Hello,

I have a problem when I take shots at NL5. I am not crushing NL2, but I have a winrate 4bb/100 over 100k hands. Every time I try to play NL5 it feels like everyone is 3betting me every time, calling every cbet. It's insane, after 10k hands I have -10bb/100. I don't think I am playing any differently.

Is there really such a skill gap between these two limits?

You're probably playing really badly against all the things that you are talking about. If you spew in 3bet pots you're going to lose a lot. If you spew when c-betting then you're going to lose a lot.

Work on those two areas of your game.

10k hands is nothing either.

I think the skill gap between 2NL and 5NL might be the biggest there is apart from the difference between 500NLz and genuine high stakes. (I haven't played the latter, but I hear that the jump there is somewhat terrifying, as you can go from playing bad 500NL regs and 100NL grinders taking a shot to the legit best players in the world, that will join tables from 5/10 to 50/100).

5NL just doesn't have as many total beginners as 2NL. Indeed, it's full of nitregs that can beat destroy beginners, but that aren't good enough to move up. It's not that 5NL is full of great players. It's more that they have a tight-solid pre-flop strategy and they just don't spew like 2NL people do, so there's no easy money. Whenever I'm doing a bankroll building exercise, I usually jump from 2NL to 10NL and skip past the nut-miners at 5NL completely. In my opinion, it's a rake trap full of the most boring players in the world.

FWIW, I mostly play on Stars zoom, where the difference between 2NLz and 5NLz is palpable, but I saw a similar thing on Unibet, where the lowest stake is 4NL and it's full of clowns, but 10NL is full of nit-regs, and the next level up (25NL) was actually looser/more splashy. I think it's often the case that the first step up from the 'beginner level' is the toughest step. To some extent, it's like playing a different game.

Thanks for the reply :-)

So basically, just keep taking shots, improving a trying.

Can't argue with that. 5NL is full of people with ok skill level but low bankrolls. It also depends where you playing.

In EU rooms, you'll see a ton of players from eastern european countries grinding it out in the evening. 20€ per session is quite a deal for them when the average monthly income is 300€ in the Ukraine and 400€ in Russia, so they sit on 6-8 tables and play for food and rent.

So it's really really hard to grind it out against players who are good enough to beat 50NL if they had the money to play. 2NL is peanuts, 5NL is tough 10NL is ok again and 25NL is tough again.

And so do you actually suggest to just grind bankroll to start playing directy on NL10 and just skip NL5? Since yes, only available poker room in my country is Pokerstars. That seems like "cheating" to me :-) There goes my ideal plan to just get better a little bit every time I move up the stakes.

No, 10nl is harder than 5nl.

And there is no cheating, do what's optimal for you. Arty is a winning player at those stakes so if he prefers playing 10nl over 5nl he can do that because he wins. If you decide to play 10nl instead of 5nl you'd just lose more both in terms of actual $ value and bb/100.

The standard is still quite bad.

I'm not sure that's even true! :/
I'm running badly this year, so maybe I'm just being influenced by short-term results, but the games seem much tougher to me than last year. Maybe it's just that I've played more during the daytime in the past couple of months instead of late at night, but I'm finding it all pretty tough going, even though I can see loads of mistakes being made by my opponents.

I agree that OP shouldn't just arbitrarily jump up to 5x his usual limits though. There's something to be learned from playing against the nits at 5NL, and a downswing at 10NL would be very demoralizing, and it could destroy his roll if he's trying to build one for the long term.

No. NL5 and NL10 are where you absolutely have to learn to at least be +EV vs regs. Yes, NL20 will have more fish, but also NL20 endbosses that will crush you if you are not ready.

You have to be +EV vs the regs at each stake if you want to succeed long term. Otherwise, you will just be a medium fish, consumed by the larger fish in the pool.

EDIT: NL10 is probably the toughest micro stakes pool. Take that as a challenge to be conquered, not avoided.

4bb/100 @ NL2 is still too far from crushing it. Keep playing @ NL2 and improving your game before jump to higher. IMO, NL5 is full of regs now.