. Besides by 50nl, you really can't avoid regs anymore and you'll never have the fish to yourself. You have to come up with new ways to take money from them.
FWIW, Mike Caro (who I'd never ask advice on how to play a NL hand, but is excellent on all the other externals of poker) recommends the same strategy.