Mods - I hope this is ok in this forum. If not, please move to the appropriate spot.

I play live 2/5 and 5/10 games 2-3 nights/week and have been fairly successful so far. I made the transition from larger limit games (which I have been playing since 1996) to nlhe a little over a year ago and as I work through the limits, I have been maintaining a decent win rate and building the bankroll. There is a tournament series coming to the local poker room and I am hoping to take a shot at the 10/20 game if it looks good.

So - I subscribe to bart Hanson's podcast. I tried the videos, but they just aren't my thing. I read cardplayer bi weekly. I read the forums daily. I've made my way through all of Ed Miller's books, Harrington's books, Sklansky's stuff, etc... I've taken a few lessons as needed with Bart.

So, what do you guys do to keep your game moving forward. Sometimes I feel like I am stagnant and want fresh material to push my mind into new areas, but I am stuck on finding fresh material and pushing my knowledge base...

Thanks!

Talk about hands with friends and other poker players that serious. It's a great way to think about poker and IMO thinking about poker and ranges and comparing those to your equity an thought process is the best way to approach poker.

Make sure to talk about hands with competent players though. Bad info and misinformation can be soo much worse than being completely ignorant in most cases lol

Solid/winning rags at the higher levels have good advice usually. Try talking with one about a hand or concept

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also, if you play 2-3 nights a week, find another reg and become friends and discuss your gameplay on a consistent basis

Thanks for the tips - I appreciate the responses. I do have a couple regulars that we email back and forth, but not too much in person discussion.

Sounds like you and I are in a similiar boat. I have a jillion hours of live play, beat my regular game with little thought or effort, but I love to study the game. I turned to the internet for articles but it is the same stuff over and over. I do listen to the Bart Hanson stuff but without someone to discuss the concepts with I think I miss out on alot of the benefits.

As far as talking with other regs..my room is so small that I feel it would be -EV to talk poker with them. It would be nice though. I have always felt that an online discussion place for live players would be great. The problem I have found with them is that the level of play varies greatly around the country. This results in advice and feedback that can only be applied in very general terms. You also have the difficulty of describing the "feel" of the game when posting online.

If you come up with any answers for thought provoking study please forward to me.

OP, it sounds like you have done pretty much everything you can to continuously improve, and for that I applaud you. Especially taking lessons from Bart, I think that's pretty cool and I'm officially jealous, LOL.

As for what else you can do... I'd suggest noting interesting hands as they happen when you're playing live, in order to post them here or talk about them with other pros.

Lastly, you're tracking your play in some form right? I use a program on my iPhone called Poker Track Pro and it is FANTASTIC for keeping track of your game. I'd highly recommend it to anyone else playing live poker. Tracking your sessions is an absolute MUST for knowing how well you're doing. Otherwise you're just guessing.

Oh, and if you're looking for other people to ping about hands and such feel free to drop me a PM. I'd love to have someone (especially someone of your skill level) to bounce ideas off and vice versa.

Thanks for the response, I appreciate it and your kind words Feel free to send hands my way as well, always happy to have a dialogue and opposing viewpoints, etc...

YEs, I definitely track all sessions. I've been using Poker Journal for the past year or so and before that, notebooks. I have them dating back over 15 years with every session I've played.

I also maintain a journal after most sessions (I wish every session, but sometimes I am just too tired and family life/work/obligations catches up the next day). I try to rate my play in 3 areas, preflop, postflop and decisions. Memorable hands, things I did well, mistakes!!!, etc...

Again, thanks for the offer to help

Honestly it sounds like you are way ahead of your opponents considering the amount of effort you put into tracking your play and pursuing every avenue to improve your game, so again I applaud you! I'd love to get a dialogue going with you regarding hands and such. I don't really have any to review right now but I am going to be playing a bit tonight at the local cardroom so hopefully I have some material. If you have anything right now feel free to share via PM or just post them in this forum. If you PM me I'll give you my email address so we can hook up more easily.

More similarities here....

One very important revelation that I had is the player pool gets substanially smaller as you change stakes.
The most noteable difference I have seen was the change between $5/10 & $10/20....the $10/20+ games always seem to have the same players. Always new players coming into the $2/5 game, the $5/10 seems to be a transition level in which I see full time 5/10 grinders, some new low stakes players coming up, and some higher stakes players moving down.

I've been open to finding a good "poker freind" to chat with about different situations, and have one, but he's a low stakes players and doesn't relate well to the mid stakes game I'm playing soemtimes -the ones I want to chat about.. Finding a poker freind is a lot harder than it sounds. This website does a nice job in closing that gap.

Anyway, what can we do to keep our game moving forward is the question. I have thought about this a LOT. At this point the math is easy, ranging hands, and there are few situations I haven't seen at the table and already have a good idea of what my next action will be at the table....in other words the mechanic's of the game all seem to blend together, or at minimum become so much more refined and simplified because of experience.
I've given a lot of thought recently to this "game" is becoming more and more a game about people. Historically I have been very good at the *game* of poker, and not so much regarding the *game* of people. I'm working on my people game, my people skills. During a recent WSOPc event I played in the largest cash game I've ever played in, its was a $10/25nl game w/ a straddle and a large min buy-in...this was a game about people.

best wishes sir....

+1 to the comments about finding a fellow reg and befriending them. I too over the years have read all the standard books, listened to podcasts, etc, but I like to think the single biggest improvement to my win rate was becoming the friend of a solid player that I had played with occasionally.

Just started chatting him up more and more and now we are good friends/ride share/talk strategy/etc. Its like live time 2+2 lol. Just make sure they are on your level, bc you need some good back and forth.

The only downside is you'll have someone who has a decent understanding of your game, but we rarely sit at the same table and try not to even show that much interest in each other while in the casino.

Check out this app. Called insta poker. Little pricy for some of the hand packs but some great insight from the pros. Good tournament strategies and lots of cash game thoughts. Jonathan little is the founder of it.. GL