After taking a good amount of time off from NL Hold'em cash games, I'm finally having fun again. In case you don't want to read a bunch, I'll tell you the moral of this story right off the bat. If you're bored with NL Hold'em (or any game for that matter), try something else for a while!

I've spent most of my time recently playing Razz, until yesterday when I was looking for a change. Like most people, when I first started playing, I started with NL Hold'em. After a while I moved to FL instead to keep the fluctuations (and my blood pressure) down. I enjoyed the slow but sure rise in my bankroll that FL games were giving me, but after a while it just got incredibly boring to me. Of course I play a lot of NL Hold'em tournaments, but that's a whole different animal than cash games.

Yesterday I sat down at a NL cash game at FT and decided to take it seriously. About 1 hour in I had almost tripled my initial buy-in, and I was playing well. Well, to be honest I'm not really sure how well I was playing, but I felt like I was making some good decisions (and the deck hit me nicely a few times also).

This morning I got onto Pokerstars and played some more. The game was so tight that I started playing almost every pot, getting very aggressive. Only one guy at the table wanted to play with me, and he was playing with as much junk as I was. We went back and forth, trading pots and stealing everyone elses blinds. Eventually we were even joking that nobody else had the heart to play...trying to get them to loosen up of course. One guy started playing a bit, the rest continued to play like rocks.

One sequence of hands had me lmao. First, I made quad J's against my opponents full house.The very NEXT hand I made 6's full of J's when that SAME opponent made quad 6's. How bizarre is that? About 3 hands later we had someone with the small end of a straight flush get beaten by the big end. Within the next 10 hands we had 4-5 more monsters beat by monsters, it was pretty sick - and fun!

I have come completely full circle with poker. When I first started playing it was for the fun of it. Later it was to make money, albeit not a 'lot' of money. For the last 8-10 months I've let the dreams of becoming a poker champion go away, and the fun is coming back. I play more hands, make more moves, take it less seriously, and have been enjoying the game a lot more. If you're getting bored with your regular game, try something new. It might be what you need to start having fun again.

Btw, if there is still anyone who isn't playing at Pokerstars, did you know they have a $600 bonus now? They had that little $50 bonus FOREVER and they finally got rid of it. Before you sign up, you have to get a marketing code for Pokerstars so you can get the bonus.