the notable differences between stakes? - small to mid

Hi there,

Been doing really well lately as a micro tag. I blame my sensibility and also FTR for all their help. There's been some tough love on here but it's all welcome.

So i moved up from 2nl to 5nl recently and although i was over rolled a bit (to give myself some extra confidence) after 3k hands i'm only 5 buy-ins away from moving up to 10nl.

I have noticed that 5nl is actually fishier than 2nl. My theory for this is that people who play poker for shits n' giggles won't buy in for two bucks coz it's too little but people who want to learn poker in earnest will want to start from the bottom and work up. Thus, more fish at 5nl coz it's not TOO cheap a game to have fun with.

So, that's my perspective... but... question:

I've been very seriously considering hammering my way through the stakes and living the poker dream of earning a modest living off it seeing as i hate all forms of employment AND the sound alarms going off at 7:30am.

(wait, i'm getting to my point)

So i'm always always pondering... what are the OTHER stakes like? could they be fishy? i'm not big on equity, 3betting, 4 betting... will my tighter range and reasonable reads + poker tracker stats hold up under higher stakes pressure??

and the ultimate.... will i ever be a successful 100nl player!?!

So if you please, i'd like a few short sentences of your experiences of the characteristics of each stake (i shall seed the list with my experiences):

2nl - loose as you like, but more nitty that you'd imagine at times
5nl - couple of solid tags but the rest are apeshit loose crazy idiots
10nl
25nl
50nl
100nl

cheers folks.

I thought 50NL was easier on Bodog than 25NL, but I played less than 5000 hands (at 50NL).

I withdrew most of my bankroll and moved back down to 10NL. I was losing for my first 4000 hands at 10NL, but now I seem to be crushing 10NL again.

I suppose what I'm getting at is maybe your 3000 hands is too small of a sample to guage the fishy-ness of 5NL. Don't get me wrong, if you're rolled for it, certainly give 10NL a chance.

Good luck.

good point i guess.

thing is, i've never lost a money in a day's playing so far at 5nl. And i see people playing badly, so i conclude that it's easy. I reckon that's enough to go on.

But without wanting to get sidetracked into talking about sample sizes, i'd like to see more of people's experiences with the different stakes and skill levels.

Any given stake to the next stake up will not be as different as it seems. Try hard to think in terms of blinds instead of $ amounts and try to forget that it's not your usual limit.

That said, the main difference in stakes is the ratio of decent players to fish. You'll find more decent players and fewer fish at each stake. That's why 4bb/100 hands is kind of low at 2nl and pretty standard at 400nl.

Also, the overall skill level of players considered "decent" will grow with the steaks ur playing and game dynamics change as well, when the "regs" adjust to the reg/fish ratio

I haven't moved past 2NL yet, but I have a general question that wonderland may have an answer to, and if not him someone will know. At 2NL, I see a lot of players day after day I am familiar with, and most of the are real nut campers, players with VPIP's around 4-6 range after 500 hands playing with them. I look these players up and see they are playing 10+ tables. So it seems to me they are not really "playing" poker or studying the tables. Instead, they play as many tables as they can and just wait for QQ+ to try and get it all in. As you move up to 5NL or 10NL do you still these players?

It varies. As the money gets bigger you tend to get fewer "awww fuck it calls", more tight players and more correct aggresssion.

In online games you need to learn how to deal with nits earlier than in live games. That said, don't just play tight when dealing with loose players. Opening it up a bit and finding good value will make the move up a lot easier.

I moved up from $2NL to $5NL not so long ago, and played really badly at first (was down 4 buyins after 4k hands, though did get a bit of bad luck in there too). Since I stopped being a retard, I've been beating it pretty easily, but I still don't find it as easy to beat as $2NL.

If I had to generalise I would say people are tighter preflop and looser post flop than at $2NL, which suggests it should be easier to beat, but I think the main difference is that at $2NL there were a lot more players thant REALLY sucked and would give you their whole stack really easily.

With respect to the comment about people who play for shits n giggles buying in at $5NL and not $2NL, I remeber at $2NL it wasn't too uncommon to see guys who just pushed every hand until they went bust or got bored (normally 10-20 hands ish), which was brilliant because lots of people at that level are scared to play for their stacks without a premium hand, however I very rarely see them at $5NL.

*stares blankly*

umm, gonna have to give up this thread. Just had the worst session... probably in the history of online poker. Lost 3 buy ins over about 5 hours.

i'm going away for some time now...

Originally Posted by wonderland

*stares blankly*

umm, gonna have to give up this thread. Just had the worst session... probably in the history of online poker. Lost 3 buy ins over about 5 hours.

i'm going away for some time now...

standard

Originally Posted by wonderland

*stares blankly*

umm, gonna have to give up this thread. Just had the worst session... probably in the history of online poker. Lost 3 buy ins over about 5 hours.

i'm going away for some time now...

Dude, I've lost 5+ buy-ins in <1hr multiple times.. get used to it.

As for how the different levels play?

2NL- 99% fish.
5NL- 95% fish.
10NL- 90% fish.
25NL- 85% fish.

Can't go any high cause I haven't played any higher yet

ok, i've had some time to breathe.

I just can't comprehend what just happened. It's made me rethink what i know about probability and poker. I just can't figure out what to do with what just happened. Like loss after loss after all in favourite suckout river, bam bam bam, no matter who i play, no matter what hand i get, bam bam bam.

I have lost 3 buy-ins, once before. But this hit me HARD. I think because i'd crept back up to near break-even twice. Anyway, this thread could turn into a suckouts thread but it is interesting how i can get such a new perspective mid-way through a line of thought.

I think i just don't understand how such bad shit can happen in short dramatic bursts? i thought variance would be played on a win-lose, win-lose basis, based on my experience too (although over only 16k hands) but it just seems weird that it can be more like: win, lose lose lose lose lose lose lose lose lose lose, win. At least on ocassion.

It fucks you up because you end up thinking... hmm, well i only have a full house, can i call his shove? he could have five of a kind, or maybe he's holding a pocket pair that is higher than aces? like pocket jesus' or something.

really really fucks ones win rate up too.

LoL @ 3 buy-ins being a big swing. Maybe in the live game I play in where my opponents have their hole cards tattooed on their foreheads. In fairly aggro online games I swung up and down 5+ buy-ins pretty regularly. I would start to worry at around -15 to -20 or so.

Originally Posted by wonderland

So if you please, i'd like a few short sentences of your experiences of the characteristics of each stake

I started my own thread chronicling my experiences @ each level and I specifically have posts describing the play. I've only made it to $10NL for the moment, but have posts reflecting on $2NL and $5NL that may answer your question.

Originally Posted by wonderland

i'm not big on equity, 3betting, 4 betting... will my tighter range and reasonable reads + poker tracker stats hold up under higher stakes pressure??

and the ultimate.... will i ever be a successful 100nl player!?!

I'm pretty sure you won't be very successful at all past 5NL until you get bigger, as you put it, on those things. How can you honestly think ahead to 100NL or higher?

You'll learn more about them as you move up of course, but no reason not to being pounding the books on these topics now.

Originally Posted by wonderland

It fucks you up because you end up thinking... hmm, well i only have a full house, can i call his shove? he could have five of a kind, or maybe he's holding a pocket pair that is higher than aces? like pocket jesus' or something.

That should be in a signature, I am laughing out loud at this.

hookaaay folks.

Jason, nice posts. A lot to read so i skimmed a little. Seemd you grinded (ground?) up nicely. I see a few dips on your graphs and then the swings just continues to rise upwards. My graph played out in an almost straight horizontal line @ 2nl, jump up, straight, jump up. 5nl thus far has been a steep win rate, especially if you discount this nasty cooler i had today. Full house Vs full house, aaaalways makes my knuckles bleed.

Fnord. Wow, 5 buy-in swings. I'd be very interested in hearing how that worked into your overall progress? did it cause you to move down ever or was it just a case of: well, i'm winning anyway, it's just that every now and then i'll take a beating... ?

If i was climbing well and had say, 40k hands under my belt, i too might go: pshh, 3 buy-ins, i'm still a proven winner. But i just don't have that shit under my belt.

speedcake. Yes you're right. I need to get that shit down. I have taken a stab at it but i just get confused. Equity especially. And i guess at 5nl i've been getting away with it playing K7o donks.

It's an emotional game gentlemen. All that GLORY awaits us, the promise of financial viagra that is mid-high stakes poker. And how far it doth seem when, eyes blurry, we slide the bar all the way to the right, and look in horror, as our potential future is, because of the river card, 'shipped' across the table.... and into the pockets of a FUCKING CUNT.

*dons top hat*

Originally Posted by wonderland

Fnord. Wow, 5 buy-in swings. I'd be very interested in hearing how that worked into your overall progress? did it cause you to move down ever or was it just a case of: well, i'm winning anyway, it's just that every now and then i'll take a beating... ?

I had a really sick win-rate at 200NL 6-max for a while. Swongs happen.

Most of my action now is live because it's more profitable for me than dealing with an increasing amount of the player pool knowing how to adjust to my basic strategy.

live?

that's odd, i wouldn't imagine online players switching to live games because of only being able to play one table at a time? and no hud!

I play for bigger stakes against opponents who make bigger mistakes and often give off information about their hand you don't have to be an FBI agent to figure out. The best of my opponents are at least 2-3 years away from where my thought process is right now reguarding NLHE. Most are in the stone ages and playing scared or stupid money. I've seen maybe 2 or 3 players ever who would stand a chance at online 50NL 6 max.

Throw in the entertainment value, chance to get out of the house and free food and it's a winnar for me.

2nl - loose as you like, but more nitty that you'd imagine at times
5nl - couple of solid tags but the rest are apeshit loose crazy idiots

as you move from 10nl - 100nl each of the following happens.
1) Understanding of appropriate starting hands increases
2) Understanding of pre-flop basics increases, the further you move up the more detailed these basics (e.g. how should your cutoff steal range compare to your sb steal range?)
3) C-betting appropriately starts to happen, rather than always or never
4) The fish ratio gets worse
5) There are more and more regs
6) positional range variation improves among regs
7) nittiness and aggression increase
8) floating starts to happen
9) intelligent bluffing starts to appear - i.e. a bluff where the actions until that point have been consistent with a strong range
10) semi-bluffing in position
11) 3-betting gets more prevalent (only noticed this from 100nl up though, 50nl and i give 3-bets a lot of respect without big reads)
12) implied odds reduce
13) bet-sizing becomes more important
14) level 1 & 2 thinking creep into people's games
15) people stack off less and less with TP crap kicker
16) people stack off less and less with TPTK
17) pot control with overpairs

basically, as you move up the average/median player gets better, there are more and more regs, and increasingly more players have got where they are by grinding and beating lower stakes.

Originally Posted by wonderland

*stares blankly*

umm, gonna have to give up this thread. Just had the worst session... probably in the history of online poker. Lost 3 buy ins over about 5 hours.

i'm going away for some time now...

lost 30buyins over the last 35 hours of play. I win. Cool.

Reasons why I think this thread is a bad idea:

1. Ideally you should try to have as few expectations as possible when sitting down at a table. You should let your observations guide you.

2. Online poker is an incredibly dynamic game. What people who have graduated beyond 5NL could tell you may be grossly off the mark for today's game.

3. You should concentrate on beating your current level as soundly as possible. Thinking about moving up all of the time is poisonous.