Ok, I'm back - and if you look at my stats (IchoTolot on Merge), you'll also see that I'm currently running super hot :-)

I'm up almost 20 buy-ins this week, but unfortunately I'm also running above equity, so it's possible that I'll face another downswing really soon. However, I'll take that as a chance to work on my game and improve it - maybe I can beat variance by increasing my ROI.

One thing in particular I want to do is focusing more on my opponents.  I'm just thinking, whenever you play someone and then after the match, you can't answer a few simple questions about this opponent - for instance, how often is he cbetting, does he play his draws passively, etc. - then something went wrong.  That's usually a clear indication of being on auto-pilot - and auto-piloting won't help you that much on the $50's.

Almost all the opponents I encountered on the $50's on Merge so far were beatable if you just pay attention and take the time to figure out what exactly they're doing.  For instance, there was this one guy who was constantly doing very weird things, but then I single-tabled him for a couple of matches and quickly figured out what he was up to - and now he seems to be running and hiding every time he sees me in the lobby ;-)