- How to Pick the Best Poker Table. Finding the best table to play at is a skill in itself. Normally, table selection doesn't come into play if you're accustomed to playing in anything but big casinos, where you might be able to select your table. Most of the time however, the floor man directs you to a table to be seated at and that's it.
- How to Beat Variance in Live and Online Poker; How to Find the Best Seat at a Poker Table. There are 3 main things to consider when finding/picking a live poker table. Personal Comfort. The first thing to consider with seat selection is your personal comfort. If you're not comfortable you won't at the top of your ability.
Home } Uncategorized } Table Selecting In Poker – Why It Matters
There has been a lot of chatter lately in the poker community about poker table selecting. I have discussed the topic before in my post on poker bumhunting, but I think that it is worth revisiting. This is a kickoff post for me since I will be exploring the topic of poker software in the coming weeks. Poker software, is increasingly linked to table selecting (due to the prevalence of scripts.
Mike Caro Exit Note: Not at the old Poker1 site. A version of this entry was originally published (2011) in Bluff magazine under the title – The Myth of the Magic Poker Seat. I’ve seen three people die playing poker. One man was sitting next to me on my left, another to my right. Continue reading Selecting and changing seats at poker. Finding right method for poker seat selection. Jun 14, 2016 3:00 AM Irene Edith. Many poker players are never satisfied with their seats at the table. They often change their seats when a seat.
What Is Poker Table Selecting?
Table selecting is the act of selecting a table and a seat. In online poker, table selecting is a bit of an art. Most partially understand the importance, but many don’t focus enough on it. Unfortunately, poker is a zero sum game (with a large rake being withdrawn) and that makes it very difficult to win at. Unless their is significant value in the game or their is an incredible rewards program it is difficult to be profitable. Following the recent PokerStars VIP Changes it is even more difficult to win without a weak player around. Poker networks all over the world have been cutting back significantly on player rewards, which has had the effect of intensifying poker table selecting.
Table Selecting Techniques
1) Poker Lobby Scan. Scanning the poker lobby for big pot size and/or percentage is a good starting point.
2) Start New Tables: This is one of the oldest and most effective ways to find action. Often if you start a new game a weak player will come an join.
3) Search For A Player: At high stakes games in particular this is a very popular technique. Note, some websites have eliminated the search box.
4) Computer Software In Poker: In today’s games computer software has become increasingly popular for table selecting. You can expect a post on me in the near future where I discuss this in further detail. This is the cutting edge of table selection in online poker today and is highly controversial.
Poker Table Selection and The Poker Ecosystem?
A lot has been made about the effect that poker table selecting has on the poker ecosystem. I do not feel that poker table selecting has had a significant effect on the volume of poker being played. Obviously, if a bunch of regulars would just sit and play each other (all basically losing) while the house made money on the rake, volumes would be higher. However, this is simply not a realistic expectation.
IMO, the intensity of poker table selecting in today’s poker environment is more a product of the poor position of today’s poker economy than it is the cause. Lots of player (in particular on two plus two) seem to love to run around trolling about how table selectors are causing the downfall of poker, but that is so far from being the case. Best to think of it as the symptom not the disease.
How The Poker Economy Broken
For the past decade there has been a fundamental problem with how many poker operators run their businesses. Instead of recognizing the need for recreational players, they focused on high volume regulars. This led them to compete against each other to give out the most in player rewards to players who were in many cases already significant winners at the game. Poker operators would have been far better off reinvesting those dollars toward recreational player rather than wasting them on regulars. If we look today at one of the networks that has had the most success growing their business it is Bovada. Their model is much more attractive to rec players (no rakeback for regs, max 4 tables, and fully anonymous).
Poker Seat Selection Game
In my article on Daniel Negreanu Leaving PokerStars, I referenced an interview he did where he basically said the exact same thing that I am. A classic example of the broken model is that many operators are raking microstakes games at an absurdly high level and rapidly driving away new players. Over the next 5-10 years I would expect a significant transformation to take hold across the poker industry. Only once this broken model is repaired will we once again start to see growth in the industry – dare we dream for another poker boom…..
Table Selecting Strategy
Seat selection is incredibly important in online poker. Players should sit as close to the left of a weak player as possible. Why? Because it will allow you to maximize the # of times that you are able to play pots against this weak player with position. As we all know position in poker is incredibly important. In many ways your position matters more than your absolute hand strength. Ideally you will be able to play in a highly exploitive manner with position against a weak player.
I discuss position and exploitive play frequently in my book exploitive no limit holdem. A great deal of poker literature in recent years has been focused on GTO poker, which has led many players to take their eye of the ball of what is important. I am a huge fan of GTO (but its applications are limited), and I have found through many years of experience in this game (see my article a Insights After A Decade In Poker) that the more creatively and exploitively a player thinks about the game the better they will do.
5 Table Selecting tips In Poker
- Snipe the “Jesus seat” An important part of table selection strategy involves getting the Jesus seat. You will frequently hear this term and it simply refers to the seat to the immediate left of a weak player. It is the most profitable or least unprofitable seat (depending on your perspective) seat to be in. Generally the only way to get the Jesus seat is to have tables up already. When a weak player is seated grab the seat to his left.
- Seating Scripts – these have become increasingly common and necessary at all stake levels. I did a product review for Need-4-Seat as they have a pretty good seating script.
- Table camping, which I have written a post on in the past.
- Seat hopping at short handed tables. If there are only 3-4 of you at a table and a weak player shows up, switch seats to give yourself a better position at the table.
- Computer software that identifies weak marked players. There are a number of companies that do this.
Best of luck at the tables! Oh and please pickup a copy of my book :).
-ThePokerCapitailst (No nonsense, no ads, straight talk on poker)
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You will see many novices join any available online poker table to start playing their favorite ring games without putting any thought into what table or seat to pick. Many online poker players don’t consider that there’s a process to it all, and it can be just as important as playing fundamentally solid poker.
Experienced grinders know that there definitely needs to be some thought put into choosing the best ring game tables and seat positions as some tables and seats are better than others.
When selecting online poker cash games you would like to play at it is always good to consider a few things with the first consideration being given to the limit you’re comfortable playing at.
It’s of utmost importance that you always be properly bankrolled for the games you’re playing, as this will allow you to play optimally without playing with scared money. It is also good to know that you can beat a certain limit before moving up in stakes. Utilizing smart money management and knowing your opponents is the best way to stay in the game long-term and become a profitable player.
Studying Your Opponents’ Stats and Flop %’s
Another thing that is good to do whenever you’re deciding what cash game table to play at is to look at the percentage of players who are seeing the flop as well as the average size of the pot. You can always see these table stats because they’re the usual statistics displayed next to each table.
Incredibly enough, many online poker players choose to totally disregard these stats when the fact of the matter is that any winning online poker player should be taking them into consideration. The players/flop percentage and the average pot size are very useful because they will tell you whether a table is loose or not. The higher these numbers are, the looser the table is, and the higher the chances the table will be packed full of terrible players.
Poker Seat Selections
Pretty much all online poker sites show detailed player statistics for each table, the difference being that not every room will have loose tables. It depends on the kinds of players the poker room attracts. If a lot of cash game grinders play at the site because there are plenty of tables and games being spread, the play can be a bit tighter and more solid, but at a softer poker site, you will never have much difficulty finding a loose table to play at, with players/flop percentages in the range of 50-60%, which are always going to be incredibly juicy.
Recognizing Aggressors and Stack Sizes
With that being said, finding the best cash games doesn’t end with finding a good table. When you’re playing cash games, there is such a thing as a bad seat at a good table. In fact, it could even be said that seat selection is more important than table selection. This is especially true if you’re playing at the micro stakes, where you’re basically guaranteed of having some bad players at your table.
But you want to have position for the majority of the hands you play on the targets at the table. Generally speaking, you want to have tight straightforward players seated on your left and calling stations, fish, aggressive players and maniacs who like raising and re-raising a lot on your right. Reason being that the aggressive players will be very active and can make life difficult for you when they’re on your left.
Poker Seat Selection Chart
But with them on your right they have to act first in the hand, the only time this isn’t true is when they’re on the button and you’re in the small blind. Also, by having position on the weaker players at your table, it makes it much easier for you to isolate them and outplay them after the flop because fish usually play fit or fold poker, and a continuation bet will often take down the pot even when you miss.
For the same reason, having short stacked players on your left is also less than ideal. A lot of short stackers will buy-in to the game for 30-50bb. There are different types of short stackers, but the aggressive ones will be shoving all-in preflop a lot, meaning you will have to open a bit tighter than you would normally, which sucks because you can’t play a normal deep stacked game expecting to see the flop.
Utilizing Poker HUD’s (ie Holdem Manager or PokerTracker)
Obviously, when you first sit down at a poker table, you can’t expect to know how each and every player at the table will play. You’ll only know this if you have player notes or use a poker HUD and have some history with a regular.
Poker Seat Selection Rules
![Poker Poker](/uploads/1/3/4/1/134188192/431857635.gif)
But there are some good “fish” indicators that suggest that someone probably isn’t very good and you would hope to get position on these players. A good one being if you see a player post their blinds before waiting for the big blind to come around to them, is usually a sign of a bad player. Weak players also don’t usually make use of auto top-up.
When all is said and done, if you can’t sit down at a ring game table and have mostly TAGs to your left and LAGs directly to your right, then you want to find another ring game to play at. But the great thing about online poker is that there is usually always plenty of cash game action, it’s just a matter of finding the most suitable table/seat. You may not be able to locate the perfect seat at the perfect table, but if you put some thought into the process of table and seat selection, it will have a huge impact on your overall winrate.