Its more just a testament to how tough the game is. Moving up the ladder of limit poker its the first game where you really have to play the game well to win. You cant just win by virtue of being nit and filleting the fish and having the bankroll. Theres always someone who thinks they can just keep moving up forever and there will always be plenty of fish but this is the first game that gives you a rude awakening that you cant do that to infinity.

There certainly are folks like hansu or the x-man who will sit in practically any line up because theyre very confident in their game or very good or both, But theres also a lot of folks who just wouldnt win if they started playing these ****tier 100 games. Their edge is that thin because the game is that tough. So for the most part the must move doesnt end up going without the spot.

Did you play limit holdem online when Black Friday hit? Curious to hear what limit you think the commerce 1-2 is comparable to.

30/60, imo.

For perspective, could you compare 40/80 and 20/40 at Commerce to pre Black Friday online for us as well? I have very few hours at Commerce but thought the 40/80 was softer then 2/4 on Pokerstars

Fwiw, I think 30 was significantly tougher.

I think Commerce 100/200 now is like maybe 10/20 online pre-BF. From what I understand and hear from my friends who play in it, there's usually one spot (a great game would have two), several okay grinders, and one or two really tough champions. Most of the okay grinders will only play if there's a spot playing, and they aren't willing to play the tough champions heads up. That pretty much mirrors 10/20 online pre-BF, or even 5/10 8/16 15/30 sometimes.

Commerce 40/80 right now, even though it's reasonably harder than it was 5 or 10 years ago, still usually has two or three spots per table and then the rest are okay grinders with maybe one or two tough champions. A great weekend game might have four or five spots. These ratios are roughly like 2/4 or 3/6 online pre-BF.

It's also important to point out that for the tough champions, the games are still decent since they're able to exploit some of the leaks that the okay grinders have, as well as beat up the spots. But for the okay grinders the games are much tougher than before, since the number of spots per game has declined a fair bit. They will still break even against the other tough grinders and lose to the tough champions, as before.

As I understand it, the 100/200s (and probably even the 200/400s) of several years (or more) ago had a couple spots per table, or more, which is how a lot of folks made a lot of money. Then as the games have slowly gotten tougher, a lot of those folks eventually moved down to 60, then to 40.

As to OP's question, folks have already pretty much answered it above. The 20 is almost always a softer game than the 40, as far as game composition (# spots, # okay grinders, # tough champions). But the rake is a big factor. And, at times the 40 games get pretty good. So as far as winrate in bets per hour or bets per 100 hands, while an okay grinder can do better in the 20 than in the 40, in terms of dollars per hour it's actually pretty close. Let's say someone wins half a bet an hour or three quarters of a bet an hour in 20: that'd be $20 or $30/hour. They only need to win a quarter or three eights of a bet an hour in the 40 to match that hourly. However, the dollar swings are much higher in the 40 obviously, which probably is a barrier to some people. And the 20 is consistently great whereas the 40 isn't, so it matters if you're just playing off and on when the 40 is good, or if you're trying to grind 40 hours a week no matter what.

id say average 1/2 game has 2 spots and average 40 game has 6 spots but maybe my definition of a spot is different than others. With good game selection its relatively easy to avoid any good players at 40. 2/4 is weird because it usually centers around one particular spot, but that spot is a very very big spot.

I swear I had read things on 2+2 about the Commerce 40/80 game being all about people chasing the few fish from table to table, with super long table change lists. Doesn't seem like that meshes with the games being full of bad players.

Well thats just not how it is..

it all depends on who you're asking

I understand different people have different opinions about the quality of games and skills of players. Doesn't seem there would be different opinions about long table change lists, following players from one table to another, bribery of floorpeople to get seated at a particular table, etc.

my point was that the mediocre players view the game as "all about people chasing the few fish from table to table, with super long table change lists."

the good players think all the games are good so they don't bother with the table change lists

The table change lists are very long. A lot of players are constantly table changing, looking for a better spot including very good, mediocre and bad players. You can be in a very good game one second that turns bad and vice versa. I think it is incorrect to say there are good players that never change because they are so confident in their game.

That being said it appears to me a lot of "loose" players tend to populate the 40 relative to the 20, although I hesitate to call them bad players because thy tend to be more aggressive and hand read better than 20 players.

I'm sure the 100/200 players would love to have a 10/20 online player jump in their game. Overall on average the 100/200 game is much tougher than 10/20 pre Black Friday.

I think the 100/200 has more crushers than the 30/60. I could be convinced otherwise, but I'm confident the 10/20 online was softer than the 100/200 at commerce. Maybe 15/30 is closer to accurate. Also, I usually only get into the 100/200 if the game is good, but I think there are tons of times where the game pretty much sucks. Granted, I don't know ALL the weaker players there as well as some of the regs in the game, but I've seen games go where 8 of the 9 players in the game are quite competent. It's hard to imagine 1 guy at 100/200 is feeding all those mouths.

Just to be clear I didn't mean to imply that the commerce 1/2 he soft, I don't think that's the case and i think there are several very tough/very good regulars that are always in it. The difference for me is that I have gotten to play In some very good 1-2 games there including some good short handed spots because lots of the regs weren't there for whatever reason. Online this is just near impossible Because of the lobby skills. Basically if I did get a really good short handed spot online it was filled with 3 other people better than me jn 2 minutes.

I've played a fair number of 100/200 hours and used to play 30/60+ online. No question the 30/60 was tougher. It was usually 5 winners, where 1-2 would be world class, and 1 fish - sometimes not even losing that much. There are certainly very very good and world class players in the 100/200 but overall, the regs are more in line with a 10/20 game online than higher stakes.

I think an average winner in 10/20 black friday, after some adjustment, would be a winner in 100/200.

I think in no way shape or form that the commerce 40 is softer than the 20. I don't even think it's a discussion. That's not to say you can't find a single table that is gonna be softer at times than a specific table at 20 but generally speaking the 40 is for sure a tougher game. Not to mention the difference in swings you're going to take between those 2 limits.

the answer to OP's question is 100% no. anyone who argues against this honestly does not understand the environment at commerce very well.

no offense to anyone, i did not read the thread past OP

Just to be clear, avoid is a big winning player in both games. His opinion on this is basically the nuts.

Also, why is softer in quotations? It makes it read like bkth games aren't incredibly soft.

Well they are if avoid is at your table

I have about 1200 hours of commerce 20 under my belt. I have never yet played the 40. Came up from 8/16.

I can say one thing. Most players who constantly go up and down between 20 and 40 aren't very good. However, just hovering around the 40 game, it's obvious that they are on different levels.

Went to commerce a few days ago.

Played an hour in 20 cause 40 looked tough. 20 Game was pretty weak tight. Won about $60 just from raising pf and continuation betting a couple times. Was bored.

They started a 40 must move that looked like it would be pretty good based on basic racial stereotyping and I jumped In. After a couple orbits of guys trying to play good the game got as good as expected with 3 guys playing a 80/20 style. Game stayed good for about 4 hours, as it became a main game, with good and bad players from other main games trying to table change.

Eventually all the bad players busted or left and the game was left with tough players, most of whom had table changed to this table, who all sat out and put themselves back on the table change list. With the game stopped due to regs refusing to play each other I cashed out a $1200 loser.

Although I lost during the 4 hour stretch this game looked way better than anything I saw at 20. If you tried to play a full 50 hour/week schedule and couldn't avoid playing when the games got tough I could imagine the 40 being less profitable than the 20 for an avg player. But if u have the bankroll and know how to adjust to laggy games and can pick ur spots I still am not convinced the 40 is way tougher than the 20.