How often do you leave a great game due to a poor seat?

[QTip]

Man. Some good responses and thoughts in this posts already and a great topic.

Whether it's right or not, I know that there were countless time when I left a very juicy table because of my crappy seat. Something I've not seen in this thread is how it seems online plenty of tags that had the same folks on the buddy list and followed them around the same way I did. Then you end up facing plenty of iso raises and so forth. It just makes for a wild ride.

Of course, these things all depend on the type/number of fishies and the type / number of players that make my seat sucky.

I guess outside of saying "cool posts here", I just wanted to add that I always noted very better results with a couple fish and great seat than many fish and a sucky seat. Always hated to do it, but I'd find another game and get a good seat.

[Bob T.]

[ QUOTE ]


You seem to be saying that since Joe plays better than the majority of us, his EV should be higher than ours at this same table--making it even more likely that he would stay, rather than leave. But the fact is that Joe allegedly claimed he would leave this type of table, which he would likely not do unless he usually felt that:

1) He thought there was another game with a higher EV, and/or
2) His predicted +EV for remaining in the game OOP would not be worth his time or effort to continue playing.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm one of the try and get a better seat guys, and a couple of days ago I put in a hurried post in this thread, now I have a little more time, so I thought that I would maybe fill in a couple of details.

To me, the difference is, do I want to play uphill, or downhill. If you are headsup, and you have position, it is like you are getting 7 to 5 odds on a hand, because you get to act last, and you get to decide whether or not you put in a big bet on the river. If however you are out of position, you need to put the last big bet in, and you are laying your opponent 5 to 7 odds, because they make the last decision. (if your confused about why I chose those numbers, it is because those are the typical number of small bets that each player puts in on a typical hand.)

The players that say that they can make money with the loose players on the left, are probably going in to each hand with a 3-1 or 3-2 advantage over the loose players on most hands. So lets do a little arithmatic.

If you are a 3-1 favorite, and you lay 5 to 7, you will win 15 units, and lose seven. If you are a 3-2 favorite, and lay the odds, you will win 15, and lose 14. If we do sloppy math, and say that on average, we are a 2-1 favorite, over time, we will win 10 units, and lose 7. That's good, that's a profit of three units. Profit is good, and you are winning in this game.

Now, lets look at what happens if we have position in this game. We enter the pot, as a 3-1 favorite, and we get 7 to 5 odds. ( I love getting odds when I am the favorite [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]) We win 21 units, and lose 5. As a 3-2 favorite, we win 21 units, and lose 10. If we do the average thing again, we win 14 units, and lose 5. We are profitable in this situation again, but a lot more so. If we are going to play, why not play in the situation, where there is a lot more profit, and a lot more margin for error, because I play far from perfect poker, and more margin for error is better. Some of you that play perfect poker, however, can probably survive narrow margin for error situations [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img].

There are a couple of other things that make it good to have the loose players on your right. If they are on your right, they can get in the pot for one bet, and then have to pay one more after you announce that you are playing. Except for maybe the worst of them, they learn that when you open raise, you mean business, and they throw away some of their horrible hands, when you face them with two bets, so you don't get to play against them as often, if they are on your left.

I also lose some of my weapons, with loose guys on my left. One of the things that I do, is win a lot of blinds. If I have lose guys on my left, I can't win them without a battle, (although if they are in the blind, at least I have position on them for this hand. )

The second problem is that I don't get to play from the effective button as often, and I can't use the Freecard/valuebet raise as well if I am in early position, because if I get called by two or three players, and am out of position, I have to give the value back on the turn, either in the form of a deceptive bet, or I check, and have to call a bet anyway. From late position, I have the choice of taking the freecard, or trying to win the pot. The loose guys on my left take that play away, except when I really have the button.

After the loose guys on my right have entered the pot, I can make a very good decision about what to do with my speculative hands, because I have a good idea about how many players will be in the pot, and how many bets I might be willing to play this hand for preflop.

From immediately behind the loose players, I also have FROI ( First Right Of Isolation.) Imagine this scenario, one loose guy limps, I raise, and the next player has AJo, Does he want to threebet? Coldcall? Puke? He knows that my raising range here is a little bit wider, but investing a lot of money with a hand like AJo feels a little too speculative for him, and I might win extra hands, because my ATo is a better hand, if I am the first tight player to have a chance to enter the pot.

All in all, I think it makes a lot of sense to be playing to the left of the weak players.

[Harv72b]

Bob,

I don't think anyone in this thread is arguing that it's better to have the loose players on your left. The argument, at least for me, stems from whether the theoretical advantage we gain by reseating ourselves is worth the EV we lose by taking ourselves out of the game for an indefinite amount of time. If there's a seat available on the donkey's left and there's no waiting list, then of course it makes sense to change seats.

Say that your math is precisely dead on & ignore things like overall sample size & luck & whatnot, and we have a 2:1 expected advantage vs. the bad player. By reseating ourselves we earn approximately 6 additional units in EV. But is that worth it if, while we are waiting for our new seat, we miss 25 hands? If the fish busts out or gets tired of playing while we're waiting? If we accept a much smaller skill advantage, but with position, on another table?

[Dagger78]

Online games this good just don't seem to happen all that often lately. I don't think you can leave even though you have the worst possible seat. If by chance a seat opens that would allow you to move do so, but otherwise, chalk it up to variance and move on.

Sure you'll be earning less than acting behind the calling stations, but I still think it's going to be more profitable than your average 3/6 online game.

[Bob T.]

Harv,

I was just trying to give players a sense of how powerful I think sitting on the left of the loose money is. I play a lot on UB, and Full tilt, where an actual seat change is possible, and I make seat changes frequently in those games. ( ok, so I don't play on UB as much now, because of there last software change. )

But I really do think that a good seat behind a moderately bad player, is worth more to me than a seat in front of the worst player on the internet. I usually will continue to play in the 'bad seat', only if I am within a couple of laps of the end of my session.

Also, I was assummng that the weak player that we are talking about here is the 'calling station' variety. I don't mind having LAG's on my left, because I have the opportunity to checkraise the entire field, or I can induce bluffs on the same street.

[fishyak]

I think this discussion also draws another distinction between the online guys and the live guys. On a busy Friday night at the casino, I am not taking a chance to jump to another table under these conditions. It would be unusual for me to have to wait more than 1 hr. to get a seat change at the table. Just be first to toss a coin at the empty seat and its yours. Seat mobility is relatively easy at Commerce casino.

Online seat changes appear to be much more difficult than table changes. AND you can go into a table change w/ info. about opponents that live guys rarely have unless you have enough experience to target known fish. Last Sun. it took me about 2 hours to work my way to a table with known fish and I worked my way from -15BB to +10BB by making that change. But usually, I'll know far more about the players at the current table than the one I would jump to.

And as to other comments, yes, of course, I would rather have the loose money on the right, but when there are 2+ active fish at a table for 2/4 - 4/8, I am looking for a way to make that table home for a while. The only reason to leave is known, proven, difficult players (PLURAL, I can work around one. We can share the fish.) also present.