Game Selection

[Marb2k]

Hi everyone,

Ive just been reading up on poker a bit, and ive heard this term used a bit. I know it means you play at the table with the most optimal conditions, but what are these conditions?
Large/small pot size? Lots of money on the table? Lots of hands per hour?

I really have no idea. Is this even an issue at 25NL?

[Wu36]

Not really. Sitting to the left of a really bad player with a deepish stack is a good start though.

[blackize]

I think game selection is important even at NL25. A lot of times I'll sit down at a table where everyone has a VPIP of 10-25. Those are sooooo boring and not terribly profitable. Then there are the tables where you have the loose fish to your left and it's possible to make money off them but its not terribly easy. So I try to find tables where I will have a fish or two to my right and a nit to my left. Steal blinds to stay alive and play big pots vs the fish in position.

[Panthro]

Everyone will have their own opinion on this, but I prefer to have the looser/higher VPIP/more aggressive/bigger stacks to my right (so I can play bigger pots with them in position), and the tight/weak-tight/predictable/smaller stacks to my left.

[RAHZero]

[ QUOTE ]
Everyone will have their own opinion on this, but I prefer to have the looser/higher VPIP/more aggressive/bigger stacks to my right (so I can play bigger pots with them in position), and the tight/weak-tight/predictable/smaller stacks to my left.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is usually the way to go, though you can take it a step further. You want unpredictable players on your right and predictable players on your left. However, this can mean that you want the LAGs to your left, if their aggression is so predictable that you can simply check-raise the field every time you hit a hand. I also find that bad LAGS having position on me can be very profitable. I just check-call down, and my repeated checks convince them that they have a shot at bluffing me out of the pot. So sometimes it pays to have aggressive players to your left, as long as they are not selectively aggressive.