Hey guys, I started playing online poker and studying poker (theory/gto) about 8 months ago and been trying to find the best ways to improve my game. Most of my volume is on 5NL ignition which I was losing at for a very long time then was able to run up 15 BI after some adjustments and changing from a nit/abc to lag playstyle to counter the giganits at micros. I took a break from grinding poker during college semester and when i came back I got cocky and started playing 10NL and got ****ed up, (down 15 BI) I'm trying to get better and I was thinking of trying a few new things:

-Playing on ACR so I can remember usernames and exploit ppl better as opposed to trying to get reads from Anons on ignition (I don't have time to grind 10hrs at a time so sometimes my reads aren't as reliable unless the player was playing super linearly)

-Playing Zone poker to get more volume. (would this slow down my improvement since reads are based off entire population instead of individual player?)

-Taking more gto lines? (I have invested in some solvers but feel like players at these stakes are super unbalanced, not sure if gto play would take away from exploitative play)

Would either of these choices help improvement or slow down? Thanks guys.

EDIT: I mostly try to use online as improvement so im fine lowering my EV to improve my game, I pretty much never table select and try to battle regs since I think it would improve my game the most and live 1/2 is soooo much more profitable.

Is Zone the same as pokerstars "Zoom" (fast fold poker) ? If so, I recommend not playing it at the same stake where you already struggle. You will lose even more. Those games are much tougher in my experience, I think partly because even recs are much tighter there. A rec playing a normal table, card dead since 2 orbits, will receive 84s and think 'f..k it, I'm boring so much, at least it's suited, let's limp this from UTG'. In fast fold mode, they just throw it away and immediately receive new cards...

Also : poker is a bit the art of exploiting recs while avoiding regs. We are all someone's fish, and you need to check you beat 'recs' at a certain limit before trying to beat the 'regs' at the same limit. After some time, those 'regs' will become your new 'recs' because you improved. Forcing you to play above your level won't help you improve your game I think.

For sure I get that playing against recs is the way to maximize profits, ig what im wondering is how improve fastest, im willing to sac 50 bucks if it means big improvement over 100k hands of zoom or something. At least on ignition 5nl zoom seems softer than 10nl reg, i just cbet nearly 100% and take down pots against the nits that never contest without nuts, though ig 10nl is somewhat like that tooidk need more sample size ig

I've never seen anyone going the "i'm going to sacrifice winrate for learning faster by playing tough pools" actually get better faster than people who take it one step at a time, and in fact i see the opposite.

Embrace the micros.

Post hands. You need to be able to justify every decision with logic. Play less tables, concentrate on every spot and hold your thought process accountable.