I made that transition at MDL late last fall. A few thoughts:

At MDL 1-2 about 95% of players play face up, at 2-5 its more like 60-70%. Figure out who is not playing face up and adjust accordingly. In other words know who is capable of bluffing.

Play suited connectors and the like in position only, especially when you first start out. You will be punished much more than at 1-2 for drawing oop.

Consider buying in for 400 until you get accustomed to the game.

Avoid tables with multiple backpacks. Table change if you feel outclassed. Youll get to know who the pro grinders are, avoid tables with more than 1 of them if possible. This will be harder at primetime. The good thing is most of them play TAG so you may not tangle with them often.

You will still see astonishingly bad play and players, just not as much as at 1-2.

There will be more limping than you expect. There will also be more bet sizing tels than you expect.

Btw for those not familiar with MDL, there are usually around 20 1-2 tables, upwards of 10 2-5, and 1 or 2 5-10 tables. So not a situation where the sharks dominate 2-5.

Good luck!

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using 2+2 Forums

That seems abnormal even if you're playing super tight. I had 3 of those last week.

Yeah, Im sure it does sound abnormal and I dont play all that tight. Im somewhere around 22/15 or so. I dont know how to explain it. I just dont seem to be in very many big pots at all.

Not losing more than three buyins seems normal for me, but never winning more than that doesn't. I have a tight, tricky, semi-passive style where I am less aggressive preflop than most advocate around here and the sort of table image where regs are often reluctant to build big pots against me with the second nuts or make big bluffs.

could be because your sessions tend to be on the shorter side

When recalling my first $2/$5 NL shot session, the key takeaway was how aggressively the better players attacked the target opponent(s). They fought to iso the loose passive, stationy-types ip before another could.

That said, ask for seat changes if at a good table. If you are to the right of targets and the better players, limping will not be optimal (most times it isn’t anyway) as you will continually face isolation raises oop.

Play well and GL!

Here is my 2/5 play over the last 5 years win/lose per session. I have a decent number of 1k swings, but 1.5k is pretty rare. Only 500 hours though lolivesamplesize

I'm pretty good at setting limp-reraise traps for players who do this.

With regard to the variance discussion, I typically play a fairly deep 1-3 game and over my last 70 sessions (playing between 4-7 hours) I booked 6 wins over 1K. I buy in for $400. Fortunately no losses over 1K but a few around $900 and a handful of wins around $900 too. I'd consider myself a TAG player and it's not unusual to see looser players at this game win or lose 2K+ in a night. I thought this was fairly typical and am surprised at the lack of swings other players are encountering.

Some sound advice in this thread on the transition from 1-3 to 2-5. I agree that 3bets are far more common in 2-5, and to be wary of the backpackers/pros that might be scattered in your game. Aside from that a surprisingly good amount of fish to find as well.

I'd strongly recommend buying in for $500 (not more) and playing very tight for the first 30 minutes. It's helpful to get a feel of the game and the players first, especially before you end up in a bigger pot. Once you get a feel of the table flow you can open up a little but I'd still go at it on the tighter side. Outside of that, getting comfortable with deeper stacks comes with experience. If you win a big pot and suddenly are sitting on 1.2K in chips, even if you're at a good table I'd suggest cashing out and taking a 15 minute break, and buying back in for $500 at a different table. Take it slow and you'll find that there are a surprisingly decent number of poor players at 2-5, and if you're winning at 1-3 once you find your comfort zone playing a little deeper you'll be stacking opponents at the 2-5 too.

IIRC Mike plays in relatively shallow games of 60-100bbs. I'm not surprised he doesn't have 300bb swings per session.

sick brag bruh.

Again, really room dependent. In this thread, we've seen one poster post how they have 30+ lowstakes NL games going; that is 6 times as many tables as my room has total, which typically just has 2 or 3 1/3 NL games going (and that's all).

In rooms with lottsa games and lottsa stakes, the better players have options and therefore often sit in bigger stakes. In rooms that don't offer a lotta games or lottsa stakes, the better players are forced to sit at the same table as the entry level noob.

GcluelessstakesnoobG

I mostly play in an underground room with one or two tables (1/2 or 1/3), and I (try to) seat change to get position on certain players all the time. Can't really table change

I thought i was the only one that did this on this forum....

The 2/3/7/8 seats are premium.

That's true. I also play mostly during the day time with at least 1/2 the table being OMCs. It hurts my win rate somewhat playing during the day with guys that wont put any money in the pot but it also keep my swings way down.

Just to give a balanced perspective I won $4300 in a 10 hour session at MD Live 2/5 in June. I've lost $1800 and $1400 in two different sessions at MD Live 2/5 in 2016. The -$1400 was like two weeks ago. Now to be fair, I'm a hyper aggressive LAG player so factor your own style.

Its a VERY action-packed room right now. I'd argue its in the top 10 in the U.S. for action these days, particularly at the 2/5 NL stakes.

The things you can count on, imo:
(1) expect many more bluffs and semi-bluffs than 1/3
(2) expect preflop action to be looser
(3) expect a lot more action in general
(4) expect aggressive players in particular to have deep pockets, especially in this room. When people bust, they almost always buy back at least twice.
(5) remember its $600 max BI
(6) room has reputation for collusion among a few asian players who don't speak english at the table. There's also just a lot of young (21-25) regs who seem to know and soft play eachother, I think many are actually dealers at the horseshoe and MD Live. I've never had a problem with any of this mind you, but there's no sense in not being vigilant and being aware of your surroundings.
(7) There actually are a fair number of good regs in those games in my experience, but even more bad players. Stereotyping Vs based on age in this room in particular will actually serve you pretty well. Plenty of nits aged 50+.

The most important thing I've noticed re: MD Live is the game dynamic changes SUPER hard day vs. night and weekday vs. weekend. That's true of almost every poker room but if you go to MD Live at 11am on a Saturday, expect to sit next to ~7 nits who are quietly folding or limping 95% of hands pre-flop. Same exact table 8 hours later will have guys getting it in for $500 pre-flop with pocket jacks. I'm 100% positive that playing at night and on weekends is my biggest correlating factor in win-rate at this room.

GL OP see ya at the tables

Reminded me of some Dude at my casino who used see me coming and point at me saying in this raspy blues kind of voice "here he comes...every time I see that guy is in a big pot".

2/5 in my room was either 1k or 2.5k cap. 1/3 is 500. So if you buy in full and have a few tough ones 1.5k is really nothing.

300bb is the max that I'm willing to lose in a session. It doesn't happen often, but it has happened.

Well, I have rebought if the table conditions are right, and it usually pays off

Expect to have more 1.5k downswings. I mean, that could happen in one pot, if you get in a cooler spot with another deepstack. Even if you only lose 1k to a cooler, you can easily proceed to go card dead and bleed another 1-2k just by missing flops.

Agreed. OP's question is way too generic as the single biggest variable is casino/location. Parx 2/5 is 1k max and one of the toughest rooms around so your variance/swings are going to be significant. Borgata 2/5 is 500 max filled with dip ****s that will stack off with top pair 3rd kicker so you can play with your eyes closed and still come out ahead.

It makes sense that Mike couldn't fathom how a 15k downswing could happen when he's playing in 60 BB capped games, but when there is routinely in excess of 10k on the table spread evenly among the players you are going to see huge swings in high variance spots. When you run good your bankroll shoots through the roof and when you run bad it's soul crushing.

My games aren't capped at 60BBs. Its a standard 100BB cap, but there are lots of people who buy in for 60BBs.

Yeah.. different games, different styles, different locations.
I've had multiple +1,500 days at 1/2.