$25NL retrospective
So, how do the players @ $25NL differ from those @ $10NL? The first time I sat down and started looking for games, the tables seemed a lot looser. By comparison $10NL seemed much nittier. Coupled with that, the most glaring difference between the two stakes I noticed was aggression. Players @ $25NL love to put money in the pot. They don't seem as scared to get it all-in, bluff, or call down light. This served me and my game very well for the first three to four thousand hands. I was getting some hands, hitting some boards, and finding some accommodating villains. Life was great. My bankroll was over half-way to $50NL and although it was a very small sample I was beating the game for 55bb/100 (27.5ptBB/100). Then, the other side of the equation reared its less attractive head. I stopped getting good cards, stopped hitting boards, and villains started doing everything in between - hitting rivers, stopped paying me off, calling or raising my bluffs, and coolering me. I also didn't help matters because I had decided to increase my session length and number of hands played, so I was in unfamiliar territory and subtly tilting in ways I hadn't before. Plus when unfavorable results set it in, less subtle tilts have a way of creeping in, too. So, I definitely couldn't absolve myself from responsibility either. I saw so many strange things happen I had never seen in months before: I lost over two buy-ins to a 90% VPIP who went to showdown over half the time - the last one being when I flopped a set and he flopped a higher one (I hit my 5% of bankroll stop loss that day in less than 2 hours and 200 hands), twice I lost flopped full houses using two cards in my hand, and I lost a nut flush to a straight flush - both of us using two cards. Even if you're not losing big pots, with the ramped up aggression, if you're not winning your share of pots and/or you are actively spewing chips through bad play or tilt, your bankroll can be like a leaky faucet - I would often take a glance @ my daily results for stop loss purposes and think, "Where did the last 25bb go?!". So, having more loose, aggressive players can be a good news, bad news situation, but I feel like it suits my game, so I enjoyed it.

I'm not sure why, but good tables don't seem to last as long at $25NL as I remember they did @ $10NL. It seems like many tables are only good for a few orbits before nitty scavengers invade it and either outnumber the fish or the fish just leave or go broke.

Compared to all the other jumps, this one did seem to be the most pronounced. I don't really think of it as a lot harder than $10NL in terms of villain skill, but there were many subtle things that add up. I felt like I had to work a little harder to get paid. I usually advocate fast playing big hands, but a few times it felt like slow playing was the better option. More players like to play back at weakness or just get out instead of calling. So, more often, checking in early position seemed like a sure fire way to get some money in the pot when I wanted it. Weakness gets attacked more often and sometimes there's a temptation to bet out OOP with marginal hands just to prevent being bluffed out. There's more regulars who table select better. There seem to be more short-stackers, too. Most players say they don't like short-stackers and I wouldn't say I love them, but to be honest, the ones that aren't always pushing/folding pre-flop seem to be widely profitable to me because they simply aren't good players and if you have a chance to outplay them, you usually will by applying pressure or just value betting them until they realize too late that they're pot committed. The push/fold ones are profitable, too, but it can be annoying when you want to play poker and not have it devolve entirely into a pre-flop range or flip game.

Maybe my perspective is off as I slowly acclimate myself to the next stakes, but overall, I would say $25NL is very beatable for anyone who studies the game and works @ it long enough. There are still plenty of fish to be found and the robot regulars are still predictable as well, but it's important to have a good grasp of the fundamentals and a solid track record @ $10NL. You will be tested many times in ways you probably haven't been tested before, so if a good foundation isn't already there, you could have some nasty mis-steps.

As always, I'll be interested to see how the players @ $50NL differ from the last stake. I've heard that $50NL is the shallow end of the pool where pros will sometimes dip their toes. It's also the first stake where the money won or lost seems like it would have some reasonable significance to the average person since winning or losing 3 or 4 buy-ins would be in the $150-$200 range, which could definitely buy some groceries. But, I'm going to continue to try to treat the chips as chips and if you ever want to be a pro, you've got to learn to beat the pros and there's no time like the present to try to get started.