It's just opened up my game a lot by being more aggressive in certain positions. I've almost eliminated open-limping from my cash gameplay. I used to be able to sit back and play <20% and get all the pot-sized+ action in the world, but that's no more.

Understanding how to bet for value whether semi-bluffing value, continuation value, or big hand value along with probing are aspects that grow a lot more every day. Before I stopped playing NL for a while, it was pretty robotic. Now, to survive in cash games, there are a lot more situational decisions that I find myself making like I have to in tournaments.

I'd say that the biggest change is that, in general, people are further understanding the danger of being on the call which is where I always felt that I was ahead of the online curve a bit. Now, varying bet sizes and getting people to fold against the odds and getting people to call when they think the odds are in their favor are the ways to exploit your opponents. The most important thing that I've exploited lately is varying my bets as to the texture of the flop when I'm weak and when I'm strong depending on what I want. Such an imperfect science that's genius when it works, but blows up in my face when it doesn't. Those are the adjustments that I'm working on and I think logging a lot of hands is the only way to work on it which is why I've been playing more on the internet the last few months.

I definately aggre with you... That's part of the reason why I play more live in the las few months.

The games a tighter and you have do do lot more than sit back and wait fro big hands if you want to make big bucks!

To be honnest I did'nt found the exact way to conterfit that yet.

KJ

Originally Posted by Beavis68

where is NL25 that loose?
what do you consider loose?

My girlfriend takes an ABC approach to positional aggression and does well in those games. A couple of years ago, anything you put in the pot was solely for the value of your cards. I'd say that she "picks her spots" to semi-bluff and vary her value better than me at times. Players seem more cookie cutter even when they make transistions.

I hear her talk out hands a lot to make decisions and I think it's just the humility of being observant and realizing that no matter what you know, you know nothing about the table until you sit down.

I see mostly weak-tight, though- and that's across the board in poker in general. As players are at a table longer, they'll float more, maybe, but they're not at the table long enough to do so in those games. That's where I'd agree with Beav. I used to just check/shove flops holding middle set with an Ace on the board for 5-6x the pot and get called in these games. I could pull up some hands from pokerhand.org when I used that account and they'll shock you, Dan.

PhxDan, look at this: http://pokerforums.org/showthread.ph...366#post135366 and you might change your answer. No way you get away with this shit I used to pull in 2004 now in 2006.

I think poker in general, not just NL, has moved from exploiting bad players into the realm of you having to cause some of those mistakes. It used to be you could almost turn over your hand showing the nuts, move all-in, and still get called by someone with 4 outs or less.

The play today is more how I remember it when I was learning to play back in 2000-2001. The bad players are not as bad as they were during the boom (their mistakes are smaller and not as frequent) and the truly terrible players are fewer and further between. You actually have to know how to play poker to win money, relying on terrible players to make good money won't cut it anymore.

It took me a bit to adjust after the boom, and it has taken me some time to readjust to the "new" poker. Gone are the days of sitting on your hands waiting for premium starters, ABC post-flop play, and hardly ever needing to bluff.