Assume, for the sake of this conversation, that I'm talking about low-stakes LHE players.

Conventional wisdom is that game selection is very important. You want to play against bad players. You want to play at tables where 5 to 7 players are entering every pot. You won't win many pots but the pots you do win will usually be large to very large.

What if your schedule is such that you just don't have an opportunity to sit in the softest games? For a common example the softest games are usually found on weekends, and some people for whatever reason just don't have as many opportunities to play on weekends as they do during the week.

I could extend the conversation further - what if the softest games usually ARE on weekends, and you GO during a weekend, but for whatever reason on a particular night the games are significantly less soft than usual, like seldom more than 3 players entering pots, even after changing tables once or twice?

Will you ever sit in a less-than-ideally soft game if you don't see an opportunity to play in an ideal one if there are few better opportunities on the horizon?

Game selection is overrated and a surefire way to insure that you never get better and move up. If you’re only comfortable playing in soft games, how will you ever learn how to play in different games? Never game select and learn to play in every type of game, or game select like the nittiest nit that ever nitted and be comfortable and stagnant.

I'm sure at lower limits players are making plenty of mistakes that you can take advantage of even in the "less soft games". Also, game conditions can change so what you see now may be vastly different a few minutes from now. I'd say seat selection is more important than game selection.

Back in the day when poker stars and full tilt reigned I was very table picky at 2/4 and 3/6 online. Always sat on left of an LP, would max out at 4 tables, but keep looking and would hop until I got 4 tables where I was left of LP and right of a nit which was my ideal.

Live it's just not worth worrying about. I don't know the regulars at my local room well enough yet but I'd only move tables if the one I'm at was a complete rock garden and the other one had multiple donors.

I agree here, I think you are disservicing yourself if you only play against softies.

I too have found the softest games on the weekends, Friday/Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons. Yes, sometimes they can be less soft than desirable, but I'd rather sit at a tougher table and improve my game, than to not see soft games and leave. Your marginal game improvement may even lead to crushing harder when the game returns to usual softness.

What do you do when there's a board? Do you say you only want to sit at table 4? Aren't we all trying to become the best player at the table? I want to be able to sit at any table, any seat, and still play well.

Yes, of course. But I might consider changing tables if that's an option; I might wait an hour to see if the lineup changes and the table loosens up; or I might leave early, especially if I'm slightly up and don't foresee winning much more here easily.

I once had a dealer in a bad game whisper to me that the action was much better over there at Table X. I moved, and he was right. I was stuck almost a rack in the bad game and won it all back in a single pot in the good game. I made sure to thank him for the inside scoop.

I agree with most posters that game selection shouldn't matter in low stakes limit. I guess it's a different ballgame in nl.
But what card room our days has enough limit tables running to game select anyways?
If you do happen to play in such a room, then you must be in poker heaven!

this is a bit of an oversimplification imo

yes, playing vs tough opponents helps you improve, which is necessary to move up stakes

but, playing vs soft opponents helps you increase your winrate, which is very important at lower stakes where rake can be a big factor to overcome. often you need to be able to build a bankroll (and/or confidence) before moving up stakes

obviously i think we both agree that lots of study away from the table will be super useful in either scenario

With everything so far read and understood, surely there at LEAST needs to be an exercise in expectation management, no? Particularly that you have to tell yourself you're not going to get up with more than you say down with unless you get lucky? That you're making a conscious, concerted effort to improve your tight-game play at the expense of your win rate? I mean a 4/8 table with 3 or less people seeing a lot of flops is going to be unbeatable. Hope that made sense.

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You should never have “expectations” about winning in an individual session anyway, so I guess it doesn’t really make sense. I think it comes down to two things. First, if your room spreads multiple games at the same limit regularly and you know the players pretty well - then sure table change if you think one game is markedly better. Second, but if your room only spreads one game on average at your limit and you have flexibility as to you when you play, then sure try to play at times when the game is likely to be better.

Incidentally, I’ve found this notion that games are much better on weekends to be totally false in the room where I play the most. Weekday days is by far the best in my regular game.

Also, I think that you would be much better off spending less time on table selection and more time understanding the tendencies of the regulars where you play. At my room the player pool is filled with a remarkable large amount of regs with pretty big leaks and getting to know / exploit them is going to have a
much much greater impact on your win rate over time then game selection.