Week 33:
Good week, despite not getting to play much due to work and chores around the house. I only played one short session of PLO on Wednesday and two long ones at NLHE over the weekend. I have to admit, PLO has lost its luster for me. For whatever reason, it's just not as fun as when I first began playing it. Maybe after a few months I'll come back and be able to rediscover the magic.

My $50 cash game is beginning to show signs of improvement. The first few weeks after moving up for good, it was a real fight to break even and adjust to the new regs and general style of play. Now I think I'm starting to get a pretty good feel for this level and have had three good winning sessions in a row. Learning how to counter increased three-betting and working on different ways to disguise my hand strength have been the biggest keys in the development of my game. "Small hand, small pot" and "don't pay off a nit's shove" are words of wisdom that keep me out of trouble. Don't play as many speculative hands out of position, even if you're getting a lot of them. It can be difficult to fold several of these in a row, but the situation has to be right in order to play them.

In the coming weeks, I'd like to improve my note-taking on other players. Currently I make notes on opening/limping/3-betting ranges from which positions, how large of bets they'll call down with 2nd/3rd pair or a draw, if they're a frequent 3-better/blind stealer, shoving ranges for short stacks, if they'll stack off w/TPGK, things like that. It's difficult to learn new ways to analyze plays all by myself, many times I can pick up more ideas by seeing examples from other people. So what are some additional types of notes that you guys find most helpful against other players? What types of plays do you think are the most telling about a person's style and/or general grasp of the game? I'm looking for less obvious stuff here that can't necessarily be deduced simply by looking at someone's HUD stats.

BR: $1800