After my BR stagnated at $220-$230 for a few days, I took some time to look at my game and wondered why I kept having problems with so-called "downplayers" who always seemed to lure me into forking over too much cash, often offsetting the winnings I took from my good hands. So I decided to look at another aspect of the poker game, as I had now been mostly focussing on the technical aspect.. so now, the psychological aspect; Ie, people reads.

Even though it's only on the internet, there is actually a lot more you can say about what your opp is holding than I ever thought possible. I caught onto this when I was playing this guy and he somehow seemed to know what I had all the time. Blew like $50 trying to figure out how the hell he did that. I think it was well worth it though, because it opened a new view on poker for me. This guy called just about every raise with whatever crap hand he had (not just me, from everyone at the table) and STILL managed to run a profit. (again, not just off of me lol)

Now, it's very complex, and it don't even think I can put into words, not even in my own head.. but you kinda start to see patterns, in yourself, and in others. So when I started to understand it better, I got better at masking the cards I had, and seemed better able to extract money from my top hands. Likewise, by far my biggest money leak (getting suckered into all-in on second best hands) decreased A LOT in frequency.

But there are so many factors.. reaction time, different opponent playstyles, betting behavior, betting size, the texture of the flop (!), the contingency from flop=>turn=>river etc etc. Still takes a lot of concentration to keep focussed. But atleast my BR started moving up again after the stagnation. It's now sitting at a comfortable $307. I think I'm gonna need some more time to get the hang of this people reading thing, but I honestly think it's the step to a whole new level of poker after you get comfortable with the odds/math.