I came back to live LHE last year after about 15 years away as I was busy with family and career.

As I wind down to retirement I want to (eventually) play profitably at a decent size game.

Results below include promos but not my $500 in free food. About 30 hands/hr so about 15k hands total.

I still have a few years to build up to this.

lessons learned mixed with results:

1.Low stakes has changed from 15 years ago
1a. I came back, played ABC TAG and won .5 BB the first 160 hours. I must still be ok.
1b. The next 100 hours negative variance and bad play-I lost 3 BB/hour(14 of 16 losing sessions)
2. I forgot alot and I suck. Discipline. Post flop play. Protecting your hand.
3. Ok I reread some poker books and oh, yeah, this is why I suck.(and did some posting here)
4. I still kinda suck, but not as bad.
4a. The last 250 hours I am winning .5 BB. Never more than 3 winning or losing sessions in a row. Feeling more confident in my play.
5. I reread some chapters and need to plug some leaks. Really want to get to 1 BB, which I think is beating a 4/8 game about as well as you can.

After my 100 hour neg run I am looking forward to some kind of heater at some point. Have not had one in this run.

Thanks for the advice along the way.

Pick up Elements of Poker if you haven't already. Or listen to the author discuss many of the same principles here: https://www.youtube.com/@allangles1325/videos

Winrate is important but it's going to take a loooong time to converge on a reasonably confident number. Focus less on it for now. Learn to play your A game (and even B game) more frequently. (see above). Improve your A game along the way.

Consider learning other games. I still remember who here convinced me (boc4life) that diversifying was worth pursuing. It'll open more doors for finding that decent sized game you can beat and may improve your best game along the way. LHE is what you know best, I'm sure. But it doesn't seem to be a healthy game (at least from my east coast perspective) and there are likely better long term options for a sustainable hobby game. YMMV.

What are your current options for moving up? It may seem daunting but if you discover they're playing close to as bad at twice the stakes (and half the rake?) taking shots could make sense.

Will look for that, do not own it. My go- to books have been TOP, SSHE, HEFAP, also have the Tom Mcevoy LHE book and the Lee Jones LHE book.

Yeah understood about winrate, I have about 100 k of online Microstakes NLHE and still not too confident in my decent winrate playing TAGgy nit.
~20 years ago logged about 125k LHE hands online and my winrate from 100k to 125k dropped 2 BB/100.

I did some Omaha H/L online~20 years ago when it was juicy(and micro NL mentioned above)but I really love LHE. I do hear you about learning new games, NLHE does not appeal to me for whatever reason. Maybe I can look at PLO since the local casino is trying to get it going.

Options- Closest local casino offers a 6/12 Mix game that seems popular but has weird games, Drawmaha and 2 other games I have never played. They are trying to get PLO going.

4/8 is the biggest limit game going, another casino about 10-15 minutes farther is my eventual target(plan to move in a year or two, will be closer to both), they offer 8/16, 20/40 sometimes and 40/80 is the big game. I am easily rolled for 8/16, one of the Regs told me it is just like our 4/8 game, I may make the drive and try it out.

Thanks for the feedback.