Anyone have a method? The "that's a lucky seat" excuse can only work for so long. I don't care if any particular reg fish know I'm a grinder/winning player. But I'm afraid of making them uncomfortable if I'm always jumping on their tables and trying to sit on their direct left.

make friends with them ...so the reason you are moving is to sit with your friend.

(this may be easier if you don't refer to them as a bum or fish)

Don't ask him if he remembered to bring his ATM card.

Def make friends with them. Get good at it and they may start changing tables to sit next to you! I've had it happen.

If you feel the need to explain why you moved, I've found it better to complain about how bad or annoying the other table is rather than how good the new one looks.

I always use the TVs in the poker room. Sometimes i comment about how i can watch the TV better from a certain or if the TVs are showing different games, ill comment about how I bet on one of the teams and wanted to watch it.

Usually super bad reg fish aren't too privy anyways and wouldn't care.

The AC vent is right over that other table. You can totally get a better view of the waitresses over here. I was sooo card dead at that other table. That other table has way too many fish, I want to try playing real poker with you guys. That's my unlucky dealer and I didn't want to wait a half hour. My cell has better reception on this end of the room. I like your stack and want it to be a part of mine.

We have a guy that comes into some of the rooms and 98% of the time, no matter what's going on, there's a 'seat open' for him. He even called me greedy one night when I helped start a new table (6-handed) when he walked in. I just told him that I was already on a table change and they asked me to help start the new table.

The others here have hit the nail on the head .. make friends, be nice.

I table changed away from him a couple of times ... stating 'bad seat' just to cool it down and show that I wasn't 'hunting' him all the time. I even let him have my seat one other time.

Another way to let things flow a bit is to table talk .. "You know I have it" on River bet he is tanking on. You picked up 2 streets of value when he donked out on you, let him off the hook on the River ... or at least you can say "I told you" after the hand if that's something he can handle hearing. GL

Literally the easiest thing you can do if be friendly with people and make it fun for them to play with you. I regularly have the biggest fish change to my table or ask me to get them when a seat opens. I'm not good action for them but they enjoy hanging out while I take their money.

I'm generally very friendly and encourage small talk at the tables to keep the fish entertained. I get the whole making friends with fish thing but always sitting on their LEFT? That's one detail that probably won't go unnoticed but I could be overthinking it just like how I overthink balancing my range sometimes.

Yes you are overthinking it. If you don't make a big issue of it they won't either.

I have found that for some of these players it's actually better to be on their right since you can see what the rest of the table is going to do before unloading your action.

Yes, position is key, but these types of players create an artificial Button that I've found to be useful more times than not. You just need to have a decent read on the rest of the table as well. GL

If you play your cards right (pun intended), you can make it so they seek you out. Be friendly. Buy drinks. Talk about what they want to talk about. Make the experience seemingly less about the money.

One caveat - if you go too far to the buddies extreme, then some fish might expect soft play. Basically, try to be pals, not BFFs.

Sitting down as a new player is fine, but I would suggest no seat changing. Even dumb fish figure out what you're doing, and they know "favorite seat" or "TV" is a lie. It just creates a bad environment for them.

Keep up the non-poker related chatting, laugh and have a good time.

I love these stories about bad players changing tables to play with someone just because they like them. That's how you know you're doing it right.

I would just half jokingly, half seriously say that I want position on them because they are hard to play aginst out of position, aggressive, hard to put on a hand or something like that if it seems like they are noticing you sit on their left. It works fine if you are already friendly with them, and if you talk as if you respect their game/aggression whatever instead of exploiting that they are bad.

You can get away with doing all the normal fish exploiting stuff like sitting on their left, isolating etc, as long as you present it as a friendly game between you two.

Buying drinks, having prop bets on red black etc is also stuff that makes fish want to sit close to you ime.

don't be a bumhunter

Don't seat change.

Thanks guys. That's like someone asking how should you play this hand and you guys saying "don't play".

It's more like asking how you should play a hand on the turn and being told "fold preflop". Happens all the time in the LHE strategy forums.

lol changing seats to get to fish direct left in a live poker game. if you have to stoop to that to win you should either give up game or get better. Anyone who advocates such behavior is a low life. obv. it +ev to do it but you kill the atmosphere and make it too cut throat. the fish know 100% why your changing seat u seedy bastards.Any excuse you make up on why your moving doesn't fool anybody. you should not change seats for the better of the overall game. you give up some immed. ev for long term ev to keep fish happy and not be known as that guy in the poker room.

This is dumb. Seat changing is standard and part of the game.

Fish will do it for all kinds of silly reasons and it never kills the mood. Pick one of those.

I can count the number of times seat changing has had a noticeably negative effect on my games. So far it's zero.

The OP expressed interest in how to avoid making the fish uncomfortable. Jon and OTR's answers are the only reliable answers.

You know I've been one of the most vocal opponents of the "fold pre" crowd, so don't take it lightly that I'm defending it in this instance. It's appropriate when it's the best answer and the second best answer isn't close.

Fish feeling uncomfortable is a near certain product of bumhunting. It's more like asking how to slowroll someone without them getting annoyed. The best answer is don't do it. The distant, second best answer is probably stop caring that they care. I don't know what the third best answer is.

I can say with some certainty that people are far less subtle than they think they are. If you play with the same people twice, you can't claim two different seats as your favorite seat. If you claim to want to watch what's on the other TV, you have to actually watch what's on the TV you just seat changed to watch. As soon as two players want the same seat, warning bells go off. If someone wants a seat but then the fish slides left and suddenly he doesn't want it, that's super obvious too.

Fish may be bad at poker but not all of them are straight up dumb.

i think ive seated changed like 2-3 times in 7 years lol

people are bad regardless, if its really bad just change tables. the constant and neverending table jumping makes it so i do not need to seat change ever. the randomization basically of the bad regs helps me.

Well it's pretty annoying and not max EV when you have two stations on your left and you need to tighten your range so you end up sitting there folding an hour straight as opposed to being able to iso them in position. Kind of a big deal.

Just don't do it, dude. Live poker is soft enough that you don't ever need to do this. If you're good, you'll make money from any seat.

Obviously I'm not saying don't ever table select, but playing musical chairs is not going to up your win rate.

position on a fish is okay, but what you really want is for a super nit to have the spot on your immediate left, or just to make sure that all the aggro players are on your right