When I was first introduced to No Limit Holdem, back in my freshman year in college on a day off away from the baseball field, a few of us were playing 25/50 cent dealer’s choice cash games. This was a couple of years before the big “moneymaker boom”. I was intrigued by Holdem, but to be honest with you, it really didn’t do much for me at the time. Back then, I would like the games that would build the biggest pots, and holdem just wasn’t doing it back then.

So when the button got to me, I would just choose “727″, a blackjack style game where the goal was to be closest to 7 or 27 without going over, and some of the pots would grow to huge amounts. It was one of the best games to take advantage of position, this is the main reason I would always chose it.

Other games we would play are: high or low Chicago, crisscross, 3-5-7, and Omaha.

Fast forward to 2003 and the Moneymaker boom, and we were mostly just playing holdem, though we would still mix in some dealers choice games on the rare nights. I was an overall winner in these games, though I now realize just how much I didn’t know.

When I first started playing online poker a few years ago, I would just dabble with some No-Limit holdem cash games with the occasional tournament. To say the least, I was a slow loser in tournaments, and couldn’t handle the cash games when I would lose fast. At the time, one of my best tools in poker was the reads I could get live, and I was really out of my element online.

Then as of recently, I have been mostly playing limit holdem cash games, limit 5 card draw, NLH SNGs, and NLH MTTs. I would stay away from NLH cash games online. Pretty much the only time I would play NLH cash games would be when I was playing live at the Borgata in Atlantic City and do usually really well I might add. Even when I went to Vegas in June, when I decided to put in some hours at the cash tables, I opted for limit holdem.

I wouldn’t really play NLH anywhere else, even though I have been invited to a few home games that are really juicy, but too much of a short stack gamble to risk the cash they were throwing around. But even today, I am hoping to take advantage of that game once I feel I am properly bankrolled for the roller coaster that is that home game.

So when I was sitting there the other day, after cashing in the PL draw WCOOP, I was trying to decide what route I should try and take to get my bankroll back on track. I can play $20 SNGs which I have a pretty good ROI in. I could play $10 MTTs, but frequently the fields are so huge I would really have to get lucky to make some real dough. Go back and drop down levels to playing 1/2 limit draw, in which I could easily make about $10/hour on average (if I don’t multitable). I could play 1/2 limit holdem cash, in which I would probably make about 2 to 3 BB/100 (multitabling). Or I could play NLH cash in which I was a losing player in NLH cash games online.

So sitting there looking at my options, what do you think I chose? Of course NLH! The game that I have statistically in the past not been able to dominate. But the last time I played NLH cash games seriously, it was about a year ago. There has been a ton of stuff that I have learned in the past year about NLH deepstacked play, that I felt I could beat these games now with the knowledge I possessed.

As of today I have been playing $25 6-max NLH the majority of my online time. Though it is an extremely small sample, I have thus far played 1379 hands playing 3-4 tables at once. I have been averaging a whopping 65BB/100 hands! Now I know I won’t be able to keep those numbers up, but these games are soooo easy, and really fun at the moment. It is bringing me back to my roots of when I was sitting in college playing NLH cash games against my buds.

What have I done differently than what I was doing in the past? I have been playing an overall loose/aggressive style. But, I will only get a ton of money into the pot when I have a big hand, and no top pair/top kicker is not really a big hand when you are playing with 100bb stack. I have been putting my money in consistently good with 2 pair, straights, flushes, and sets. Maybe I have been running good, I don’t know. But things are just too easy right now, and I am really enjoying this little rush.

My bankroll is now at $1273.80. Technically, I can move up to $50NL now, but I think I will sit back in the $25NL games until my BR gets up to $1500.

Until next time, keep pwning.