From a lot of recent hand analysis posts, it seems like there's a sickness going on among NL players everywhere. I admit I've suffered from it too. The sickness? Setaphobia -- the fear that you're up against a set about every time you analyze a hand.

Starting this week, I've taken a new, fresh approach -- call it a little self help. I'm going to break out of weak-tight thinking and stop looking for the set lurking under my bed. Sure, there are some occasions where the action is so substantial that the only possible holding could be a set. But when in doubt -- I'm going to rely on probability.

I figure -- how many more pots could I have bet at strongly and gotten paid more on the turn when I had a better hand because I was afraid my opponent had a set? Is that money I'm safeguarding more, less, or equal to the money I'm losing if I just let that set bust me when it happens? How many times is AQ going to raise my KK on a Q-high flop vs. a set raising me?

As of now, sets don't exist. Unless I catch one, of course.

Ever since I've read Cloutier's Championship NL Hold'em..I've saved myself tons of money by being able to tell where and when sets hit. Most of the time they are slow called...because a big call is much stronger then a raise. I'm not worried as much about raises....they raise 90% of the time to protect their hand.

If my bad fold screws me in 1 or 2 hands a month that's fine..because I know I'm saving lots of money overall.

I don't think we have setaphobia....the hands we post are rare and very interesting situations, for the most part.

Is it still setophobia if you really DO keep getting your big pairs buisted by sets over and over? Luckily for me my opponents are dumb enough to call a 5BB raise with 77 when they only have 20BB in front of them.

Nah, that's just awful luck iceman