[ilya]

[ QUOTE ]
I find it extremly amusing that the majority of people chose middle play, but there is hardly any argument for it in the meat of this thread.

I chose it, because it seemed to be getting me the most. The bubble is easy to play with a stack imo, and getting a stack is the hard part. knowing when to push during level 4-5 seems so very very key to me, because the pushes/calls are not nearly as B&W when the blinds become higher. Perhaps I am finding that level 4-5 are just hard for me.

[/ QUOTE ]

I voted for middle play though I play the $20s and really I suppose push/call play matters most in absolute terms at this level. however...a lot of push/call play is just math with only a little bit of reading mixed in, so it's relatively easy to become pretty good at it. in the middle levels OTOH, you're playing somewhat marginal hands more agressively than you would in the early game, but often without the luxury of just pushing preflop. so you're playing big pots postflop with much weaker (on average) hands than in the early going. also, you often find yourself in situations where you don't have a hand at all, but the pot has gotten big enough that it's too weak to just give it up regardless of the action. so reading bets really becomes important to maximizing EV at those levels. this requires practice and attention.
in short, i voted 'middle-game' because
1, i think someone who's already a winner at the low limits can best improve his ROI at those levels by focusing on his mid-game play and
2, i think it's harder to improve at mid-game play than at push/call and
3, it's the stage that's least amenable to auto-pilot play at the low limits.