Difference between .5/1 and 1/2 (not what you think)

[John Paul]

Hello,
I was looking at the part of poker tracker where it lists all of the different hands and their stats (AA,AKs, AKo etc) and I got to wonder how these differ between levels.

Everyone seems to agree that your winrate goes down as you move up. So how does this look at the hand level? Do premium hands win less often because your better opponents aren't making bad folds? Do you win less per hand as fish aren't chasing hopeless draws? Or do some hands that were marginal just become -EV? Or all three?

I don't have a big database at 2 levels - but if folks out there have them I would be curious to see for a variety of hands the win% and bb/hand. Even if sample sizes won't be the best, it still might be interesting.

Thanks
John Paul

[Arnfinn Madsen]

Would be interesting to get actual data. My best guess is that suited hands perform relatively worse in 1/2 than .5/1.

[cmwck]

You will be long gone from the 1/2 level before you get enough samples to draw any conclusions about the performance of any particular hand ; therefore, discussion on the individual hand level is pointless.

The key is how people play at 1/2 compared to .5/1.
At a 1/2 full ring game, depending on the site, people play fewer hands ; you must change your hand selection and PF raising strategy to fit your opponents, which is true of any level.
You can find some 2/4 games where you should use an identical strategy that you would use at .5/1

To answer your specific question somewhat, it is true that your winrate goes down as you move up. So, some hands must be losing more / winning less than others. If i had to guess, I'd say the value of speculative hands like suited aces and connectors goes down. You just won't have enough implied odds to play these types of hands because your good opponents will fold before they pay you off.