So I moved up to NL50...

its been about almost 5k hands in about 4 days. I don't notice much difference than the 25's and I think I handle the competition fine. I believe I can definitely beat it. Had some rough beats within the 5k hands like Ace high flush <<< straight flush....errr but i'm not gona complain. it's all part of the game. I think being busto so many times makes me realize that, even if I lose today, my whole bankroll, its just money, I can make more later. So I don't really agonize all that much over a losing session anymore, although it is still very frustrating.

I had a "hot" session this afternoon where everything just went right for me. I love that feeling. It's like, whatever you do, it'll work. I flopped huge hands when someone had good hands. My bluff timing was impecable and my value bets were spot on. I even put this good TAG on super tilt. It was just a great feelin'. however, the great feeling did not long live, my 2nd session tonight was the total opposite. 90% of my cbets where looked up/check-raised and keep making 2nd best hands all day. It was extremely frustrating as this is the type of session that I would lose HUGE with. I kept my cool, for the most part, and try to tighten up my play significantly. It worked pretty well and I limit my losses towards the end also by stopping myself since I felt my game was off and my table image was just horrendous. Still up 1.5 buyins for today so can't complain.

I think taking each session individually will be good and I definitely should not think "hey, I had a great session this afternoon, even if I get stacked a few times, I'm still up." That mentality is very bad IMO and I think you just gota concentrate on playing your best poker all the time, regardless of the outcome. I give myself a B- (was going to give an A cuz of the first session) but looking over my second session, obviously I had a couple of coolers but for the most part I think I was a bit too aggressive and concentrated too much on bluffing people. Sometimes its just ideal to sit back and play ABC poker. Often times you will lose a big hand to this fish and for the next few hands or maybe the entire night the fish just beats you out of pots no matter what. I find that at times like this it is much much much better to back off and ease off the tension between yourself and the fish. Partially this is probably caused by your increased willingness to win back your money from the fish but I often times find that this mentality backfires significantly. The way to go is to keep playing your A game, forget about the big pot, and just treat him like another one of those fishes. And if things are not going your way and people seem to be reraising you a lot (which could easily be they ARE picking up hands or they ARE playing back at you), either way...I don't think looking them up or playing back at them at this time is prudent. Just leave the table or play ABC poker. At 50nl level, there is no point to get personal. In the next session, another fish will pay you off.