Climbing the Levels: How Players Evolve, 50nl-5000nl

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I've built my bankroll on UB starting at 50nl up to playing 5/10 now, with a more than comfortable bankroll. (I've played maybe 8k hands at 10/25, and a thousand or two at 25/50)

I'm just going to go through the differences that I see while rising in limits; feel free to let me know if I should amend them or if you feel they are off in any way. I have not played HU on any other site extensively so my ratings are based on UB only.

50nl:

-players have very little or no sense of even basic concepts; will stack off with top and middle pair and will rarely give up flush draws or open-ended straight draws

-shortsacks are usually nits; often folding down to their last dollar or two

-more than occasionally you will find an opponent who will simply open-shove whatever stack they buy in with

-raising ridiculous amounts like 8bb-100bb preflop with big pairs is most profitable against most players as they will just stack off with random air very often

100nl:

-players are a bit more hesitant to stack off but still you should happily stick it in with a flopped TPTK

-raising large amounts preflop still works; players splash and draw with little sense of pot odds

-the occasional nit will often blind very short but usually gets around to shoving his last $10 or so

-primitive trapping is developed, but two extremes can be seen: check-raising minimum and valuebetting huge hands small, and slow-playing early on in a hand only to make a maniacal overbet on a later street

-making plays for metagame purposes is generally not profitable at this limit as players rarely adjust at all

200pl:

-(there is no 200nl; but I found the PL games to be quite easy and stayed at this limit for a very very long time, earning more than 12bb/100)

-manipulating the pot button proved very profitable for me, I was able to make large valuebets and get looked up light

-plays with metagame intent can work but within reason; players do not adapt their gamestyles much, and mainly with calling frequency only. I played a very aggressive style early and then adjusted, I was delighted to find that almost always I would get looked up light for the rest of the match

-players are still making fairly wild stack-offs, playing draws very aggressively and often ending up calling off their stack making huge errors in terms of pot odds

-as far as continuation bets, players are still very easy to figure out, once you figure out how often they float, or if they only call with a piece of the board, you can adapt your continuation betting. It's very easy to do so and they rarely change their game so there is no reason to mix up your play too much

400nl:

-The second biggest jump in my opinion, players are becoming more sensible and not stacking off maniacally

-shortstacks are almost always donks, but will not blind themselves down; they will take a stand, often ill-advised but better than nitting themselves down to 3bb

-some sensibility is found in terms of slowplaying; however most players will not mix up their play and will do the same thing over and over with their monsters, bluffs are often spontaneous and less than prudent

-preflop raising should be standard-sized and it takes a bit of manipulation to figure out what continuation betting pattern you want to adopt, players sometimes adapt to your playing style

-maniacal stack shoving is almost non-existent, players are showing a much more educated playing style in terms of when to get their stack in, but there are still quite a few players who will not let go of top pair or a reasonable draw

600nl:

not a big difference from 400nl, there is a slight play increase and players are showing better adaptation skills

-plays made for metagame purposes can be very profitable and once this is mastered then the money will come flowing in. Being able to be one step ahead of your opponent becomes natural with practice, solid, unchanging play no longer works very effectively at this limit.. I would bet that one could be a winning player using that strategy but it is much more profitable to be able to manipulate opponents, adjusting and adapting to the guy across the felt.

-shortstacks are still awful, although simple manipulation will work better as they adapt just a little bit yet make huge errors and will shove a wide range of hands preflop

1000nl:

-the jump from 600nl is not as big as one would think, half-stackers are quite common and play is a bit tighter and more sensible, the maniacal aggressiveness has changed to a more prudent and conservative yet error-filled style

-metagame is very important, I still believe one can win without making plays with the intention of working against opponents’ adjustments, but if you can do this well then there is a lot of easy money ot be made

-shortstacks are still making errors and many of them will make wild reraises preflop, but their play has developed somewhat and simple trapping and solid play will work effectively

-some players are winners at 200pl-400nl, yet do not adjust well and if you are beating 1000nl for a full clip, you can maneuver and adapt to their style in order to get a reasonable edge; matches begin to be against players that have climbed in limits but have found the one limit they cannot beat

-I would like to mention that on UB there are still quite a few games that you can get at 5/10. I usually sit with a full buy-in at a couple tables and within 5 or 10 minutes I have at least one match

-one of the biggest differences between 400nl-600nl and 1000nl is that there are virtually no wild stack-offs preflop. I have played over 50k hands at 5/10 on UB and only twice have I seen someone toss a full buy-in preflop with absolute trash (one was J2hh and the other was A3o, I won both with KK and AA respectively, god I run hot)

-also 1000nl is one of the first limits where you really see professional regulars sitting. I just don’t see this same sort of thing at 600nl and lower, players sitting all day every day waiting for a game

2500nl:

-the biggest jump in my opinion. Most players are adapting and mixing up their play, constantly thinking. Even if you are crushing 5/10, you may be surprised at what is needed to crush 10/25. However if you are truly crushing 5/10 then you will be a winner at 10/25.

-metagame is imperative, I believe simply exploiting an opponents’ errors is not enough to show a profit without tremendous game selection, to the point where you must wait all day for a game or two

-shortstacks are tight and aggressive, beatable and losers at limits as low as 2/4 sometimes, but solid and occasionally tricky play should work against them

-many of your matches will be against players who are probably winners at 2/4 and maybe 3/6, but cannot deal with an adapting player at 10/25. If you are able to use metagame and good HU theory to your advantage, a good profit can be shown. More games will be against full-stackers, more than you have seen in lower limits

-there are a lot of pros at this limit. At any time of day you will see a minimum of two full-time professionals waiting for matches. Almost all of these players play on multiple sites, because it is fairly difficult to get games this high. Multi-tabling more than two tables is very difficult and only the best of the best can show a profit of more than 4 or 5bb/100 playing 3+ tables

-matches are scarce at 10/25; this is why I typically just play 5/10 and maybe sit at a 10/25 table waiting for a game

5000nl:

-more good shortstackers can be seen. Players that are beating 5/10 for a good clip and perhaps taking a shot are often your matches. Beatable, but solid all-around play is required as well as plays for metagame purposes

-third, fourth, and even fifth level thinking sometimes necessary, games are often pretty aggressive, but this isn’t nosebleed stakes so we don’t really see many snap-calling 5-bets with AJss preflop yet

-hit and running is less common and matches are generally long. A lot of your matches will come from 300+ hand matches against full-stackers who may be breaking even at 5/10 or even 10/25 but cannot handle the advanced play at this level and even may have some reasonable-sized errors in their game.

-games are rare. At this limit, most players are playing 6max on other sites and take what HU action they can get. I have not played much 25/50 but I often watch the games and I can see from the lobby how seldom they run. When I see them run it’s usually a deep-stacked full-buy in match.

-probably the biggest difference in 2500nl and 5000nl that I see is that more of your opponents that you see are guys taking a shot that are actually winners at lower limits like 600nl and 1000nl. But as they are playing scared and not making optimal plays based on the stakes, it isn’t as difficult to beat them as you would think, but it still requires quite a bit of good HU play in order to beat them

-one of the biggest reasons I see that players jump up to 2500nl and higher is because of the occasional whale that will come and throw 5 or 10 buyins at you. I remember seeing I believe _merkinking_ sitting at 50/100 and some awful player named poker20077 came and lost almost six figures. I think a significant portion of the smaller "high stakes" players' (2500nl-10000nl) winnings come from playing whales that would have trouble beating 400nl.

Although I haven't sat at higher than 5000nl, I have watched quite a bit of 10000nl-60000nl HU, and the winners at 20000nl+ online are the truly talented players that can find an edge against the best of the best 1000nl-5000nl players who have the illusion that they are beating 20000nl. Most of these nosebleed grinders have something special in terms of talent and I would guess that a lot of their income is generated from good and even great 5000nl players.

Anyways guys, this is just stuff off the top of my head, feel free to comment on things that should be revised/added. I would hope that this can become a sort of guideline for HU players trying to move up stakes, and I hope that it can be improved. Again this is a very rough draft and if you have something extensive you would like to revise in my evaluation, go ahead and PM me so we can discuss it. Thanks, I hope this helps.

[tmcdmck]

hey, really interesting post. i really love the idea of moving onto cash once i have a decent bankroll and sort out my tilt issues. this is really interesting and gives me a good idea of how realistic my ambitions are.

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I have a lot to say about tilt and other concepts that heads up poker tends to magnify, I plan on making a post in the next few days about some heads up cash game concepts that people really overlook. Stay tuned. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[higHstaKesOwneR]

this post is really nice [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

thanks for this!

i am waiting for the next post [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[People_Mover]

thanks for taking the time to post this up. lots of great information [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[bobdogbobdog]

EXCELLENT WORK !! *salute !

[hra146]

Interesting read.

When did you start out with NL50 and in what timeframe did this evolution take place?

[mb6tour]

Very good post, thanks!

[cwar]

I liked the post, I will say UB is completely different compared to like PS/FT tho.

[hra146]

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I liked the post, I will say UB is completely different compared to like PS/FT tho.

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as in softer or harder?