Ozi's Guide to Table and Seat Selection (Very Long)

[OziBattler]

I was recently asked a while back to do a post about table and seat selection. Well, its taken some time but here it is.

This post discusses some techniques I use to do table and seat selection. I dont use them all the time so think of this as more of a brain dump. Its not perfect or absolute or brilliatly worded but thats ok...because this post is intended to make YOU think about how YOU select tables and seats so that YOU can apply it.

I have also compiled some examples for you to do either before or after (or both) you read this post. You can find the example post HERE

Tl;dr version: –
- Seat selection probably more important than table selection.
- Don’t need the best of it but avoid the worst seats and tables where practical.
- Pick seats that give good position on targets.
- Be prepared to change seats and tables if a better one arises.


Intro: You cant always get the perfect table or the perfect seat
Table selection is not an exact science. In an ideal world there will be a spare seat at the perfect table and that seat will be the best at the table. In reality you rarely get that luxury. In the real world you will also be zomg awesome at poker. In reality you probably aren’t…the point here is that good table/seat selection will not make you a winner if you suck at poker. If you suck at poker you should focus on getting better.

The great thing about it is that being good at table/seat selection is easier than actually being good at poker A good way to view table and seat selection is as something which, on average, improves your chances of getting a good seat and therefore improves your table EV. You don’t even have to be that good at it or that selective because…..if all you do is show a little selection and refuse seats at the worst tables or the worst seats then you still are getting it better than you were before.

I also want to say that I believe that seat selection is actually more important than table selection. I’d rather have the best seat at a reasonable table than the worst seat at a juicy table (yes there probably exceptions LDO). The best seat should lead to more chances to isolate ‘targets’ and less difficult decisions.

Getting Started – The Basics/Ideals
Its widely believed that you generally want loose fish, lags and maniacs to your right (yes, there is a counterargument for having a true maniac to your direct left) and tighties to your left. A quick google search such as “table selection holdem” should be all that it takes to find a few decent articles and guides to table selection. I will not post links to them here because most wont be 2+2 material.

Now I’m sure many people practice table selection which will likely contain many similar elements and methods. I have my own methods and techniques that work for me that I consider close to standard so Ill cover them now. I also believe that some real life examples will be very useful….youll find these below.

LET ME REITERATE THAT YOU DON’T HAVE TO DO ALL OF THESE THINGS cos doing so might drive you crazy and cost you table time, losing table time is losing pontential monies for good players. Even I don’t do them all the time but I can tell you that I basically always do some sort of minimal selection with minimum standards when sitting down. I suggest, like for the rest of this post, you take on board what works for you and adapt it as you see fit.

Anyway, heres the way I start a typical session
- Open sites, Pokertracker and Pahud and start datamining if possible
- When ready to play, open lobby and scan limit of choice in terms of Plyrs/Pot, Pot Size and Wait Lists
- Sort by Plyrs/Pot (eg Stars) if available or Potsize otherwise
- If not many free seats and/or long waiting losts, then start opening tables and joining wait lists…join MORE than you intend to play
- Since I normally 3-4 table and want to get playing asap I try and sit on 2 reasonable tables as soon as I can (ie ones with no wait list or that are shorthanded/fillingup)…I don’t need best position but I just don’t want the worst position if I can help it
- IF waitlists are long, be prepared to start new tables and let the fish come to you (this works even if you sit out and don’t sit in until its like 6+ handed)
- Hint: Don’t wait too long for the perfect seat….you don’t win monies by sitting out/waiting
- Remember that you don’t have to get the best seat…but it is often a good idea to avoid taking the worst 2-3 seats at a table unless the table is so juicy that any seat is profitable

A few pointers:
- The juicier a table is the more better seats there should be and the less fussy you should be
- Don’t always just aim for ‘The Best’ table(s) because all the other tags are probably doing the same thing and so it may not stay ‘The Best’ for long.
- I play offpeak and often in offpeak there isn’t much choice in terms of tables but I imagine that in peak times the best tables get pillaged by tags pretty quick…so sometimes go for the table that doesn’t SEEM as good but no one else seems interested in

During the session and/or once I’ve started playing 1-2 tables
- I continue to scan the lobby and tables I’m wait listed on join new waitlists/tables as required
- Look for fishy buddies or players with fishy stats at open and wait listed tables and mentally pick the best seat(s). This can be helpful because seat available notifications often pop up out of the blue and when multitabling it can be a little tricky to fully gauge the seat in the 3.5seconds between action on other tables.
- When I get the popup I usually take the seat and Ill post in CO if table is clearly juicy or wait til BB otherwise. When waiting to Blinds to come round I make time to quickly assess the seat again…do I want to stay?
- As a seat becomes available, unless the seat obviously sucks I sit and then take a few moments to assess it. This includes recheck the lobby stats for Plyrs/Pot and Potsize. Basically seee if that table still showing as juicy or have TAGs taken the place of the fish?
- When assessing the seat/table I compare it to other ones Im already playing at….is it better than other tables Im at? If yes, and at too many tables….choose one to ditch.
- Remember, that newly started are often very juicy and it should be fairly obvious as to why…..well, because tighties dont like and/or cant play shorthanded so instead they hit wait lists…action junkies just sit…they came to play not wait
- Hot Tip: Don’t be too picky…your target might be on his last orbit…hint: have multiple targets at a table
- When the table or entire site turns bad….get out of dodge unless you’ve got a clear reason to be there (eg whoring or desire to beat tough games).

Note: I realize all this seems like a lot and you might be wondering how the hell I get reads or actually play hands Im currently in? Well, I find that all these little actions that I take really can be done very quickly when I get a little table downtime or if Ive dropped a crappy table.. Its easy to scan the lobby, open a good looking table, join the table, join waitlist, minimize it then come back to it a bit later and look at the PAHUD stats.

So, what makes for a good table?
Q: What are your minimum standards for playing at a table?

Before I even talk about table and seat selection in more detail I want to say that I want to be playing against PREDICTABLE players. Predictable players lead to less tough decisions and less mistakes. Predictable and loose opponents are your bread and butter. Additionally, generally speaking I want position on unpredictable players.

Anyway, I have no hard and fast rules but once tables VPIPs are consistently <25% and potsizes are small (say, less 5BB) then that’s a good time to get out cos any edges will only be small and small edges are harder to exploit when multitabling. That and playing with nits isn’t much fun. Anyway, Ill look at a table makeup and assess. If the table is tight but Ive got good position on the 1-2 fish them Ill stay and exploit. If its 10 tighties then sit out.

I prefer to look for a high VPIP aka Plyrs/Pot rather than just search out high pot sizes because I know I can beat people who play too loose preflop and because on average those same players put in more bets postflop and even if they don’t they still can be outplayed.

I do also factor in Pot Size and look at it in conjunction with VPIP. Higher pot sizes come about because of a combination of betting and/or lots of calls or raising. On subtle point is that there are certain types of tables where seat selection becomes important. These can be the ones where there are a few players ‘giving action’. You want position on the guys giving action.

For example, often these type of tables have VPIP around 25-30% but the potsize is (6BB+) high. In these cases you probably have some sort of scenario where there are 6-8 tighties and 2-3 bad and loose players. Basically at tight or semitight and aggressive tables, getting a good seat is really important if you want to exploit the fish. Of course, this also depends on how good the tighties are

Tables that are like 30-40% VPIP And pot sizes of 6-8BB should be considered to be ‘juicy’…anything better than that is a bonus. Personally I tend to prefer to not play on a table when its VPIP is <25% and its average pot is <5BB because I find these tables are at best, marginally profitable.

Table Shopping?
Q: Do you continue to shop for tables and move to better ones while you are playing?

Yes, I table shop whilst playing whenever tables start to get tight. If Im sitting at 4 tables with 30%+VPIP and ave pot size of 5BB+ Im probably pretty happy and shop less, especially if Im well seated. The tighter the games are the more I shop. I check the lobby periodically because sometimes you gotta be opportunistic in getting a new table and seat. For example, it plays to be aware of when new tables start….the first 30-60mins of a new table can be very profitable if full of action monkeys, especially if you aint scared of shorthanded play.

Note that table shopping does tend to distract you from the tables you are currently playing which may affect reads so don’t overdo it. From a practical point of view you may just want to flick back to the lobby and take a few seconds to see if there are any really juicy tables with open seats or no wait list…..it shouldn’t take more than a few seconds to do this and shouldt hold up play too much.

Waitlists and Other Considerations
Q: but Ozi, wait lists suck and often make it hard to change seats/tables. What gives?
True, Waitlists can be a blocker to the avid table selector. Remember, you came to play poker and if you are actually good at it then you want table time.

If for some reason you are not happy with your seat at a table or the table itself then you should weigh up the pros and cons of changing. It may well be that you wont be able to get back on this table or that no other tables are much better and you would be better off continuing to play your current tables if you think you can profit at the table or staying has other +EV (eg clearing bonus).

Here are some things that I tend to do (much of this is a rehash of what ive already said in this post), and that I do more often when Im not totally happy with my current tables/seats
- if I want to 4 table I try and at least make sure ive got 2-3 tables where Im dealt in at all times but if Im playing my max number of tables then I am prepared to rotate out my worst table with a new table that appears better. If a table clearly sucks then it is often better to go to a new if somewhat unknown table as long as the lobby stats don’t obviously indicate it sucks.
- Sometimes you just have to suck it up and realize that it is also okay to not play your full quota of tables, especially if they are tight tables and require more reads etc to squeak out a winning session J
- Get on waiting lists even if Im not sure Ill take a seat (even if you only single table you can do this and if a seat comes up that you like you take it and sit out until you finish your orbit or whatever on the current table…remember you can usually sit out for like 3 orbits before you get booted)
- When a seat at a table comes available I assess it to see if it looks better than my current tables (this includes looking at what the lobby NOW says for the table plus who is at the table)
- If all table have big waiting lists…be prepared to start a new table (and if you don’t like playing really shorthanded then sitout)…and wait for it to fill with guppies etc
- Its better to get on tables with short waitlists….think about it, what sort of player joins wait lists and why do they do it as opposed to starting a new table?
-
Tip: One observation I’ve made is that whenever you see all tables for a given limit with big waiting lists this may well mean that the games are about to get tough…especially if the lobby shows they are juicy right now. This doesn’t mean you should quit or leave but if you are about to start a session you may find that it will take ages to get a seat, you often wont have much of a choice as to which seat you get and as such perhaps you should look at a different (in my case lower) limit or even a different site


Seat Selection

PLEASE UNDERSTAND THAT EVEN THOUGH I PUT TABLE SELECTION STUFF FIRST DOES NOT MEAN THAT IT IS MORE IMPORTANT. SEAT SELECTION IS PROBABLY MORE IMPORTANT BUT LOGICALLY YOU HAVE TO FIND TABLES BEFORE YOU FIND SEATS.

So, googling “seat selection holdem” should give some references that are better than what I can give so this section will be short but Ill expand on seat selection with practical examples as per below. I hope the examples are useful and relevant.

Anywho, in a nutshell, I want tighties to my left and fish, calling stations, lags, maniacs and loosies to my right. I focus more on getting position to the right of the above mentioned players than I do on getting tags in a position where I can steal my blinds because Im more likely to be playing most of my hands against the fish, lags and maniacs and when I playing Im often looking to isolate and exploit them.

Seat selection is a matter of balance and compromise. Sometimes youll have 2 bad players at opposite ends of the table or bad players sprinkled all over the table. In such cases it may well be that there are no perfect seats but no bad seats so you just sit and outplay your opponents.

My personal preference is that if I cant get perfect position on a player or group of players then I at least want to be in the same half of the table as them so Ill have position on them for a reasonable number of hands. Eg I don’t want to have a LAG in the 3 seats to my left if I can help it.

Ive been asked “Especially getting the right seats. With the waiting lines sometimes seen, how do you get the right seat? I hate when I end up with the TAGs to the right of me and LAGs to the left.”. My response would be to first ask you to think about how you came to be in that spot. Did players change and now your position blows or did you just choose poorly? In anycase, sometimes you can’t do much about it but at least try and not put yourself in tough spot in the first place. When faced with a bad situation, if the position is bad enough that it appears to be unprofitable then get up and leave the table, perhaps getting back on the waitlist to get a better seat


Some finer points
- Not all sites allow sorting or give all the data so you just gotta make do (eg party doesn’t give VPIP)
- When you look at tables in a lobby, understand that just because 2 tables have almost identical VPIP/Potsize does NOT mean that they are equal......it all depends on the makeup of the players at the table. (example below)
- Remember, don’t be took picky if all the tables and seats are good … when the action is there, even minimal table/seat selection should still put you in a +EV position
- Obviously, at certain sites you are limited in what you can do in terms of table and seat selection (eg if you cant datamine, cant run a hud or lobby doesn’t give you much information…..so sometimes you gotta do the best you can which may mean that you play an orbit or two and try and pick up signals that your seat or table sucks such as “no cold calls”, few SDs, few limped/community pots….


Some Seat Selection Examples

The following is some real life examples that I gathered from stars and fulltilt. Identifies hidden to protect the innocent. For the purposes of these examples Ive basically used stats as a guide…reads would obviously be great to have and should also be used when selecting tables LDO.

The PAHUD stats you see are
VPIP Total Aggro
PFR NumberOfHands
ColdCAll% W2SD%

The shadings on the tables are
Green = Best Seats
Orange = Reasonable/Mediocre Seats
Red = Worst Seats

Now, you probably wont agree with all my shadings, that’s okay, no need to be a total nit. Its not an exact science and you may prefer different seats based on how comfortable you are playing against certain players. I tend to do most of my selections based on VPIP/PFR/TotalAggro combinations.

You’ll probably note that on some tables there is lots of green and orange. I hope its clear as to why there are more potentially good seats on some tables than others. I wont comment on all my selections so if I don’t I hope it is obvious.
Its also worth noting that the shadings are for that table only. It is possible that a mediocre seat on Table A is better than the best seat on table B.

Example1 – “Reading the tables stats (pt 1)”


Table: Porthan:
This table is a good table. Seats 7 through 10 are very good seats because of the 3 semi loose players sitting in 6,7 and 8. The player in seat 3 makes it interesting due to his stats indicating laggy preflop play. Sitting in Seat 4 would allow hero to get a great seat on Seat 3. For me, the best seat would be seat 8 because if I cant get right next to Seat 4 then I am ok with being on the opposite side of the table to him…Seat 8 is sweet because it also gives sweet position on the two other green VPIPs at the table. Given table is running at 40% Players/Flop, Seat 6 and 7 really aren’t terrible….just not my preferred seat

Table Cornelia. This table is looking nice and loose (See lobby). I only have stats on 3 players at this table but that combined with the lobby stats indicates that this table is one I want a seat at…and I want it quick. Picking the perfect seat here is somewhat guesswork due to unknown players but Ill take Seat 1 and 2 in a heartbeat. If offered seat 7 and 8 and if other tables in lobby were reasonable then I might actually not take it because 7 and 8 are going to make it tough for hero to get into cheap pots preflop. That being said, all this could change after playing a few orbits.

Table Gismonda:
Based purely on PAHUD stats.At first glance at this table you’ll notice that you see mostly red stats and remember red = bad. So it sucks, right? Well, look closer, the table is showing as reasonably loose in the lobby which would lead me to suspect that the players I DON’T have stats on are potential fish. Those lobby stats don’t get like that with a tab full of tighties so someone is giving action!!!

I probably want seats 1-3 here but I suspect that Seats 6 and 7 could be good too…because I have a 500 hand preflop semi-lag in seat 5 who it can be advantageous to have position on. Basically, based on what I see in the lobby and the potential fish potentially spread out on the table, I’m not eliminating any seat as a bad seat at this table. I’d probably even just take my chances with the vacant seat

To be clearer, I’m not saying that all 4 of the unknowns are fish…..just that with those lobby stats there has to be someone providing juice for all the tighties at the table…and I’d want a piece of the action here so this table is one I would want to sit at.

Also a keen observer will note that Seat 10 is sitting with $383 at this 0.5/1 table. This could be a total donk or a high limit player blowing off steam. Good grinders don’t sit with this sort of stack. Watch out for players with really big or small stacks….if they are there to donk off then you may as well get position on them and take their monies.

Example 2 – “Rating my Seats”



This is a screenshot of me four tabling Stars 0.5/1. Ive been at the tables for a while now so have stats on most.

Lets assume that I can hit the pause button and rate the tables and seats

Table Pollux. This should be a no-brainer. If you can’t see why Im sitting pretty here then you probably just don’t understand how to read PAHUD stats! There are few bad seats at this table.

Table Wilhelmina. This table is not really good. It is tight, with the exception of seat 4 but it is pretty passive postflop and has a few passive postflop players. This table is however full of fireworks and should be reasonably predictable. My seat here is not great and I’d prefer to be in Seat 4. If I found a better table in the lobby this table would be ditched.

Table Kenos.
This table has 2 clear targets and my seat and does not appear to be great with respect to seats 3 and 4 however I have two unknowns (one with only 20BB) who appear to have just sat down so I would take my chances with perfect position on them. This table is definitely beatable.

Table Walvaren
Ok. So whilst the HUD shows table is 21/9 which ordinarily wouldn’t be great….this is a good example of those stats being somewhat deceiving. Sure the table has lots of red on it but hero has GREAT position on Seat 8. Hero will attempt to mercilessly isolate Seat 8 and outplay him postflop. Let me stress that IMHO getting a good seat at this particular table is very important because hero wants first piece of the fishy pie. If Seat 8 decided to leave the table then I probably would look for the exit as well.

Example 3 – “So Who's the fish pumping up the lobby stats?”

Table Burnham – before stat import
Okay, so at first glance this table appears to both suck and blow…..but lets take a closer look. When I opened this table, the stats you see were from a previous datamine and yet the lobby (See second image) was showing VPIP of 33% and average pot > 6BB…..hmmm…heres a clue..…there are 5 tight players and 4 unknowns.

Normally in such a situation either
a) All the fish just left the table
b) One or more of those unknowns are potential fish.

Based on the odds I would probably want a seat with position on as many unknowns as possible. Thus seats 6 and 7 would be preferred (note: I marked all seats as read in first shot to show that if you aren’t on the ball you might look at all those pretty stats, see all read and not even consider the possibilities J )

So, lets go ahead and datamine for a little while and see what we see…….


Table Burnham – after importing some stats.


Dataming done. BINGO!. ….look what we see!!!

Seat 4 is a huge fish and Seat 1 is pretty bad as well. Seat 7 has just been replaced and Seat 3 is not a fish.

I won’t comment specifically on the other tables in this screenshot except to say that you should notice that my preferred seating have changed in the before and after shots. This is entirely expected given the volatile nature of online poker and kind of demonstrates that even though selection is important it is never really absolute…and if you wait too long you’ll miss the boat. It should also serve as an example of why it is sometimes necessary to do some seat/table hopping.

The End
Always assess a table based on its merits. If you think that you have a table worked out and can beat it then that doesn’t mean you should leave just because your perfect seat is now just reasonable J

BTW, yes I apparently picked a good time to takes screenshot…these 4 tables are pretty good ones (that I picked at random) and it wont always be so great. Such is life. My point is that you should still be able to go through a logical thought process no matter what tables/seats are available

So, I hope you’ve gotten something out of this from a practical point of view.

Now it is you turn…go to THIS POST and tell me what tables and seats you would take and WHY

OziBattler

[MrWookie]

Holy crap, dude.

[RemyXO]

SHOCKED ... [img]/images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img]

[Dr. Matt]

I just sit to the right of you morans. That's my seat selection.

Edit to add... all of you are too predictable.

[OziBattler]

[ QUOTE ]
I just sit to the right of you morans. That's my seat selection.

[/ QUOTE ]

standard Str8fish reply to an ozi tl'dr post LDO [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Harv72b]

Let me first of all say that this is an outstanding post, and that I think every person who reads it owes you much thanks for your effort. It's impossible to stress just how important table & seat selection are for a winning poker player, especially when you're talking about online play (where it's so much easier to change tables/seats & to be selective about which you initially take).

I do have a couple of nits to pick, tho, purely in the interest of adding whatever I can to the overall thread. I don't think that anything you said in the OP (and I did read every word) was wrong, nor do I think that it would hinder anyone in the least if they just printed it out, kept it on the desktop next to their monitor, and used it as a checklist when starting their sessions. Seriously.

[ QUOTE ]
the point here is that good table/seat selection will not make you a winner if you suck at poker. If you suck at poker you should focus on getting better.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree 110% with the second sentence, and that should be (and probably is) the primary focus for anyone reading this forum. However, I don't completely agree with your first statement...if you suck at poker, but are great at table/seat selection, then you probably can be a winning player. The example I like to give goes something like this:

Stephen Hawking decides to take a few days off from solving the mysteries of the universe(s) and instead comes up with the perfect poker rating system. Every single poker player in the world is ranked, and darn it all, you wound up ranked 9th worst in the entire world. While you should absolutely be focused very intently on improving your game (and therefore ranking), if you somehow managed to sit at a table populated by the 8 players ranked worse than you, well guess what...you have a positive expectancy. Similarly, if you were ranked 9th best in the world, but for some bizarre reason chose to sit in at a table with the 8 players better than you, well hey--you're going to have a negative expectancy (although at that point you'd likely be more interested in learning from your play against the very best). Table selection is indeed that crucial to how well you do.

So why bother improving your game if you can just sit around & wait for perfect tables to come along? Obviously because you don't make money by sitting around and waiting...the better you get at the game, the more tables you can sit at & enjoy a +EV and the greater your edge becomes in those games.

[ QUOTE ]
- IF waitlists are long, be prepared to start new tables and let the fish come to you (this works even if you sit out and don’t sit in until its like 6+ handed)

[/ QUOTE ]

This point deserves a thread of its own. Many of the best tables that I've ever held a seat at were short-handed or non-existent when I first sat down there. In addition to the excellent point that you made about many TAGs not knowing how to play short-handed, you just have to understand the fish's mentality; a donor doesn't want to log on, scan the tables, find a good one, and then waitlist himself for 15-20 minutes until a seat opens up. He wants to gamble, and he wants to gamble now. So he's just going to go to whatever stakes he's decided he wants to play that night, pick the first table he sees that already has an empty seat, and plunk himself down there to start gambling it up. He's especially going to like it if the game is already going but there are seats open, because then he doesn't even have to wait for anyone else to show up & post a blind. Empty seats are fish magnets.

This, incidentally, is why I think it's a great idea for anyone playing .25/.50 or higher to at least get a feel for the 6max games. You can't fully exploit the fish (or the other TAGs) in a short-handed game if you don't understand how to play there, either. At stakes lower than those you're probably not going to have a lot of trouble finding good full ring games.

[ QUOTE ]
Table Burnham – before stat import
Okay, so at first glance this table appears to both suck and blow…..but lets take a closer look. When I opened this table, the stats you see were from a previous datamine and yet the lobby (See second image) was showing VPIP of 33% and average pot > 6BB…..hmmm…heres a clue..…there are 5 tight players and 4 unknowns.

[/ QUOTE ]

There's a much better clue to be seen immediately on that table--the Button just showed down 97o in a 10 BB pot, at least two BBs of which went in on the river with a straight showing on the board. He couldn't have posted preflop because he's the button. It couldn't have been a mass limpfest to him because the pot would be larger--looking at his hand compared to the board, there should've been fireworks at some point in the hand prior to the river (he flopped a pair + gutshot & then turned his straight, after all). Just from looking at that one hand I would consider him a loose (and probably bad) player, at least until proven otherwise. And just having 1 bad player is enough to get me on a waitlist.

About table stats: I still have them displayed on my PAHUD, but in all honesty it's just because I haven't gotten around to removing them from the setup. As you pointed out elsewhere in your post, they can often be misleading if not downright worthless towards your table rating. It's far better to look at the individual players at the table & try to get good position on the donors...I've sat at some insanely profitable tables before which probably had overall numbers in the 22/8 range. They were so juicy because they were comprised of mostly tight, ABC nits with 1 or 2 loose/horrible players in between; if you get position on the donor(s), then not only will you be able to outplay them all night long, but the nits will let you isolate on them for almost as long. Which brings me to another caution, but one which you shouldn't run into very often on microstakes tables: having position on one or two loose players can be offset, at least partially, if you have a very good & very aggressive player on your left. Because he won't allow you to just isolate on the donors free of charge, and will often counterisolate on you with some less than premium hands (to put things politely). The end result is that it can wind up being close to the same as having a LAG on your left...which is never a particularly fun (or profitable) scenario.

Oh, yeah...use buddy lists. If your poker site of choice doesn't offer one itself, dig around on the software forum & see if there's a free buddy list program out there which will work with it. Many a session of mine has been saved simply because I found one good buddy sitting at a single table.

One more time, thanks for taking the time to write this post out, and don't think for a second that I'm trying to counter any of your points, or to take anything away from the credit you deserve. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[OziBattler]

[ QUOTE ]
One more time, thanks for taking the time to write this post out, and don't think for a second that I'm trying to counter any of your points, or to take anything away from the credit you deserve.

[/ QUOTE ]

harv, thx and thankyou for such adding some very valuable content to the thread and expanding on some stuff I just left as points. regarding Table Burnham...nice spot...it is the sort of thing that I am/was also hoping for in my examples and ones to grunch. Sometimes you can see one thing at a table and be able to get an idea of somone. oh, the power of observation. now, please PM me your SN on stars and FT so I can make a note never to sit at your table. holla.

[Bona]

Wow. I knew this would be good. Thanks for remembering this topic and following through. Its going directly into my favorites list for periodic reread.

[MrWookie]

Harv,

Your Hawking example is a good one, but I will nit it up a bit and mention the rake. Even w/ you're a bad player w/ worse players, your edge against them might not be large enough to beat the rake. If you're not very good at poker, table selection still matters, but you MUST get better if you're going to beat the guy at the table that takes money from everyone: the dealer.

[Harv72b]

[ QUOTE ]
now, please PM me your SN on stars and FT so I can make a note never to sit at your table. holla.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's real easy--you take my 2+2 screenname & change nothing. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]