At what level did you have to expand beyond ABC poker?

Made the jump to 50NL FR after New Years and at first I was salivating at the number of fish at these tables. There seemed to be more here at odd hours and on weekdays than at 25NL for some reason. Well due to a lot of check raises and 3bets I realized I have to actually take time to analyze the board before I cbet even with one player ahead of me. I thought I could stroll into 50NL playing a 12/10/5 85%cbet (down from my 25NL 15/12/5 80%cbet) and be seeing good results considering the amount fish here but so far that is not the case. So with that said, what do you 50NL+ folks think is the cutoffs where ABC poker goes from profitable to break even to unprofitable?

i believe i read on here that you expand beyond ABC poker at 25NL??

i could be wrong but im pretty sure thats where it starts to get different is the jump from 10NL to 25NL

Hm based on personal experience I would say ABC poker still works well for 25NL and I only have about 3000 hands at 50NL. Any other input?

play 1 level ahead of your villians what level are they at? if you play over thier heads they wont even know and each table is different you have to know who your against

It really does depend on the time of day your playing and the site. For some reason certain sites attract stronger fields in general then other sites.
pokerstars seems to have the strongest fields of players for almost everything. Full tilt is very weak in comparison to poker stars. I play sit and goes and fixed limit holdem short handed or full table as specialities. I would say that in general the $1/2 fixed limit holdem tables on poker stars are harder to beat then the $3/6 fixed limit holdem tables on full tilt. I'm still researching which site is the best to play on for Rake back game availability and game softness. currently in transition and playing on Full tilt till I decide.

I have heard good things about the Ipoker network if you want to move up stakes for nl cash that may be your best place. I am looking at signing up to Titan who are on the Ipoker network because they offer very competitive rakeback (through vip program) and sign up bonus .

Everyone's definition of ABC poker varies a bit - but if we're talking about generally playing hands against the board and not trying to hand read Villain's ranges a lot, I think 50nl is definitely a limit where ABC poker is going to have its problems.

FR tends to be a more passive format in general than 6max, so I may be wrong about that for FR - but at 50nl 6max you're going to see more pf and postflop aggression from players basing their decisions on estimation of ranges/board texture/Villain playing style than at lower limits.

Again, not sure about FR, but I see a lot of 100nl 6max regs playing 50nl as well, these guys are definitely looking to take advantage of TAG's and tight passive players at 50nl.

the only problem is that there is no rakeback on the ipoker network which is a big turnoff for me

DoubleAA80 said:

the only problem is that there is no rakeback on the ipoker network which is a big turnoff for me

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non sequitor itt...

slycbnew said:

Everyone's definition of ABC poker varies a bit - but if we're talking about generally playing hands against the board and not trying to hand read Villain's ranges a lot, I think 50nl is definitely a limit where ABC poker is going to have its problems.

FR tends to be a more passive format in general than 6max, so I may be wrong about that for FR - but at 50nl 6max you're going to see more pf and postflop aggression from players basing their decisions on estimation of ranges/board texture/Villain playing style than at lower limits.

Again, not sure about FR, but I see a lot of 100nl 6max regs playing 50nl as well, these guys are definitely looking to take advantage of TAG's and tight passive players at 50nl.

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Yup I am finding that out the hard way.

You can play beyond ABC poker at $2NL. There are just less spots for it, and the spots are quite different from the spots at higher stakes.

For example, there's nothing ABC about getting 3 streets of value out of mid pair, but there are certainly a lot of opponents who will let you do that at $2NL.

that chiren80 guy 24 tables 100nl. he is a breakeven player too. i doubt he's plays more than ABC poker.

slycbnew said:

Again, not sure about FR, but I see a lot of bad 100nl 6max regs playing 50nl as well.

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FYP.

Good 100nl regs won't drop down to 50nl unless they want to fix their HUD or try a new multitabling script. I've never seen the games not being juicy at 100nl, so there's no reason ever to drop down unless you can't really beat the game in the first place.

BelgoSuisse said:

FYP.

Good 100nl regs won't drop down to 50nl unless they want to fix their HUD or try a new multitabling script. I've never seen the games not being juicy at 100nl, so there's no reason ever to drop down unless you can't really beat the game in the first place.

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Granted, but it's relative - the regs I see playing both limits are generally hyper-agg, which can be difficult for players moving up from 25nl to play against.

I've played a fair share of $50 NL and ABC poker (at least the C bet factor) does not work there. What I've found to be effective so far is if you are on an over aggressive table and see someone C betting, trying to steal you're blinds, etc., let them get away with it once or twice then slam them with a nice raise or even a re-raise - and don't even look at your cards when you do it - I guarantee you that works about 90% of the time. Once you get the respect of the table, go back to playing good, TAG poker, if it looks like you start getting pushed around/sucked out on/bluffed, etc. again - wait until you have the absolute nuts, slooooooooooooooooowwww play and nail the agrros on the river.

And remember, a lot of these players love chaising - pay attention to the board - so you may have to fold your pocket rockets to an all in river bet once in a while (if all the money isn't already in by then)....lol.