Settling in @ 50NL

I'm finally starting to feel quite comfortable at 50NL. Playing overrolled sure helps. I think I'm starting to get into the right frame of mind for playing at the upper end of the micro limits. There are a lot more regs here due to average pot sizes in relation to earning VPPs and once you've got them figured out, there's some good money to be had here.

3bet pots are more common with players that know how to squeeze and I am starting to get into a bit of meta game with some of them, I think. Granted, there are maybe 1/10 or less players that are at the 2nd or 3rd level, but I really enjoy the competition when I do find them. You know when they're iso'ing a fish and you know that sometimes they squeeze so you can make some good plays to win large pots against them when you're in position once you have them figured out.

This is my best month so far. 25k hands at 25NL to start the month and when the tables are dead. 9k hands at 50NL and I'm back up to 5.5 ptBB/100 for the month at that level and I'm now playing 12 tables and maintaining my winrate. I REALLY need to put in the hours, last month I put in 85 hours and I've surpassed the $ amount for May already in only 60 hours.

I'll post a graph in a couple days.

Recovery...

I had a sick breakeven stretch for 7k hands last week where I thought I played really well and that basically put me on tilt and I dropped 8 buyins at 25nl after moving down to work on my game. Last night I finally started playing well again at 25nl so I gave 50nl another shot today with some good results: ~2 buyins in the last hour to complete a full recover from my downswing at 25nl. Move up to where they respect my raises obviously (they still don't here either).

Before the breakeven stretch/downswing I was running at a good $30/hour for the month. Now I'm at a measely $12/hour, but I feel like I learned a lot going through those last 10k hands. 50nl players are so overly aggressive that I'm finding it profitable to just sit there and wait and let them do the betting. They absolutely love to bluff when I look weak and I'm getting a lot of value out of my top pair hands vs. their air. People I've talked to are very right that this is the level where people like to experiment and it is very confusing but I think I'll become a better hand reader because of it.

I've decided to settle into 50nl for a while as I don't think I could handle a decent sized downswing at 100nl even though I'm technically rolled for it. I think I'll continue playing 50nl until I get to ~$3600 and then 4-6 table. I can't play as many tables moving up. 25nl and down I can auto-pilot for a decent winrate of maybe 7ptBB/100. But at 50nl and up, I probably run at 2ptBB/100 on auto-pilot and 8ptBB/100 if I 6-table.

I'm rambling again so I'll just post this...

Movin on Up

I finally made the move up from 25nl. I still typically start my day out with 25nl just to get into it and see how focussed I am. The only problem is that I'm having trouble deciding whether to move up to 50nl or move straight up to 100nl.

I've tried a bit of both and 100nl seems to fit my style a lot better. 50nl has been pretty aggro and I hate getting 3bet constantly with such wide ranges. 100nl seems to be more straightforward - or at least more logical - with more thinking players so it's easier for me to pull off some plays because people are starting to understand what they're seeing and realize that AA is not always the nuts.

The game is a bit more nitty too and sometimes I get to play for free with all the blind stealing I can do against the right opponents - currently stealing around the 40% mark and it's very successful. IDK maybe I need to pick some tighter 50nl tables to play on. I've been playing the 50nl tables that have the highest players/flop - around 35%. It's tough to find a 100nl table that's above 25%.

The month has been really up and down with bigger swings than I am used to, but at least I'm still headed in the right direction. Currently +$475 for the month, 1/2 of it at 100nl and the other 1/2 at 25nl and 50nl. 80% of my hands are at 25nl so far.

I've been mixing up my preflop bet sizing too depending on opponents: I open anywhere from 3-4.5 BB and if there are limpers I raise anywhere from 3-5 BB +1/limper. This has really helped me out for blind stealing too, because I can get away with stealing for 3BB instead of 4BB and it doesn't have to work nearly as often.

WCGrider also ended his $10k 30 day at 25nl challenge. It's too bad, I was really hoping he'd pull it off. One thing I found interesting that he said was amazingly after a few days, the 25nl "regs" started to adjust to him, which was one of the reasons for this not being a successful prop bet for him. Towards the end of last month it seemed the same thing happened to me when I was playing with the "regs." It took them thousands of hands but they did eventually adjust.

Other than that I've had a few people help me out with my full ring game and that has really helped, so thanks to them for that! Opening my range up, helping me with hands, ideas for different lines, etc. Thinking back to even the beginning of the year it's amazing how much my game has progressed, and the way I played last year seems pretty lol to me now.