[detruncate]

People used to at least pretend that it was a chance to practice playing in tough games against thinking opponents, and the inclusion of solid SSers who were willing to talk about hands/mistakes seemed like a big plus. I'm not sure how often they lived up to this, however, as I could never afford to play (or was just flat-out too scared).

Nothing wrong with blowing off steam, but (rightly or wrongly) the idea of the weekly 2+2 game used to be enough to inspire me to improve my game to the point where I'd be comfortable sitting in. Then again, I used to go out of my way to avoid all the scary multi-tabling .5/1 sharks, so it might just have been a function of ignorance + romanticism. (And no, that's not a shot at you micros. I'm sure there are many of you who play much better than I do. It's just interesting how much perception plays into things.).