Message Board : Climbing up the limits

Hi all!

This is a question to the players who have some experience in moving up the limits and some longer experience in poker (more then a year).

I noticed a strange thing when I started playing $1/$2 (I'm talking about limit holdem, but I guess it may be even more true for no limit). The game is not tougher then $0.25/$0.5 or $0.1/$0.2. I was surprised with the bad players and even more surprised with completely idiotic plays… like Steve Badger says on his site 'the good, the bad and the idiots'. I've witnessed some crazy plays in my earlier games, but honestly I haven't seen much comparable to the action at $1/$2 at the lower limits.
How comes??
I was playing lower for quite a time because I assumed I'm going to run into good players at the higher stakes. Now it looks like the things are quite the opposite, like there were more players willing to learn the game at the lower stakes making the game tougher.
Does anyone have similar experience? I'm asking also about no-limit, cause I'm just hitting the game

I'd like also specially hear Your comment, Ed…

thanks to everyone in advance and good cards and best of luck!

Pawel 

Thanks for reply!

I don't play shorthanded, my questions were related to full ring table.

The time EST - ?? between 2 and 6 pm is it the night in Europe? or the daytime?
I  live in  Europe so I can play on all the european sites. The games at FullTilt, PokerStars and UltimateBet appear to be slightly tighter then the ones at nonUS sites, but generaly they're close.
The bonus grinders play between the midday to late evening, and well… they're really weak players. They play junk face cards or any two and they habitually limp with what they should raise and they call down my raises (they have to cause I sometimes raise strange holdings, just as much to leave them uncertain )
After (hopefully) we get a few more responses I will post how I'm doing (I think I played enough hands to have the results quite representative)

yea, I have over 20K

I think Todd's post is pretty spot on.  There is a certain point where you will start seeing players get good and aggressive/tricky.  However, until that point you will just notice players not making crazy mistakes.

In my own experience in online LHE you will probably start noticing a difference at 2/4 if you haven't already at 1/2. 

Often there's not a lot of skill difference when you move up just one or two rungs on the limit ladder. And frequently the skill level of your opponents even regresses somewhat when you move up a limit.

I think the effect is particularly strong live. On a "good" day, every game in the whole room all the way up to $200-$400 (or whatever) will be soft… perhaps even as soft as your $1-$2 online game. And on a "bad" day, the $200-$400 will be very tough, as will the game below it.

And sometimes the games will get more aggressive when you move up a limit or two, but be just as beatable.

So don't assume that games uniformly get harder and harder as you move up the limits. Don't worry so much about the stakes, and just watch what your opponents do. That's a much better barometer of how tough the game is. 

I don't know your exact circumstances, but I think what you're seeing may well be legit.  I think there may be a social phenomenom in play here. 

I (and apparently other players) had a theory that the lowest limit games would be the weakest, and would get progressively more difficult as the limits increase.  And this would be the case if virtually everybody thought about poker the same way you did (that you should "graduate" at a limit before moving up).  But not everyone thinks the same way.

There are plenty of poker players who like to gamble.  And to them, the selection of a limit is not based on where they have the skills to dominate, or at least compete.  They play at the level that makes the stakes "interesting" for them.  They only have to be good enough at that level to win on occassion.

At my local cardroom, the $2-$4 is almost always a tougher game than $3-$6.