Seriously guys, chosing seat 6 in a 6-handed game is a significant mistake. You win money from the people sitting to your right and you're not going to win a lot of money (if any) from the good LAG when you're playing shorthanded against him. You're also going to be shut out from a ton of action by having both the TAG and the tough LAG between you and the fish that you want to play as many pots with as possible. Change the good LAG to a bad 50/25 or 70/35 LAG and I would go with seat 6.

as soon as i posted my response this crossed my mind.

and while i agree that the money comes from the right, the money also comes from not making mistakes. we are in a significantly better situation in terms of decision-making if we are in seat 6 than seat 2. the TAG is usually folding, the LAG will be isolating the donator, and if we 3bet liberally we can reisolate the LAG(getting him under control) and still get action from the donator who is often going to be calling multiple bets cold anyway because, well, he's a donator.

so i see what you're saying, but i think there can be more to the overall situation than having immediate position on the fish. so i'm not saying that i still love seat 6, i just believe there are other factors to consider than being able to immediately isolate the fish. and this isn't even considering how frequently we are reisolated by the LAG who will punish us with position.

I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on what's more important here. I do understand your arguments for wanting seat 6 but's I believe that the advantages of choosing seat 6 are far outweighted by the advantages you get by sitting in seat 2. Also the part about getting the LAG under control is a pretty hard thing to do, playing LAG's in big pots will be tough no matter whether you're in position or not. There is no dream seat at this table but I think that the best we can do here is go back to the most elementary part of seat selection - get position on the fish.

Again I'd suggest you go take a look at the post I linked to in SSSH. There are some far better posters than me who argue what seat to take at an imaginary lineup (quite different from this one though).

I'm with mvoss here. Obviously there are a ton of factors at play here but the most important consideration is to play pots in position against the donator. As mvoss pointed out, playing in seat 6 allows both the solid TAG and LAG to isolate the fish, cutting down your range of playable hands considerably.

Scarmilglio and I chatted about this today a bit. When he and I play at the same table(which is usually full ring) he likes to have me on his right and I like to have him on my left. Our styles are pretty similar. He says he likes to have position on me and I told him I prefer to have him on my left. The thing is, if he was on my right and he raises PF, there is really good chance that I am not playing in the hand and vice versa. We kind of know each others limping and raising range fairly well. When either of us enters a pot we know that we aren't going in with any garbage hands so that alone is enough for one of us to stay out each others way at times. Even SH I like it the same way. Any real Tag is just going to be playing less pots with me and that makes my life easier.

J the S is dead on IMO.

Nice thought provoking post Kit! Seat 2. Loosies on your right, tighties on your left, and a LAG that you can use to squeeze others in pots that you are mutually in. That's my vote.

But the real reason I'm posting is to actually add something ... an old post from BisonBison that contributes to this discussion ...

http://archives1.twoplustwo.com/show...fpart=all&vc=1

yeah, i need to check that link out. i also admit, that while game selection has long been a strength of mine, seat selection isn't something i've put enough thought into.

i know that over the years i've seen the fish on your right, tighties on your left evolve into a bit of a 2p2 mantra. but again, it's not something i've payed nearly enough attention to. but i often prefer position on the opponents that i will tend to have more problems with postflop as that is when most of the real money is made/lost.

also, we still have plenty of options for playing pots pf and postflop when the fish and others enter the pot. from seat 6 the big variables are between us and the fish before going to the flop(and given our position can be more easily negotiated). from seat 2 these variables act after us and the fish going to the flop(which means that if they decide to not tolerate alot of isolating or start isolating our overlimps we are put into tougher mistake-prone situations). to that extent i guess it depends on how the TAG and LAG adjust to going after the fish by isolating and reisolating.

but i do see the very strong argument for seat 2. thanks mvoss.

Respectfully disagree James. Obviously, we would want position against everybody... but we can't have it. So we need to figure out what position changes our EV by the most.

Our EV is going to be the highest by far against the fish. We need to play hands against him. Think about the BB/100 for every player at the table. Most of them are probably somewhat close to 0 if everything was randomized, but the fish is significantly below 0. So the rest of the table is making the majority of its money off of the fish. You want to be able to get as much of that as possible.

I think that the real money is made off of the fish, the easy decisions. Hard decisions tend to be close to EV 0. Easy decisions against the fish are very +++EV.

If you know they're raising light to isolate, that's also exploitable.

b

When I played with Slavic or Bobbyi, I really didn't like having them on my left. Really sucked in s/h situations. Felt much better with them on my right. Seat 7 is the rock that you'll be folding out with your aggression. Not necesarily so with a TAG.

I'd take seat 6. Though, seat 4 has an enticement of checking my good hands into the LAG while having direct position on the TAG.

Also, when the table fills, you'll be directly opposite of the TAG, which can have an effect of making him play more str8 forward at that point.

b

i do see what you're getting at Jake. but i still take issue with how often we are allowed to play against the fish unimpeded.

from seat 2 the fish will never put us to tough decisions, it's going to be the two aggressive players with position behind us. if they don't go along with our dreams of isoraising the fish, alot of the times we get raised or 3bet when we enter the pot. as such, we end up playing alot of bloated pots OOP against some decent players. that essentially increases the number of -EV situations we encounter from seat 2, but do we experience enough +EV situations with the fish to compensate for it?

the fish is ALWAYS going to call anyway, that's why he's a donator. whether we are in seat 2 or seat 6 we can still get involved in alot of pots with him, it's just in seat 2 we act immediately after him, and in seat 6 we get to see what the other guys do *when they are in the hand*. every time they don't enter the hand we can play the fish even higher EV situations.

remember, these action players drive the action, guys like the fish are just along for the ride as overlay.

i'm not conceding that seat 2 is better than seat 6 just yet. i am less convinced seat 6 is so much better as i originally though. as i said earlier, seat selection is admittedly one of the areas of game selection that i've not spent alot of time focusing on and for that i'm second-guessing myself.

Guys, I'm going to be the voice of TheHip41 and tell you that it's seat 2, not even close, and if you even think otherwise you are terrible at seat selection, pokar, and life.

I am still sticking with my original pick of seat 2. Since we know full well thet he is going be calling all the time we want first rights at him as much as possible don't we? If we have a tag and lag on our right acting before us we dont get that as much.

don't know about you guys, but when i'm in my car i don't worry about the passengers between me and the other cars. i worry about the drivers.

Well, if those passengers are paying for your gas maybe it's time to start thinking about them.

There are obviously more reasons for wanting position on the fish than just the iso-raising like you want to play the most pots in position and imo you will play more hands in position if you pick seat 2 than seat 6. Let's get some numbers on that LAG, because you guys talk about him like he's going to 3-bet us with all kinds of crap and if he's a 45/25 LAG that really isn't the case.