i figured id update this thread since i havent posted anything in it for a while. unfortunately i dont have the videos done yet, so theres nothing cool to watch, you just get a bunch of words to read

i want to talk a bit about table/ game selection. its not a particularly difficult concept, but a ridiculous number of people overlook it. i have coached a couple students who, when i ask them why they are sat at certain tables, they dont have any response other than "i dunno... just felt like playing this one". that answer is crazily bad for a number of reasons which i will go into in this post.

lets think about why game selection is important....

beating regs is much tougher than beating fish. this should be intuitive as to why. regs are thinking/ playing in a similar style to you. they have watched the same videos, read the same books etc etc. finding an edge against them is going to be tough. on the other hand, fish just want to gamble. they dont care that their play is -EV, they dont even know what EV is. they arent trying to outplay you, they just want to see flops, turns, rivers, and showdowns. good for them, thats why theres profit. from regs there is little profit to be made.

lets think about the EV of sitting at specific tables.

lets assume there is a seat open at a 5handed game. there are 4 regs and 1 fish. the fish is losing at 8bb/100. the 4 regs are winning at 2bb/100. you are break even vs the regs since you have roughly the same ability as them. should you take the seat???

well, no. the 4 regs are winning at 2bb/100, which equates to 8bb/100. the fish is losing at 8bb/100. all the money from the fish is going to the regs. now, you might be able to get a share of that. maybe you get gd position at the table, and can win at a winrate of 1bb/100 at that table, reducing one of the others winrate to 1bb/100 too. is that a gd result?? maybe, but unlikely.

consider another table where there are 5 players sat, and the line up is 2 fish and 3 regs. the fish arent quite as bad this time, they are only losing at 6bb/100 each. the regs are still winning at 2bb/100. the total loss of the fish = 12bb/100. the total winrates of the regs = 6bb/100. there is 6bb/100 "dead money" on the table. if you sit in this game, you should be able to grind a substantial winrate, much more than the 1bb/100 you would have won on the other table.

of course, in reality its impossible to know players exact winrate/ lossrate, however the idea was to get you to recognise that if theres only 1 fish and 4 regs, then the regs are going to be taking most of the fish's money. as soon as the ratio of fish to regs increases, the table becomes instantly more profitable.

so, how do u identify the weak tables??

well, most lobbies will display avg. pot size, and players to flop%. now, as you may encounter when using a HUD, most fish tend to have high vpip's (i.e. they play a lot of hands). therefore the higher players to flop%, the more likely it is that there are fish at the table. furthermore, the bigger the avg. pot size, the more likely it is that the table has players there who are looking to gamble (if the table is tight, most pots will be over pre flop or on the flop, and thus not v.big)

sorting the lobby to display the tables from highest to lowest can help u identify the weak tables quickly.

also, u may be aware of the "auto-rebuy" function present on many sites. most regs will use this in order to stop themselves falling below 100bb when they have posted their blind or something. a lot of fish wont use that. if you are looking for a 25nl table, and there is players with $25 stacks, you can be fairly sure they are regs. if there are players with $22.60, or $18.45 etc, you can probably label them as potentially weaker players.


remember, poker isnt about ego its about profit. there are a lot of games that i wont sit in purely because they have 4 regulars in and only one fish. if i dont think i am a considerable favourite in the line up, then im not going to sit, i will just go and play xbox or whatever.... it should be the same for you. dont think you need to try and beat regs - you should be trying to avoid them wherever possible. similarly, dont think you need to play poker at any specific time. games run 24/7, you can come back later and find a good game.

anyone who beats 25nl, i am 95% sure could beat 100nl if they were bankrolled and used game selection. i can tell you from experience that i have found 100nl games which play weaker than some 25nl games, purely because they have a couple of super fish at the table who are just giving away their stacks. of course, that 25nl reg isnt going to be able to beat the 100nl regs, but who cares? you're avoiding them, so it doesnt matter.

make sure you are always looking around the lobby for new games to join, and dont be hesistant to leave the table you are sat at if you can find a game that looks more juicy. at 50NL and below there are a TON of tables running all the time. if you see a good one and its full, join the waiting list - thats what its there for.

whatever you do, dont let ego or laziness get in the way of finding a game that is more profitable to be playing.

Hey Jack, again, great thread. I play 25NL on FTP and I have to be honest that I don't table select. It's very rare that I find a table at 25NL on FTP that has only 1 fish. I basically just jump into any table I find as long as there isn't more than one very short stack below 50BBs. Is it really that necessary to table select at 25NL?

whatever limit you are playing, you are going to be roughly as good as their regs at that limit. sure, its possible to work out how to beat them.

but what takes longer, working out how to beat someone who is roughly as good as yourself, or working out how to beat someone who doesnt really know what they are doing??

this is what i mean about ego in poker. your only reason for not game selecting is because you are choosing to take the attitude of "it doesnt matter where i sit, i can beat these ******s", when in actual fact, your thought process for selecting a table should be "where is there the most opportunity to make profit".

its like... say there are 2 players, player A and player B. they both play the same limit online and their chosen game is 6max. player A is better than player B, however.

if they were to play heads up, player A would crush player B because he is better. but they play 6max, whereby their profit is a direct correlation to how tough their competition is.

player A doesnt game select at all. he plays at whatever tables he sits at. sometimes he is playing with 5 other regs, but he doesnt care. he doesnt have much of an edge in that game, although he is a marginal winner.

player B game selects thoroughly. as a result, he is never at a table with more than 3 other regs. he crushes the limit because he is playing against people who are giving away their money.

player A is better, but player B makes more money. who would you rather be?

I would rather be player A as long as I finally realize the error of my ways and start table selecting better. I get your point though. Thanks.

Jack,

I have a bit of a catch 22 situation.

I play 25nl and I select tables first by %flop then avg pot size. Then ill sit if there are no more than 2 shortstacks. as you stated in your post most regs use auto top up. Do you see where I'm getting at?

Its either a table of 100bb stacks with players with a good grasp of the basics or a table of horrible players but with short stacks from 30 to 50bb

What to do?

why is playing with people who have 30-50bb bad if those players are effectively giving away their money?

great post jack ... for those wanting to get better at poker instead of just taking fish's money, consider this: At soft tables, there are bound to be more regs than just yourself, and on occasion, you will find yourself in a pot with them. Learn from these encounters, and you become a better player, AND profit (when you play the fish in future hands at said soft table)

exactly. i think thats really important to remember. although you are trying to find as many fish as possible, ineveitably, you will still have regs at your table too. you just have less regs per fish (if you get what i mean). so you will still improve by playing them and working out strategies to beat them.

Surely you have to decide where you want your game to be. Do you want to grind it out at 25,50,100nl where you can find some weak players or do you want to improve by playing better players ? im sure the latter is where most players strive to be. I do have a challenge if someone wants to play above there level, but as im new to 2+2 its prob old hat, but if anyone wants to hear i will tell

Maybe last last sentance of my last post is not really anything to do with this thread so ignore it.

Can someone put the videos up again? The megaupload links aren't working anymore.

Sometimes its worth trying the contrarian way. Find a table (6 max) with less than 10% VPIP. Sit down post straight away and bet. Don't stay too long but if things work out you leave with a profit and a table with 40%VPIP and a waiting list.

jack (or anyone else who does well in cash games), can I ask what #s you look for when sitting down at a table? I've started playing more cash games now at 5c/10c level, and I generally beat the games (I'll play 1-4 tables at a time). Do you look for a certain avg pot size? Plrs/flop? Stack sizes? Usually I just sit at tables with bigger stack sizes because if I double up it'll be a real double or near-double versus one of those shortstackers with $2...but they may be more likely to double me up, so I don't know (I'm actually finding quite a bite of ultra-tight shortstackers now, which seems odd). I play full ring (9 person tables) if that helps. Thanks

You should choose tables that fit your playing style. Many TAGs sort the tables by pot size, and then choose the tables that have relatively high vpip together with high pot size. You'll find the wildest games that way. I sort the tables by vpip, and look for average to high pot sizes together with high vpip. This way I find loose, but not overly wild games. Which seem to fit my style best.

For stack sizes, I try to look for tables that have many 60BB-95BB stacks, since those are usually bad players who haven't busted out yet. Preferably not many big stacks or short stacks.

Howdy,,

I have been creaming on 10nl and was ready and set to move up to 25 untill I had a week of break-even baffoonery. In an effort to find hands that I should have played differently so that I could re evaulate my game, I came across one situation where I don't really know what I should have done.

https://www.pokertableratings.com/re...ash=2589208161

My only note on villain is "hyper lag" . When they limp raise the button can we assume big hand?
oh yea, my name is "lolpwnt" on there.

Thanks

sorry i didnt have time to look at the hand but i would agree when a hyper lag limps on the button and then re raises you in the blinds ive found that this is usally a good high p-p most of the time.

game selection is important id recommend find in a table with high average pot and %of players to the the flop, id then want all the table to have 100bb or better and maybe only one short stacker.
as for shortstakes playing tight, well theirs 2 different types of short stakers to watch out for one being a guy that wants to gamble with his whole short stack -loose
then the ones that are goona sit and wait for a premuim hand and try and get it all in -tight

Why are you minraising?

For convenience, links to the videos:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=UPC54ALJ
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=JZQLOIOJ
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=8OHIX6UM

Any updates Jack? How are the new videos for ThePokerBank going?

Great thread Jack. I have just started using holdem manager and hoped you could help me in using it effectivly. What are the best ways for analysng a session, what are the best most realiable stats etc.

Thanks

havent played poker for so long (like 1 month-ish), no internet in my student house yet, but am back home at my parents for the weekend so will update this thread quite a bit probably.

videos havent been made yet - as i havent been online, i cant make/ upload any vids, and i also havent been able to speak to the guy who runs the site.

Hold'em manager has a forum which would be able to answer questions a lot better than i can in terms of specifics.

i generally use 3bet stats a lot, and obv vpip/ pfr. went to showdown is also quite important imo, as is won $ at showdown.

analysing sessions... hmm im a little lazy i guess, i look at big pots mainly, but i find it quite hard to take an un-biased view until a few days after the session.

cancel the coast guard hes alive
lol

Thanks for the links.

Great thread jack thanks for doing this looking forward to watching the vids keep up the good work.

This is the best topic EVER!
TY OP!!!!