Moving down? - 25NL - WOW!

I have taken a brief respite from blogging; as readers of this blog may know, I was in London last week.  Time at the virtual felt has been difficult to come by, between work, business travel and personal travel.  As a result, my apologies, but there haven't been any particularly interesting hands.

I had my first chance to sit down and play a few hands last Friday - the first time since earlier in the week.  I was playing in the morning, London time, which is +5 hours from here on the east coast of the U.S.  I opened up the Full Tilt lobby to see very few 50NL tables which matched my filters (i.e. <23% VPIP, <4 players, 40-200BB), so I decided to waitlist myself on the 25NL tables, which seemed full of life and LAGs.  Shortly before 5AM east coast, I was running my normal routine of 12 tables, though at 25NL.  It had been quite a while since I had played 25NL, so I wasn't entirely familiar with the betting routines (i.e. standard raise sizes, etc.), but after 50 hands, I had it figured out.

Regardless, my immediate impressions of the current state of 25NL are shock and awe(ful).  Perhaps it's been so long since I've played there that I really don't remember the awfulness of it all, but it was more than one occasion where I was looked up with Queen high, against my flopped sets.  Really?  3 streets of betting and you feel comfortable with a river call for your stack with a Queen high?  For what it's worth, I would see similar play on multiple occasions from multiple opponents.  Simply put, "Wow!"  What a profit center!

Perhaps it's like what I read about on the 2p2 forums or talking with friends, where the context of the discussion centers around "If only I could go back to 2000 and take the knowledge of what I know now, with 3betting, steals and whatnot."  I truly feel like dropping back from 50NL to 25NL is the same thing; I am running circles around these guys.

Look, I have played 25NL at Bodog recently, in order to get my bankroll into a sustainable order so that I can play 50NL comfortably.  The players at Bodog's 25NL (and 50NL, for that matter) are awful, but I figured that they were on somewhat of an island - free of natural predators, they are able to evolve into defenseless donkeys.  I figured that since it is increasingly difficult to get money into Bodog, there would be no new predators introduced into the ecosystem.  However, it is far easier to get money into Full Tilt, and given the sheer multitudes of players available to play all stakes on Full Tilt, I assumed natural selection would eliminate these spaz monkeys.  Boy, was I wrong!  I see players stacking off with all manners of holdings from 22 - AT, calling 3 bets like they were going out of style, calling down 3 streets with second pairs, etc.   Don't get me wrong - I see that type of behavior at 50NL, but simply not at the same frequency.  I'm simply surprised that such exploitable players are sitting right below, in such magnitude.

Given the action I have been getting at 25NL, I am going to play a few more sessions to get a better sample size.  I'm way ahead of target to recover my full Iron Man bonus, so I'm in no immediate need for points.  My goal for this year is show a good profit directly from the poker cash tables, rather than be more of a rakeback pro (due to my awful September / October) like last year.  Don't get me wrong - I profited from the cash tables last year, but my rakeback far exceeded my poker profits.  Playing at games where I have the highest chance of succeeding at my goals seems to be the way to go.