Hey Everybody, played poker for a living years & years ago and now would call myself a solid rec player getting back into the swing. I’ve been playing really well in Multi Table Tourneys - but my cash game has always needed improvement. Been buying in at local casinos for the max at 1/3 and not having positive sessions - but the last couple of weeks have been 2/5
and the results & confidence is like night & day. It’s much easier to put players on a hand because most are better players. There seems to be a ton of less variance as you are making a 5x preflop raise and not the whole table is calling.

I don’t know. Has anyone else experienced this?

Yes, but only in the short term. There are a couple of causes. First is just pure variance. You used the term like many poker players, which only means losing. Variance also can be positive. Second, many 2/5 players are cautious at first with unknowns. As the better players get to know how you play, they will begin to exploit you. You're on the cusp of them starting to do so.

You've been around long enough to hear someone say, "I want to move up where they respect my raises." You've just articulated where that statement comes from. How many of them have been long term successful with that strategy?

If you are playing by the book strategy it's possible because the 2/5 players tend to be playing something closer to what you are expecting. It's also possible that it's just short term variance.

If you expect to be able to push people around 1/2 and 1/3 can be impossible to beat. It is much more a game of waiting for the money to come to you. They are more consistently beatable though once you learn the strategy and the only reason professionals avoid them is because there just isn't enough money to win to live off it.

Everywhere I've played I've played both that 1/2 - 1/3 game and the 2/5 game at said venue. The average 2/5 player is marginally better than the lower stakes. There really isn't much of a difference between the players. The only difference between the two levels is that you'll occasionally run into someone at 2/5 that plays for a living, whereas at thousands of hours of 1/2 I ran into one person who played for a living.

It's actually comical how many people on here and elsewhere act like 2/5 players are these superior breed of players that know what's going on. They don't. Probably close to zero, if not flat out 0%, of 2/5 players would be able to beat 2/5 online. No one is going to be able to make these strong exploits on you.

If I had to guess, my BB/hr is probably about the same at the two stakes.

I'll even take a step further and say when the 5/10 runs in my room it's on the tighter side, but is a game that any decent live player would be +EV in.

No, you won't do better against better players. That doesn't make any sense. Bad players are bad because they play strategies that lose more money.

2|5 players are by no means good, but they're less clueless than 1|2 players on average. 2|5 has less limping, more aggression, better preflop ranges, less random punts, etc. If you find it easier you're doing something wrong at 1|2.

1/2 and 2/5 are different player pools, so its quite possible your style performs better in one game than another.

Its also quite possible and fairly likely that the biggest losers in 2/5 lose more than the biggest losers in 1/2, which can have a positive impact on win rate.

Many players who play both games will not have a good estimate of true win rate at both stakes due to sample size. Generally, winning players should move up ASAP. And someone who is a winning 2/5 player can be assumed good enough to beat 1/2 though they may need to make some stylistic adjustments. Most notably, winning players in 1/2 tend to open and raise limpers with larger sizings pre-flop than in most 2/5 games.

Yeah winning players generally make more per hour as they move up.

As blinds increase so does the value of your opponents’ mistakes.