Not sure if this is the right place to ask, apologies if not; mods please move this to the right forum.

I'm normally a live recreational 1/2 player, not super skilled but not terrible. Started online fairly recently - didn't like it at first, but it is growing on me. Easy entertainment when I just want to play for an hour or 2 without leaving home.

I have a pretty high income, and I can't manage to force myself to care about stakes below NL50 - I just get bored and end up donking off full buy-ins at NL10 to NL30. Never played below NL10.

I have too small a sample size to know for sure, but I'm pretty certain I'm not a winning player at NL50. Got clearly outplayed too many times, and also catching myself making many obvious mistakes. But because of the paragraph above, I just can't play lower.

Generically though: What is average player at NL50 thinking? Do most players have the ABCs down solid and are correctly ranging their opponents hands? Are players balancing their own ranges? Making advanced plays like floating/squeezing correctly? Playing back at / exploiting the ABC players?

Or are there still a lot of players whose game is still very basic and very mistake-ridden?

I know, there's no clear answer. I'm just trying to get a general feel for the field and estimate where I stand. I currently have the ABC's mostly down (with most serious errors occurring when I'm drinking beer while playing, lol.), and I'm trying to work on more advanced skills, but I'm definitely making a ton of mistakes along the way.

It depends where you live and what site you're playing in. If you're playing on a site like Stars or Party where Eastern Europeans can live a comfortable life grinding out $1000 a month you're pornably drawing dead. If you're playing on a site in a semi-segregated market in a wealthy country you might have a chance.

You only need to take a look at some of the questions guys in the forum are asking about 2nl and 5nl hands to get an idea of what the environment is like these days.

I did notice the level of questions being asked even at NL2, but I wasn't sure if that's the 1 in a 1000 insanely-keen 18 year old kid who needs to treasure his $100 deposit, or is that actually what it takes to beat NL2 in 2018 on a tough site like PokerStars?

If it is, I am totally getting my ass handed to me at NL50!

Definitely depends on the site. 50nl on ACR, for example, is very tough--almost definitely tougher than most 200nl live games. I'm not judging, but it seems like you only kind of want to win, at least so your hobby won't be a money sink. I know that you said you're only a rec player, but most people who've really dedicated time to poker have started in the trenches of uNL, where bad beats are a dime a dozen and the maximum you can expect to make is less than minimum wage.

If you are playing on ACR, get a HUD/hand tracker and grind 10nl. It's a pain in the ass, but it will pay dividends. I've personally never played live, but my guess is that the ACR microstakes games are as tough as some live games... so in other words, if you really take the time, you'll eventually be destroying the larger live games too.

There are plenty of 2nl-10nl regs these days (and table selection is still the most important part of poker...) who have a basic grasp on GTO and other advanced strategies. Of course, there are a ton of fish too, but the point is that almost any non-rec/gambler player these days is going to be tough to beat.

Since you got money to drop, join Upswing. They quite literally have a blueprint of how to beat the micros. It'll take hours of studying though which idk if you're looking to put in but it'll help your game and perhaps make you a winner at $50 and higher or at least not lose as fast.

take coaching, one on one, you can aford it, it's best thing you can do, let someone look at your game. First, take DB analysis, and then record session and talk to your coach and let him see your thought process. Don't take to many session, few hours should be fine

Would you recommend Upswing over RunItOnce's Elite for $99/mo?

I haven't been a sub to RIO since Upswing launched in early/mid 2016 so I can't speak for today's content but to beat the micros, Upswing's > RIO.

I've been playing for 13 years now (on and off) and was playing NL200 late last year. The problem was, I know I was making bad decisions and being outplayed. I was rolled for the level, but I knew I wasn't nearly as good as I thought. I needed to address my game, find out where I was going wrong and look to start making intelligent decisions again.

I stopped playing cash for a little while, only playing MTT's and SNGs with varying success.

Earlier this month, I started playing cash again at NL2 and it's surprising how competent a fair chunk of the field is. I know you obviously want to be playing higher stakes, but why not take a few months to really strip your game back - forget about winning monster pots and instead just focus on playing some really well thought out poker, at a level where you're under no pressure, against competition that you'll find is pretty decent.

Ha, that's pretty true actually!

I do enjoy the game, and I want to put in some work and improve, but at the end of the day poker is 1 of many things I do for fun, it's not something I want to dedicate endless hours of work towards. I happen to be very into poker right now because I recently moved to a new city and haven't built up a good social network yet, and I live 10 minutes walk away from the casino (wasn't planned - my work is right beside the casino!)

Online games came up in conversation at the casino today. Several fairly competent regulars were talking about how they're in awe at how tough the online games are. Most of them stopped playing online, including one guy who claimed he was making 5 figures a year at online poker several years ago.

In the same vein, I think pure online players would be absolutely flabbergasted at how bad most casino players are! Ridiculousness like you wouldn't believe, especially on Friday/Saturday nights when half the table has a drink in their hand.

Sounds to me like I should give up the idea of playing winning online poker, and just be okay with donking off $50 here and there when I want to play some poker in bed, lol.

In that case, you should at least browse what RIO has to offer today. In the last couple of years, they've spent a lot of time working on micro/small stakes NLHE and PLO content. I'm like you in that I haven't tried the competitor (Upswing in my case) but I know that the essential to RIO has been ridiculously worth it's price ($25/mo) and I'm *this* close to picking up the Elite for $99 tonight or tomorrow as my sub needs renewal and there's a lot of content in there I want to watch.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I don't think Upswing helps themselves by insisting upon charging $99 for the first month and only then dropping to $50/mo past that point. It just makes customers commit without anything to sample and that turns a lot of people off. Further, they only offer the flat $50 a month recurring. If you want to work on high stakes content, where else would you go other than RIO right now? Believe me: I've looked and I'm all ears if someone's aware of a better training site.

I've seen Upswing has a NLHE course that costs $999 but obviously as a 10-25NL player right now I can't afford the $1k hit to the bankroll.

If you saw the way Upswing was setup as opposed to every other training site ever, you'd see why they insist that $99 for the first month. Doug has explained why in the past. I think it's a helluva bargain at $99. The purchase would easily pay for itself in a short amount of time if the customer puts the effort in.

The part in bold isn't true. They offer yearly subs for $499 and 6 month subs for $299. Right now there's a sale to get them for 25% off which makes them $375 and $225, respectively.

When the price was going up from $10 to $25 a few months ago, I thought about grandfathering myself in at $10 but I found it so lackluster when I did have RIO that I didn't think it was even worth that. Just a fwiw.

Elite is worth it for the Sauce vids alone. Everything else is just gravy.

Fair enough. I'll give it another good look before I sub to a site for this month. I've been on the fence about Upswing, anyway. As for their pricing: I understand they have different pricing options, I just meant that other than the regular sub (the Poker Lab) and their specialized courses, they don't have any tiered subs like RIO does. Not that this is for better or worse (depends on taste) but I was just mentioning it.

I've been looking at that Postflop Gameplan for a while and it's $7 so obviously I'll pick it up at this point and give it a look.

Yeah, I figure that was the case after I could no longer edit my post . Just didn't feel like bumping the thread. I also noticed that the first month is now $75 with the 25% off. I'm not sure how long the sale is though.

I subscribed to upswing a few days before and enjoy it. However, I find their ranges a bit loose. For example, J9s UTG seems a bit of a stretch for me with the high rake on stars. Should I tighten my range to what I consider reasonable? Or should I just study until I can profitably play their ranges?

Until you play something like NL100 I would always consider tighter ranges due to high rake around 10bb/100 for all microstakes on all sites. Except you have something like a good RBdeal

Imo the online game is much more difficult than the live 1/2 game. I've played online for the past 9 months and ive played cash 1/2 in various casinos. Online I'm a marginal player, playing 5-10nl on bovada. I feel like im crushing live 1/2 games. I never get put im as difficult spots live as online even at the micro level.

I think even if you are breakeven online and trying to improve, you should be light years ahead when playing live.

NL 50 online is equivalent to 5/10 live

Ok, so ...I could have just said nothing and that's probably the smarter thing to do here but I'm a pretty straightforward person and I thought I should post what I decided to do in the end. I have an Elite sub to RIO now. I looked at Upswing and RedChip extensively one last time and just know that RIO is better for me now and in the long run. I like pretty much everything about the site, it has tons of different coaches, and the level of strategy - as well as stakes they play - doesn't get any higher on any other site. $99/mo. is steep but not really once you start playing 25NL+ and I'm at that point now.

I think RedChip and Upswing are great sites and have a lot going for them but if someone was to ask me what the *best* training sub is right now: I'd have to say the RIO Elite. It's also the most expensive monthly sub available on these well known sites. As with many things in life: You very much seem to get what you pay for. The content you get on RIO for that price is immense, with 45min-1.5hr videos being added on a daily basis.

I don't really disagree with too much of that. I'd recommend people stay on Upswing until they're beating $50nl or feel like they're no long getting value out of it. Even by Doug and Fees' admissions, RIO is better when you're moving into the upper small stakes games. For the OP of this thread and most people reading, Upswing is certainly better.

How would you say the MTT courses fair in comparison to say RYE? I've been interested in investing going forward, but can't make my mind up. After watching a ton of Ben's content on YouTube, I'm leaning towards RYE, but I really like the Upswing stuff and have been going through the lab, so felt a bit torn.

I haven't gotten the MTT course because I'm a cash player . The few tournament videos that Doug has in the lab from 2016 are pretty good though. I don't even know what RYE is .

Fair enough mate.

RYE = Raise Your Edge.