I hate to chime in as the classic self-centered **** that is "obviously" a shark (I am so deep down in online poker, a real fish on stars!), but I actually imitate fish-behavior live and have sharks positioning on me. They usually go nuts to get my action. And for that reason, I have an unbelievable winrate in live games. I absolutely milk the "sharks". For about a year I was known as the luckbox fish. Now I have to rotate between two casinos to get action. And I have to strategically dump a bit of my winnings before I leave the casino, so the "sharks" have a good last impression of me for next time. Luckily, whilst getting "bumhunted" by so-called "sharks" (and thereby earning my bread and butter), I have an awesome time. And after a while, the whole table is laughing at my foolish gimmicks when I keep getting "lucky". I have only had one bad experience where an old reg got mad. I knew he had pocket aces, kings, queens or maybe AK-suited, and we where both deep as hell. There where two other people in the pot. And I had been milking the old reg all night, but he had just one a large pot in a 4-way all in. So I tested my luck with J7, planning to put him all-in on trips or better, otherwise fold. I flopped a house and got all he had won (and he was breaking even). He freaked out and started screaming at my damn luck. Sure, I was lucky. He would have gotten the pot as it was pre-all-in if I had missed.
What he will never realize is that I am always probing him and tricking him, so in his world, I am always lucky. He never realizes that 9 out of 10 times, I donate a little bit - call a bet too much - but then get it all back and some extra when he is blinded by greed. Anyways, the nice fish at the table defended me, telling the "shark" that I was just doing what they had all come to do, i.e. winning some money. And the shark left. The rest of the night was awesome.
Since I had won a bit too much (being lucky on top of it all), we ended the session with a deal: No matter what I got, I would call an all-in for two dealings in a row, if the max amount was what was at the table (I covered them both 10:1) or a similar buy-in I pulled a runner-runner. It ended horribly. The poor dude got AA, and I got J4. He wanted me to get a run-it-2. First try I got a Jack high straight, second I got 4 of a kind. But I paid the cash back afterwards and gave a little extra to both so they could enjoy themselves after I left. The ******* shark never gives me action anymore, whilst I have developed an actual friendship with the fishes. In case the fishes were *******s as the shark, I would find another place to play. And the fishes wouldn't enjoy getting stacked by the shark, and the shark would (as is the case) be miserable.
Anyways, two points to note in my ramblings:
1) You can make a fortune out of position, especially against overly eager dudes that try to pull a trick on you.
2) Protect the goodspirited nature of a friendly cashgame.
It makes your time spend more valuable. Maybe it costs you some percentage, but... who wouldn't pay 50 bucks for a nice evening, rather than saving the 50bucks to have a ****ty one? Or, equivalently, who would rather earn 50bucks extra and feel like **** for an entire night, rather than earning 50 bucks less and having a blast?
Oh, also: The kind of fish you want position on. You get position on that fish. Just iso. It works, unless the people between you and the fish are all the same type of fish as the fish... but then why switch? You have a complete circle of fish, then. Also, your AA will get sucked, because you play the deck. Hence you must play random hands. Hence you play like the fish until the flop. So, like... I don't see the reason to switch seats. Also, if you need to switch seats, there is no plenum of fish, hence you can't be a nit, or else ISO would work and moving would be a waste. Hence you plan to loosen up. And then maybe the fish is like me, and by moving, you took the bait, hook and sinker, since sharks are fish, and some sharks eat sharks, haha.
Aaaand I never switch seats. I just pick my spots and target the fish. And usually the whole table knows, and we are all having a good time laughing about the situation. Haven't played poker outside of my home country, but is it really the case that the US poker culture sucks so much compared to European? Or am I just lucky to have a friendly venue? Honest question. I get a weird feeling when I read these threads, because I seriously don't recognize the type of mentality from my own experience in live gaming.
Take care