I'm a 2/5 grinder winning somewhere between 8-20bb an hour depending on the sample. Tried playing 5/10 and the 25 straddle was on.
First hand was versus a guy who seemed to like calling so was probably a bad bluff. Board was 228 so i pot it. Turn A pot it again. River 3, go all in for pot he calls with AT.
I'd 3 bet and 4 bet a few times in the session like 5-10 times alreaady in 2 hours. We see raise 75, tightish aggro player makes it 200. Action player from the last hand calls. I make it 2300 all in in the BB with ATs. Raiser folds, action player calls with 88, I run it once and lose.

I think I have a good understanding of tight abc play from 1/3 and 2/5 with the occassional bluff, but once you gain a reputation as a nit no one will give you action. So I've been trying to play more of TAG style, but it's not as straight forward and I probably have leaks like once he calls the potsize bet on the A turn I probably should have given up on the river with my air. And I'm usually just barreling ATC on boards that are good for me, with overbet sizings on turn and river, so maybe I need to dial back my play.

The 5/10/25 doesn't usually run and it's mainly other live 2/5 grinders, the best ones, that are playing the game.

I don't play those stakes, but I would snap fold and not think of shoving. However, shove can't lose that much on average unless the 3-bettor has a really strong range, which he might not at these stakes.

You lose about a little more than twice what you steal when you get called by AJ+, TT-KK. Probably doing this with ATs is better than with Axs if you sometimes get weird calls with 88/99.

Action player seems like donk/whale. You often have AK, but call with 88 is just awful. That is one problem with this sort of play in live cash. People don't like to fold preflop.

You don't see semibluff preflop shoves much in live cash. More in tournaments when shallower.

For someone who's "trying" the 5/10, you sure pressed a lotta buttons here.

pot/pot/jamming with air vs a calling station and jamming for 2300 pre with AT over a tight player's 3bet is just burning away and lighting money on fire.

If you're really seriously looking to improve your game I would suggest to just post some hands from start to finish.

You can utilize your ABC understanding in the 5/10 game as well but this isn't a TAG style it's closer to a sLAG style.

Why would you share your win rate as 8-20bb/hr depending on the sample, as opposed to just the actual win rate over your total sample?

Not sure what the question is here.

OP reminds me of some poker coaching advice about moving up to higher stakes, where someone thinks they need to make big changes to what was working for them at lower stakes. Coaching advice was basically, "nah, you don't need to get overly creative or aggressive."

Would you make these plays at 2/5? Probably not. But ironically, these plays might actually work more at lower stakes, where the player pool is more prone to seeing monsters under the bed, and over-folding with marginally strong hands.

Also ironically, the for-profit grinders I see at 2/5 and up tend to play pretty nitty, and mostly just TAG/ABC. They over-fold to aggression, and don't often employ very fancy plays. It's rare to see them put a lot of money into the pot with a hand that wasn't likely to be best at some point.

To use your example hand of ATs vs 88 - you could have 99+ there, and V was willing to pay you off. He basically shrug-called with a middling pocket pair. In the hand on the 228A board, you could have AJs-AK, A2s, or A8s. Again, he shrug-called with TP4K.

If you have 2-3 guys like that at your table, you don't need to push in marginal situations. Instead you can just play TAG and wait for better hands to play.

Lastly - nothing wrong with smaller bets, with value or bluffs, on early streets. I like to define my opponents' ranges to stronger hands before I start increasing my bet sizes, especially when we know we might to have to fire 2-3 barrels to get an opponent to fold.

Like, in that AT on 228A board, if he was going to fold on the flop, he might have folded to a 1/3 pot bet. If we have a big PP or A2s, we want him to call with AT, not force him to fold. If we're bluffing, we'd rather use a smaller size on the flop, if he's not folding no matter how much we bet, so we can save some stack depth for the turn and river.

If he calls a 1/3 pot c-bet, then we can size up on the turn, to get max value when we have it, and apply max pressure when we don't. A 1/3 c-bet followed by a 2/3 barrel and a >2/3 pot river bet is more credible than going pot-pot-jam on a low-paired flop when we're the PFR.

Theres just no reason to change styles when you go up in stakes. If you think you need a looser game, great, learn it at 2/5.

The ATs shove works better at higher stakes, because people are 3-betting more at higher stakes. Not saying it is a good play.

You have a calling station idiot with 8's calling down, wait for a good hand and then clean him out. Also, why are you jamming a10 there? The guy who likes to call too much is calling you with only things that you flip with or are dominated by. You're betting 6x the pot. It doesn't scream strength.

I don't like the shove, but it is 4.5x pot, 3x pot if you count OP's bet if he called. If you take it, you get $500 free and clear. If you get called by JJ-KK, AJ-AK, you have 30%, so and expected loss of about $800. Much worse against AA, about even with dead money against 88.

ATs is not the same as AT. It is a suited ace and has straight possibilities. Plus it plays a lot better against like 88 than A3s.

Besides 3-bettor, original raiser can have a hand, and cold caller could have JJ/AK and snap call. OP probably didn't know quite what a station cold caller was.

Without knowing cold caller probably calls with almost anything he called initially with, it seems like the play doesn't lose much and may be slightly profitable. If the steal goes through 2/3 of the time, it makes money. It doesn't look strong, but often no one has a premium hand to call with. The shove could easily be AK/AQs or like QQ, so if they are playing correctly, they shouldn't call that light. Fish who called probably did figure out this probably wasn't KK+.