How to play this live game

[Aisthesis]

Sounds good.

I agree that it's a 2/5 and that you're really only playing deep with $1k or more (which I'm currently avoiding, but give me a few more good scores, and I'll be more inclined).

One additional comment on average size of flop pot: I think AVERAGE is less than that. I meant to keep an actual count of limped and raised pots for a decent stretch but never got around to it. Whether it be better hands or just changes in mood, it's a bit cyclical. Just guessing, I'd say close to 50% of pots are limped, and their size is usually like $35. Size of raise varies a bit in raised pots. On Saturday, $30-$35 when possible seemed pretty standard, so I'm guessing average flop pot-size in raised pots only was in the range you're talking about.

Looking forward to hearing more!

[wazz]

It's mostly a question of value. The nature of a target is that they will lose more on their second-best hands and win less on their best hands; your basic task is to make sure they have more of the former. AQT3ss is a well-above average hand for a target to limp and call a raise with, and as long as you're folding your raggy hands and getting good value on your big hands you'll catch them with the second-best hand and/or second-best draw a hell of a lot of the time. The deeper you are, the more value you can get from this. By playing in position more you can exercise pot control better than they can, and that means raising in position with less than stellar hands from time to time just to make sure the pot is juicier when you've got position on the targets.

When the pot is small and the stacks are deep, high card value counts for little - A456ds is almost as premium a hand as A79Tds. That is, assuming you lose less than they would when you make the second-best hand and vice-versa, i.e. you have an edge. The smaller the pot, the larger the implied odds, essentially, as you expect villains to occasionally just get it all-in with the flopped 2nd nut straight and low flush draw, and you can happily get it in with a better redraw, or just keep the pot relatively small on a drawing board and get value on the turn, by which point they can't get away from their hand. You're not going to commit with aces up on an AT9 board in an unraised pot, but they might, and when they do you will invariably have the better hand or a monster draw.

You increase your value significantly by staying longer, btw - it's not just metagame, you can get better reads on your targets, find out who the solid players are (and hopefully take advantage of their relatively tight tendencies somewhere down the road), and generally try to manipulate the table into doing what you want as you stay aware of your table image. As long as you stay sharp and attentive, when other people are tiring 6 hours into the game and you're picking up on every little tell, you'll gain a decent edge over the field.