[Sidekick]

Pokey,

I just went through exactly what you are talking about. My stats are very similar to yours. When what you describes starts happening you actually have to loosen up. As one poster said, even the most unobservant SSNL players will notice when you are down below 15% VPIP and will only play back at you once they hit a really strong hand.

In order to effectively fight this situation you really need to loosen up some and get involved in more pots and marginal situations. Once the table accepts that you have loosened up and they are willing to call your raises, then you can tighten back up again if that is your comfort zone.

Despite the common post here that says that most SSNL players are completely oblivious to what is going on around them, this really isn't accurate. Most of the people playing SSNL are somewhat observant and will notice obvious things, it is how they interpret and act on this information that gets the typical SSNL player in trouble.

They ARE noticing that you are playing incredibly tight, so they won't get involved with you unless they think they can beat your strong hand. The only way I have found to effectively fight this situation is to loosen up for a while.

What I have done on occasion is when I have late position I raise 2-3 hands in a row (with ANY 2) for a couple of cycles on the table. At first, they will fold to your raises but generally by the second cycle on the table people figure out that you don't have this many good hands in a row and start playing back at you again.

I always like your posts, so I hope this one helps you out a bit.

Best of luck Pokey.