In another thread Thaskalos asked me for the reasons why I have experienced good results this year (currently north of +$10 / hr excluding promotional wins) after about 175 total playing hours.
After careful consideration here are some factors that "might" be contributors:
-- I have better awareness of my opponent's playing styles.
-- I understand hand textures a little better.
-- I have slowly moved away from an almostly exclusive "nitty" style to one that now has more increased, but calculated aggression. I still have a long way to go in this regard.
-- I seem to be encountering a significant level of "soft" games. Perhaps in part to more frequent high-hand promotions at my home poker room which in turn attracts less-skilled players who stay in hands longer hoping to get lucky.
-- I seem to be paying off players who hold better hands at a decreasing frequency.
-- I have more confidence when I play, and I feel like I understand the game on a more intuitive level than in the past.
So by the end of the year it might be the phrase from the Bad Boys song, "If you get hot then you must get cool", or hopefully, I really have improved on skill level. (Even then, the total number of hands I play each year is relatively small, so my results could vary significantly from year to year.).
I have no aspirations to climb up the poker ladder, so I'm currently enjoying an activity that at the very worst is not costing me to play.
