Yet another sign that I am getting old... I have been listening to Kitaro while I study poker.

Nothing old about that, I've been listening to new age music while I do anything mentally challenging for over 20 years. Has always helped me focus in my opinion.

I listen to mostly hip hop when I play and it makes me feel young listening to music that is new... except then I check and most of it is 15+ years old. I'm old.

That makes me feel a little better! Ten years ago, it would have definitely been metal. I used to think Kitaro was so dorky lol. But metal is really starting to become obnoxious to me as I age.

Haha, I definitely don't get most newer rap music. I liked Juice Wrld and X though... reminded me of the 90s.

I was a professional musician for years, and just could never get into metal or very much rap. When concentrating I can’t do music with lyrics or drums, my mind gets sucked in to the music then. So I’ve got to keep it instrumental and mellow. I have a huge playlist of stuff over the years now.

DM and share the playlist?

Same

Sure will do.

Does anybody think the skill difference in 10NL play and 50NL play is marginal enough in general to justify just depositing enough to play 50NL if you are beating 10NL?

If you have the money to play 50 I’d take a shot.

probably. this is not financial advice

I wouldn't waste time at 10NL if you think you're legitimately beating the game, and you have the spare money that you aren't afraid to lose.

Is there anything inherently bad about opening to 3x in 6-max? Is there anything optimum about opening smaller?

From what I understand preflop solvers will open smaller, near min UTG, then increase positionally to the button until they hit about 2.5x. Although I suspect, much like on the flop, that using the non-optimal bet size, but with the correct range, really doesn't make much difference in overall EV of the hand. You'd just open a tiny bit tighter than normal. In fact, there may even be some exploitative merit to doing this if guys in your pool aren't defending against them properly (i.e. they've studied all the charts vs 2.25x or 2.5x and don't know the right adjustments to make vs. larger).

So I say no, nothing inherently bad about opening 3x. It worked for years, and probably still works just fine if your range is reasonable. Your most important decisions EV wise in a hand will always be on the river, and then work backwards from there. However if you want to play in tougher games, you'll probably want to start using a more optimal size as the EV loss may start to add up vs. good regs.

There's a lot of different content out there on this topic, but I think this short video from QY does a very good job at summarizing the reasonings behind opening sizes.

at least try opening 5x+ with a whale in the bb

i've seen them limp/call 21x. The highest I've gone personally is 10x.

What's the longest you all can grind for without taking a break? What's your average session length?

This has worked at live 1/2 forever because everyone just wants to see flops and is never folding a suited connector preflop.

Average session length is about 2 hours. I've done 5 a few times with no break and it's probably too much. I zone in and out too much in that long of a session.

when you grind 2-5 hours, do you prefer it in silence or music on?

I've done like 24 hours straight before online.

Typically most sessions last 60-120 minutes and the average is probably 90 minutes. Usually do 2-3 sessions on days I grind with breaks of anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour in between.

I always need some music, no vocals or drums though.

Do you guys know what the grind time expectations are if you're in a stable? ... not that I would ever do that but I am just curious...

I’m not in a stable personally, but those I know have to put in 50,000 hands at least a month on average.