Rate the players at each limit

I heard from a very common and goot opponent on PokerStars that the quality of players does not necessarily reflect the level they are playing at. I agree to an extent, because bankroll should not determine quality. His argument however is that players who commonly play @ 200NL or 400NL sometimes loose almost all of their 2 or 3 buy-in bankroll and rest on 50NL a while until they get their few Hundred BB back. Also, that most deposits are greater than $200 or $300, in which the depositor would jump right into a table of their max or semi-max buy-in.

I know that this kind of thread is a common one, but I'm interested in hearing updated opinions. I play @ 50NL and find little to NO DIFFERENCE between this and 25NL.

I know a few guys that play like this. Sort of reverse bankroll management. Deposit $500 till they get to $1000 and cash on a $100 or $200 table, or drop down as the roll decreases. They don't care about playing with bankroll management, it's like a casino, they're gambooling.

I find it's almost as good as drugs ... I play the $50 tables as the bankroll allows ($1000) but I am now adding one $100 table and find the players no different, just that the risks/rewards are bigger. I do find I play much more cautiously because the bankroll can't take the variance.

So far from 50NL to my limited 200NL experience they're all the same. You find a few more dummies in 25NL though, but the guys who sorta know what they're doing rate as high as the guys in the other levels.

Originally Posted by BankItDrew

I heard from a very common and goot opponent on PokerStars that the quality of players does not necessarily reflect the level they are playing at. I agree to an extent, because bankroll should not determine quality. His argument however is that players who commonly play @ 200NL or 400NL sometimes loose almost all of their 2 or 3 buy-in bankroll and rest on 50NL a while until they get their few Hundred BB back. Also, that most deposits are greater than $200 or $300, in which the depositor would jump right into a table of their max or semi-max buy-in.

I know that this kind of thread is a common one, but I'm interested in hearing updated opinions. I play @ 50NL and find little to NO DIFFERENCE between this and 25NL.

I have played everything from 10-100NL on stars and the quality of players does not increase much with stakes. I personally think 25NL on stars is the hardest game under 200NL.

10nl is an all in fest. Its not difficult to win a stack with tp vs any draw.
25nl is easy to beat too obviously just playing tp fast and flopping a few sets
50nl is a fun one. Their are a lot of bad players still at these stakes, but i find that you get people who have moved up from 25nl and are total rocks. They dont have any skill to move up they are simply nut campers who only get paid versus fish and then rarely so
100nl is often softer than 50nl imo simply because this is where i think a lot of one table $100 deposit chancers sit. I find this is the first stage where you can run bad by overplaying hands versus the wrong opponents. For the first time table selection matters, but only a little.
200nl. First time i found i was playing against regulars who could beat the game, although many were still simply ABC tags who just didnt pay you off blindly like at other stakes. Saying that, they were good enough to always have a hand and just bad enough to pay off your better hands when you make them
400nl. Plenty of wining regulars, 9 tabling and watnot. The first stakes where you tend to find one or two players who can really play and get paid off, plus the first time i played against some really good loose-aggressives with hand-reading skills. Few people play their hands badly at these stakes imo but implied odds rule against players who expect you to play in a certain way because of your stats.

Originally Posted by BankItDrew

I play @ 50NL and find little to NO DIFFERENCE between this and 25NL.

I'm not used to hearing this from people. I play at Ongame and in my experience, 50NL is waaay rocky compared to 25NL and also 100NL from what I hear.

Played most of my life at Ongame:

$25nl: Donkfest. Easily beatable...play weak/tight and you will get paid off huge. In other words, only build a pot when you get TPTK or better and you are goot most of the time.

$50nl: Nut campers. Very nitty. Lots of fold equity here because the nut campers are thinkers. Agression often takes them off their hand so a nice TAG style was very profitable.

$100nl: Definately looser than $50nl. You'll find a variety of players here...from complete donks to uber loose/agressive. In my estimation, more beatable than $50, however, after 8k hands, I am 1BB/100! Nasty variance...lost 5 straight 80/20's plus one 90/10 for stacks!

I have recently switched from $100 to $200 on Stars and the main difference is that players are more cautios and I don't see that many wild short stacks. It is more difficult to get paid with your good hands. It is easier to steal blinds and small pots though.

As you move up, there are more "soild TAgg" and Tight/Passive style players. So knowing how to deal with them (don't give up too much value, resteal/float a little, make it clear you're not going to be easy money) becomes more important. The fish tend to get a little more frisky, so inducing auto-matic bluffs becomes a key revenue stream.

As I moved from 100NL-short/200NL full to 200NL short, I actually tightened up a lot, read hands more and induce bluffs. You can't value bet as many of them to death and they won't fold to c-bets often enough to steam-roll, or at least you're not going to get away with it for very long unless you're comfortable playing big pots with air.

I'll echo Fnord somewhat...the hardest transition for me was to $200NL, and I've found I've had to tighten up substantially. Pre-flop play is more aggressive and c-bets don't get nearly as much respect, so you have to pay attention to who you're c-betting and you have to sharpen your reads. $200NL< is where the game really starts to be played, imo. Before that, I didn't find any huge differences in stakes.

£25NL (if anyone else plays it) - at full ring, there is 1 good player, 2 or 3 decent players, 2 or 3 players who aren't appalling, and 2 or 3 complete fish. At 6 max, you'll normally be the tightest player on the table if you play 26/13 like I do, though maybe 1 or 2 of the others will be good players. Still a couple of pure fish per table.

Every 3rd or 4th table has too many decent players to be worthwhile, so watch for these and don't be too proud to move.