Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 19,880
You're asking a super specific question which may not even have an answer.
For what it's qorth, this is my experience. It's from Pokerstars but 2010-2011, pre-BF.
The lower limits (2c/4c-5c/10c) are really filled with monkeys. Like sometimes people just cap randomly with 4-high just to see if there's a cap or something. You should have many opportunities to overlimp and should do pretty wide.
As you move up into the area where it's not play money any more (25c/50c-50c/1), people actually have strategies and for the most part actually try. They still play too many hands and don't get enough value from their good hands, but you yourself need a strategy and a basic understanding of what's good.
Pros started appearing at 2/4-3/6 and 5/10 was probably mostly pros. These are the levels that have gotten crunched the most since the US market was cut off - without the volume to 4-table 5/10 and an adequate supply of 15/30+ games, good players move down, and then mediocre winners that previously played these levels probably dropped down or quit.
For what it's worth (and seriously note this is 6 years old), I won 3.5 BB/100 at 5c/10c but from 10c/20c up to 2/4 my winrate gradually dwindled from 2.5-ish to 1.5-ish. Black Friday hit just as I was taking shots at 3/6 so I don't know how I would have stacked up against the pros.
I would probably identify some pros based on their tier rewards level and see what that "pro level" is. Watch the games there. How many of the players are making mistakes you can identify and exploit? If it's just 1-3, move down and observe again. The level where you can exploit about half the table is about where you're going to break even.
