Talk to me about table selection

[Quicksilvre]

Back in the day when I was still playing, I didn't pay any attention to what table I was sitting at, with the exception of what limit it was and what game it was. I think the most sophisticated table selection thought I had was, literally, "ZOMG it's New Year's Eve, all the drunks are going to come and play." Not very effective.

So tell me, how do you guys tell if a table is soft? I half-remember that a table with an excessively high average pot size is supposed to be good, but I'm not sure.

My planned limits were:

$.50/1 LHE
$.50/1 and 1/2 LO8
$.05/.10 NLHE
$.05/.10 and .10/.25 PLO8

all on PokerStars, in order of the games I would play the most (esp. LHE).

Thanks in advance.

[dedenburn]

It's hard for someone else to tell you what's the best game for you. Some players are best in aggressive games, some in passive ones.

My experience is LHE---
Generally, a table with >30-35% of players seeing the flop is pretty loose.

Look at pot size combined with that number to determine aggression. If 2 players average to the flop, but the average pot is like 20 BB, then watch your ass.

Basing your judgement only on pot size is a bad idea...a table full of experts will often boast some pretty big pots, because almost all experts are extrememly aggressive.

Check out Gary Carson's book for a great discussion about game and seat selection.

Hope this helps.

[hennnerz]

Terry Tibs - Talk to me!

[numbnuts007]

I use Poker Tracker and PAHUD for my table selection. I have a good sized database. I open up several tables and let PAHUD display all the players stats. If the table has a VPIP of 25 or more for full ring LHE i get on the wait list. You can just use the players to flop percentage that the site provides but you have to account for the fact that 30% players to the flop is different than 30% vpip for the table. The way I do it is kind of slapdash but it's better than just picking tables at random.

[OziBattler]

this is a post I wrote recently about how I do table and seat selection. feel free to bump the post if you like it (shameless self promotion FTW). Post is tl;dr, contains excellent replies by Harv and obviously geared towards limit (Ive had some interest in posting a form of it in NL full ring but dont play much NL and dont have any decent examples and probably couldnt tailor the content to be NL specific well enough so if any experienced NL vets want to do conversion of it to NL then pls PM me), uses PAHUD alot but the micro limit guys liked it. enjoy.

[Quicksilvre]

Thank you! This is exactly what I was looking for.