[dougmanct]

Been lurking this thread, guess it's long overdue for me to chime in.

FWIW, and this is just my perspective, the ol' open-shove with a strong AAxx hand play in NLO8 has really dried up, a LOT, over the last several months.

It is quite clear to me that the overwhelming majority of NLO8 players know the play, know the exact range the play is made on, and know WHO make the play, so unless you have a really good table selection with a clear newbie who is maniacal/clueless, the play really only collects some dead blinds and more often than not when you get called it's a much tighter race than you want it to be, a lot more 52-48s than 60-40s as it were.

I think the main issue I have with NLO8 is that the core playership has learned the ropes; in the absence of any books, videos, or really any training literature on the game in existance, the player base has self-taught and learned to avoid the basic mistakes and pitfalls of the game. As a result, the only real +EV element of NLO8 is in table selection/identifying newbies. Sitting with regulars that understand the game essentially brings it down to who flops monsters better and avoids being outdrawn better.

Will I still play? Sure, but I do know that it's a much tougher game today than it was a year ago, and with a much slower influx of dead money.