People think they are much better than they are. I'm pretty comfortable beating the stake and I'm awful. Like I do really basic shit pretty well and don't spew a huge amount (still make too many "hero calls") and the rest I just have a decent understanding of some poker concepts. If you looked at my ranges in a lot of spots I can only imagine how horrible they look to a good player. I also think my general style just fits well at the stakes I'm playing atm, like in certain spots I'm probably exploitable in a vacuum but because people spew so much postflop it's not as big a problem as it would be higher up.

I think people beat a stake and think they are the dogs bollocks so when they move up and get beat they just make up excuses rather than it's them being bad.

Also a lot of it is to do with people asking good players what's a good bb/100 and they get told 5bb/100 and assume that it means all stakes not 200nl+ type thing.