Pooh-Bah Post: Table Selection and Regulars (Why Im not at ur tables)

[pdoran10]

Ok, so maybe these players aren't anything special, but clicking to sit down at the first available table is really stupid.

Throughout the last 5 months I can say without a doubt one of the most important lessons I have learned about poker is to find tables that I have the largest edge at. I finally made the transition to middle stakes this month, but that was before hundreds of thousands of hands of small stakes on Pokerstars. One of the biggest flaws in the typical, solid 21/17 player's game at nl200 was that at any time of the day, I could log on and find four to six of them sitting at the same table, playing each other. Don't be one of those guys!!!111!1 In this post I'd like to first do a basic explanation of some things to be aware of when constantly table selecting and then I'd like to explain a little about how to deal with regulars when you are sitting with them.


So you just woke up, took a shower, rubbed one out, browsed some 2p2 stuff, and you are ready to start your session. What to do now???
For starters, look through the [censored] game lobby to find the games that are most profitable. If you get nothing else out of this post, please at the very least, never log on to a poker site and randomly sit at the first available tables unless you hate money. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]. Some key points about picking tables:

1. look for stacks between 70bbs and 95bbs. Regulars top off all the time, weak players who suck at life don't. you want your weak players who suck at life to have more than 50bbs ideally.

2. look though screen names at tables for known donators, if you have a buddy list, you can even go ahead and search for these players. free money is free money, even if it costs you 2 minutes of your session to find it.

3. Once you have found a table with a few reasonably stacked fish, make sure you leave when they leave. dont be lazy. there is no reason to play 4 handed with 3 other regulars, even if they are mediocre.

4. Playing a lot of tables is not a [censored] excuse to not table select. Ive 10 tabled multiple sessions, its still not that hard to leave when you have no bad players left at a table.

5 ????

6. profit


Ok, so now that you have a couple guidelines on basic table selection, i would just like to add a few words about dealing with regulars in general. Something that can be a secondary motivation for how you pick a table is how you have fared in the past against a particular player at the table. If there are any players that you know you are down a lot against and that are tough to play against, go ahead and play in their games, but think twice before you take the seat to his right for two hours. If there are any regulars that you are up massive amounts of money on, you can probably start treating them as borderline fish when considering table selection, because they likely know you are up on them a ton, and having a mental edge on them is huge advantage. For example, with myself, I avoid playing out of position against Pollyballer and Carrotsnake, whereas at times I would seek out tables that included FGators or Catcher333.


When you do sit with any decent regular, there is one key point that I want to make. It is fine to play back at them, go ahead and 3 bet them, 4 bet them. bluff shove with with overcards, do whatever you think is profitable, but whatever you do, the second you feel yourself getting emotionally involved and making angry plays, its time to leave the table. This is something I cannot emphasize enough. I still catch myself doing it from time to time, and i can tell you for a fact that there are tons of otherwise solid regulars that kill their winrate solely because they want to get back at or have the upper hand on other good players. Sure we all want to outplay other good players, but the next time you 4 bet someone, please dont let ur reason be, "because [censored] him".


Ok I think I have rambled enough. Some of this stuff is really basic, but I think it needs to be a point of emphasis for many people, so I hope people got something out of it.

[Dr_Doctr]

First - Great post

[Mjafish]

nice post. its basic, but i think we all need to be reminded of this from time to time.

a lot of the time ego gets in the way and we regs try to outplay each other when theres no need for it.

[nuggetz87]

while i table select a marginal amount, as my session goes on i like to stay at the same tables and get in the zone. then i get a feel for how the day is going for everyone, how they're playing vs. me, etc. then i can [censored] all over them.

[Chicago Twister]

Good post. One thing I difffer on however is starting stacks. I always prefer tables where everyone has at least ~100 bb stacks, and at least 1 person has a stack ~200 bbs or larger. Then I try to get the Jesus seat on the big stack. This person is not normally deep because they're good. They're deep because they're lucky.

[jk3a]

very nice

[Panic__NL]

good post thanks!

[Shizzle12345]

alot regs suck anyway. if you got pos on some retarded 25/20, you can tilt him and take money of him just as easily as some 45/10 fish. Just dont tilt yourself (problem i have sometimes). But if the 25/20 runs hot against me i usually leave, because its pretty hard indeed to get your edge over him then.

[Dr_Doctr]

I have to disagree with you Shizzle - I think it's much easier to make money off simply bad players than bad regulars who are super-predictable but don't make plainly idiotic mistakes like calling multiple streets with second pair or bluffing into you when previous action suggests you clearly like your hand and are very unlikely to fold. I think most of a good player's winrate (at least at lower stakes and if they practice good table selection - which is the point of this thread) comes from exploiting huge edges against bad players and not marginal edges against predictable regulars - at least until you get to high stakes where really bad players are a rarity I'd imagine.

[pdoran10]

Some of these points I made become semi-irrelevant once you get past SSNL fwiw.