Adventures in Stakesraising

Played some 3/6 NL tonight, was two tabling it. Spent about two hours at each table, finished net up $200. If it had not been for a move I foolishly made, I'd be up rather significantly more. I need more of those foolish moves to work out. Of course, I also made a very key laydown where a lesser player would have gone broke. Money saved is money earned.

Although I've been normally playing 2/4, I moved up to 3/6 for a couple of reasons. First, seats opened there sooner. And secondly, although I don't have the roll to consistently play that level (if things turn sour, they'd put a real dent), but dabbling at that level is not a bad thing at all. Getting used to the higher betting structure before making the consistent transition is a good thing.

Interestingly, my play was significantly tighter at these stakes today, seeing a little over 19% of the flops, as opposed to the 24.5% or so I otherwise see. I think this was more because I was getting long strings of unplayable hands than any subconscious decision to play tighter. One of the benefits of playing tourneys for as long as I did before coming back to the cash games is that once I sit down, it's no longer money. They're chips, and I'm playing to gather the most chips, regardless of the stakes. And yet, I'm also grounded enough to be sensible about my game choices.

At one point in this session, however, I was down a couple hundred, and I told myself I either needed to play better or stand up. I recognized that I was not playing as well as I could. Again, I don't think it was the stakes, I think it was the string of poor hands induced passivity on my part. Once I made the corrective actions to get back on my proper game, the session turned from a loser into a winner.

I think this is another step in my development as a player. This is the first time in my memory that I can recall doing this. In the past, I've noticed that over several sessions I didn't play well, and definitely within the course of a tournament or cash game session I've misplayed a couple hands in a row and gotten on myself, but this was completely different. This was simply and quickly rehashing the session in my head, identifying a problem and correcting it. I'm very pleased.