Well, the hot streak has ended...what happened?

About a week ago I took a stab at 10nl for the first time. I didn't kill the game, but was making a profit, then I had one bad day and lost about 5 buyins and had to walk away.

Afterwards I went back to 5nl to make back the money I had lost at 10nl...but I've been losing money there now too.

I haven't felt tilted at all, but things just weren't working out.

So last night, after my normal session (I've been getting around 1k hands/day in, at least that is going as I hoped), I decided to take another 1 buying shot at 10nl (I'm still rolled for it, just not comfortably).

As I was taking my seat, I told myself, "OK, no funny stuff here. Just play like you are supposed to and see what happens."

And as soon as those words crossed my mind I had a realization. Over the last week or so I had gotten away from playing my tight game that was working so well for me before and started playing back at everyone who would let me.

It caught me by surprise because I wasn't getting overconfident in my game, but instead I had lost (almost) all respect for the other players (except those who I knew were decent for this level). I was looking at any unknown player as a typical 5nl fish willing to stack off w/ middle pair.

The assumption that bigger blinds=better players, whether true or not, pointed out to me exactly what my attitude had been towards other players.

Although it wasn't based on a confidence in my own game, it had the same result...staying in hands I shouldn't be, putting everyone on weak hands that just finally playing back at me, and trying to outplay everyone postflop w/ any hand.

I ended up losing that 1 buyin (flopped pair of K's w/ KJ, my cbet was called, was ready to give up as I had put villain on K w/ better kicker, but turn was a J, the other guy had flopped a set and waited till the turn to get aggressive), but I think that in the big scheme of things, sitting down at a table I knew I shouldn't have been playing at made me take a closer look at how I was playing, and may be a good thing.

I also think that, after about 2.5k hands, moving from 5nl to 10nl will be more of an adjustment than I was expecting. I didn't think it would play much different than 5nl, but I'm beginning to think this may be the first point that starts to resemble something like decent poker (I know most are still bad, but not bad in the way I'm used to beating)

Much of my profit before had come from identifying who the biggest fish were (who'd stack off w/ anything) and taking all their money w/ TP or better. Although I know there are these kinds of fish at 10nl (I've seen a couple), there aren't quite as many and it's time to start working on how to handle the marginal spots I'd been avoiding. I need to be able to make a profit without having one (or more) of these blatant targets at the table.

All in all, I've had a bad week in terms of winrate, but mentally I feel like I've taken another step forward (even if it only makes up for a previous step back).

So tonight, when I get home from work, I'll be back at 5nl playing what should be straightforward as-close-as-I-can-get-to-perfect-ABC poker until I get back up closer to $300.

I'll have another post or two regarding specific spots I need help on...this was just kind of meant to help me organize some bigger-picture ideas.