Hi everyone,

I was just wondering how important you think game and seat selection are. I’m currently limited in the amount of casinos I can play in, for now, (<21) so I’d like to maximize my hourly in the few opportunities I do get to make a trip out to an 18+ casino.

I’m currently grinding at Winstar right now and am up 1000+ BBs at 1/2 15 hours in. I’ve never had a losing session at 2/5, and crush 1/3 as well, but both are over a small sample size.

Does anyone else play a mix of stakes? How often do you table change or request a certain table?

For seat selection, let’s say we’re playing 2/5 100 BB effective and there’s a good LAG in seat 2 regfish in seat 4, good TAG in seat 6, spot in seat 8, and the rest of the seats are open. Where do you sit and why? How does this change at 1/2 or 1/3? Thanks!

Seat changing and table changing are bad for the game in general

I think seat changing is much worse.

It’s disguising that some people will act like vultures in the poker room

Imagine if everyone seat changed all the time

In general if anything you will improve faster playing against tougher people

People aren’t stupid either they will catch on

Yeah I play whatever is going on up to 10/20 and everything in between.

I think it's fine to put some thought into game and seat selection as long as you're not obnoxious about it.

For me I don't really care as I feel I can adjust to the game and to be honest most live games are a joke so I don't give it much thought.

Mike Caro pointed out years ago that game selection is the single most important factor determining your winrate. You can be the 10th worst poker player in the world. However, if you are at a table with the 1st through 9th worst poker players, you're going to be a winner at that table long term.

That said, most tables are a mix of players. So I rank them on an ABC scale. "A" tables are rare, maybe 10% of all tables. These typically have a person, or even better several people that are just spewing chips. Fun tables are a clue, but someone who's whining that they never hit can be good too because they are on tilt. The problem is that they don't last long in most cases. The spewing player runs out of money and leaves. Therefore, I won't leave one if I happen to be there. But I don't search out for them, either. Too often you end up taking the seat of the player that made the table good.

"C" games are the worst. They have more than 1 player that is at least as good as you are, if not better. You're best off changing tables if winning is important. There's nothing wrong with staying to work on your game, but those lessons can be expensive.

Most games are "B" games. They're not the best games, but I can make reasonable profits long term. Depending on your relative skill level, they can be anywhere from 60 to 80% of the tables. So when I'm at a "C" game, I'm just looking to move to a "B" game. Therefore, I don't "scout" the room incessantly looking for the absolute best game. I'll take whatever the floor will give me. If it is another "C" game, I just move again.

Seat selection is a factor as well. I generally want to be on the left of the biggest stacks at the table when I join the table. The reason is that a 400 BB stack will be playing "badly" compared to my 100 BB by definition. If I move, I just do it once. At a 10 person table, I'll move to the 2,3,8,9 seat by saying I want more room. I can move to the 4,5,6,7 seat by saying I'm having trouble seeing the cards.

So to answer your example, I change tables if I'm at one where I believe there are two good players. I'm not going to stick around, even if there is a spot at the table. They're going get most of it.

Game selection is key if you have that option.

I play anywhere up to 10-20 nl and 40-80 limit holdem or O/8 games.
don't care for PLO too many teams playing in them with shared rolls.

depends on where I am and what's going

if a 5-10 and a 2-5 loaded with pro's are running and

a $1-2 has a whale dumping off money guess where I'm going.

changing stakes where one day you have $300 in front and the next 8k takes some getting used to , been at it 20+ yrs so learned to check my ego at the door long ago.

I only change seats for comfort reasons and adjust my game plan based on the line-up.

even fish notice seat changes and don't like being targeted.

I've seen to many times to mention where a pro changes seats, pisses off the whale or fish and they get up a leave.

as for your seat ????? I'm taking seat 7 so I can stretch out

I have to second all the above advice on table selection. Venice hit it on the head that the A tables dry up real fast, but you really only want to table change if the table is truly awful for your game. Floors will get tired of you if you always want a change, and that calls attention to you. Attention is bad as a reg.

For seat selection, I prefer to be to the left of the most aggressive player with a decent chip stack. This gives me the most opportunities to 3bet, and increases my ability to play in position and let the aggressor make mistakes. There is also some consideration to sitting to the right of multiple OMC's as this will increase your chances of having effective position.

In practice, unless you are aggressively trying to get a seat, the floor is going to sit you at an open table and you aren't going to get the choice most of the time. Most players at the lower stakes are going to give you their money wherever they sit if they are bad, so i'd really only focus on changing if a player is giving you trouble, you prefer a different seat, or the table is bad.

This is why it is crucial to develop a set of real world social skills and cultivate a series of home games to attend. Or as I like to call them “misfit casinos”.

Casinos just simply are not that good to play anymore. Oh sure there are still some bad players but I have notice more and more regulars and much more tight play than even a few years ago. Even at just 1-2 or 1-3 games.

Really depends on your poker rooms culture, but I've yet to play in a room where I'd feel uncomfortable / out-of-place for switching tables / switching seats, especially at the lowest steaks level (which is the only level I play). It's completely standard and everyone does it (for various reasons), so obviously we should if we feel it gains us a big advantage (I wouldn't dick around too much by overmoving if we feel it doesn't give us a big advantage).

ETA: As for the example question, if the table is 10 handed, I'd probably sit in seat 9. That gives us immediate position on the fish, and meanwhile the good lag is 3 seats to our left (which gives us the Button, CO and HJ all in position on him, and meanwhile we can just tighten way up in LJ- when he has position on us), plus we almost always have position on the regfish and the tag.

Gplaywiththewindatyourbackasmuchasyoucan,imoG

In my room, almost every single time a seat becomes empty, there is a good chance someone will move to it (for a variety of different reasons), and there's also a decent chance someone from another table will be switching over (again for a variety of different reasons).

GwheninRome,imoG

my room there are a lot of nits and just solid decent enough players. so it actually makes a huge difference what table an seat you are at. i don't really switch that much. but for sure worth it sometimes to switch. if you see like two people that you see dump like 1000+ at 1-2 yeah go to there table.

Everyone else summed it up well. If maximizing profit is your goal, game selection is huge. I dont know what my hourly would like if I could always find an A table, but I am guessing about 3 times more than my current.

As for seat selection, its always a balance between having fish on your right while avoiding LAGs on your left. I think avoiding the LAG is more important. They can really throw a wrench in my gameplan. I have to tighten up and play more pots from oop, and i hate doing both of those things.

We don't want LAGs to our left because our most profitable game plan calls for our raises not being three-bet very often. (It isn't always the LAGs who do this to us, either.) But if we have a loose-passive fish with a high VPIP to our left, that cripples our game plan also, because we are going to be out of position postflop for every hand we play except for when we have the button.

All true, but having the main fish on my left is still better than not having them at my table. But having a LAG on my left can turn an otherwise good table unprofitable. Its all a balance, but trying to keep certain types of people off my immediate left is usually priority 1.

Yeah, if I'm deep, having the deep loose aggro difficult player not to my left is priority #1 and I couldn't care less where that puts the fish.

GcluelessseatpositionnoobG

It’s just bad in my humble opinion to actively seat change (especially compared to table changing). You need to learn to adjust. You are taking a micro edge trying to gain position on the fish.

It’s so disgusting in Vegas especially to see how many times people will try and seat change at like 1/3 to get position on bad players and just ruin the game completely.

These people are here to have fun and the vultures circling the room will try and table change immediately.

Yeah I hate when everyone fights to sit to my left.

Yeah, generally the amount of toxic bad behaviour of grinders/wannabe pros is absurdly bad in Vegas. Its just unbeliveable at times, in most of their casinos.

I cant count how many amazing games with drunk fish or big whales that broke because of hopeless behaviour from the clueless grinders that have no idea.

Venice, this is great! Really helpful

Thanks everyone. I guess it’s intuitive that great tables (bad players, lots of action) are way better for your winrate than nitty reg-infested ones and that being in the right seat can help you implement your game plan more effectively

Same parallels to online play.

You can just try to bum hunt fish. Or just be better than the majority in your player pool.

Personally I find it more productive to spend my efforts on being the latter.

For me it evens out eventually anyways. I see this all the time where all the grinders who supposedly spot a good table all move and guess what they are often replaced at my table by other recs and they all moved together to play with each other.

And then all of a sudden my game is the one they want to move back to because their game now sucks.

Table selection is critical, especially if you are playing weekday 2/5. Some of the games can be brutal and even if you are the best player at the table if you are playing with 4+ pros and no whales you're making a huge mistake by not moving to softer tables where players are probably just flushing money down the toilet. If you are a good player, then you are doing the table a favor by switching tables. That is the opposite of bad for the game.

In regards to seat selection I want to be to the left of the player who is playing a lot of hands (sometimes the table will have multiple players like this). In regards to LAGs I doubt there are many good LAGs at this level but if there is a good LAG keep in mind that a profitable LAG is still not going to be playing nearly the # of hands as a whale that is playing close to 100% of his hands. Also, it's not like the LAG is going to try to isolate you and he's going to have difficulty isolating the whale if you are in the hand and the whale is on your right.

When I sit down at a table, several players will immediately move to my left. I really appreciate when they do this because these are the TAGs and the nits (aka the reg grinders) that I want on my left. I want the guys playing all the hands on my right.

Seat selection is probably not super important at low stakes because there should be a plethora of bad players at any given table. If all the tables look soft, then table selection is not that important either. Of course there is an etiquette to all this and you don't want to upset the casual players. I'm probably given more leeway than most because I give so much action. For tighter players, particularly the hoodie and headphone guy that doesn't talk, other players are definitely not going to take kindly to your predatory seat changes.

Seat selection can backfire as it sets an image you may not want. If you do it, be sure to make it look like you have a reason for doing it other than poker. "I hate sitting at the corner" or "I want to face this direction to see the game on TV" etc

As Venice mentioned and it's confirmed by others, the amazing tables usually dry up before your seat change takes place. Many times I've been jealous of the action happening at the table next to me only to see the situation reversed 30 minutes later.

One thing that I need to improve upon for my open game is switching out of a bad table sooner than later. While I wouldn't necessarily chase the good table, I sure as well would leave the bad one. Again, it can be better to disguise the reason if possible.

This right here. I think game selection trumps seat selection, especially at these stakes, you just have to adjust to your position. I'll take a bad seat at a great game over the best seat at a horrible game any day.