[W. Deranged]

All right, so I got a bunch to say about this:

I think it is important to maintain the continuity of forums and not to have too many of them. The reason is that forums thrive on having a core of consistent, competent, intelligent, and committed posters. New posters can read and get a sense of who forms that core. Their ideas dictate discussions and can help to keep the forum an arena for intelligent discussion rather than sporadic comment-making. In small stakes I feel that "core" has in recent months gotten quite strong (recovering from the well-documented disaster of the early summer): Jason, Shant, Harv, Flair, Evan, Rob (Entity), BigEndian, Nick Royale, Hobbs, Brett, and so forth.

Interestingly, many of these players play in limits that at least would be considered for mid-limits. Many of us post online hands at the 10/20 and 15/30 level. Particularly after Vegas, people posted hands at 30/60 live (which is clearly within the realm of mid-high) and I know for a fact that within the past week one Cantabrigian poster posted a couple of hands played at the Foxwoods 50/100.

I've found the discussion of the hands at those mid-limits to be quite intelligent, personally. With the exception of the hands of one notable poster who was a long-time small stakes poster who made a dramatic exit from the forum in June, hands played in 15/30 live games and even similar online often don't get intelligent discussion in mid-high.

What concerns me about creating a new "mid" forum is that much of the strength of the small stakes forum would be lost. I feel that this forum has so much to offer as it forms the crucial educational point for players who are beyond the basics but really need to learn the crucial skills necessary to becoming long-term winning players. Mid-high discussions are wonderful but much of what they offer pertains to skills involved ONLY at the higher levels (metagame things, mixing up play, advanced hand-reading skills, attacking particular kinds of aggressive players like DERB, etc...)

Another thing to consider is the way that movement in limits works at the small stakes level. It is quite possible for committed, skilled small stakes players to move between limits quite quickly. For most, the 10/20 to 20/40 online level is quite attainable. I think it is very useful to have a resource for players moving through the limits to discuss hands, and not to feel constantly forced to change forums and have to develop a new sense of who to listen to and learn new nomenclature and so on. As the limits get higher, it becomes harder to move between them. My fear is that the "small" forum would just become a very transient stop-over point for players on the way to "mid."

The conclusion is that I think that such a four-level structure would cause the death of the "small" forum. The "mid" forum would be awesome, and, if this whole thing went into effect, I'd probably just go ahead and make my new home there, because that's where many of my favorite fellow posters would go and that's probably more reflective of the limits I play (though I play 5/10 to 10/20 online and anywhere from 10/20 to 30/60 live).

My personal preference would actually just be a slight realignment. I think 2/4 should probably go in micros, and I think 20/40 and down should stay in what is now "Small Stakes." I think this new forum should be retitled the "Small-Mid Forum," and the forum above us for all the fourth-level thinkers renamed simply "High Stakes Limit Hold'em."

Just my two cents.

Oh, and I think that there should be some effort made to delineate how live limits relate to online limits. I think everyone would agree that 15/30 live hands should be posted in small stakes.