I decided when doing this to make it a step by step guide to table selection. Lets start with the most important part:

Filters:

I'm going to use stars as my example since a lot of us play there, but these methods can be used on any site. The first thing we are going to want to do is correctly filter our tables.

-Click the Hold'em Ring Game Filter Box
-Select the amount of players I.E. - Mine is set to 9/10 for FR
-Set your min and max steak for the same so you are only viewing your level
-Make sure to check the 50BB Min Box
-Check the Table Speeds you like
-Unclick Hide Full tables

The next thing we want to do is to sort the lobby so that we can table select the most effectively. The best way to find the loosest table the quickest is to sort the lobby by Plrs/Flop, we can do this by clicking the Plrs/Flop Tab at the top so that there is a down arrow next to it.

So we now have the mechanics of table selecting out of the way, but what the heck are we looking for? What makes a good table? Where do we want to sit? Well only a portion of your table selecting can be done from the lobby.

Whats in your lobby?

I like to start at the top of the lobby and work my way down. Were starting at the top since that is where your most players to the flop are going to be. There is however something very misleading about these tables that seem very loose, and most of them will be very consistent with a few things:

-There will be several players with stacks smaller than 50BB's
-There will most likely be very few regs
-Some of these tables will be running shorthanded/HU

We normally like to be sitting at full stacked tables and thats for a few reasons. First off, we want to be able to get max value from our hands when we are in a pot with a fish. Second, we normally like a little bit of maneuver room so that we can do things like two barrel, float, or c/r. All of these things are much more difficult if not impossible when ur surrounded by short stacks.

I don't know about the rest of you but I really don't enjoy playing 7 other 2+2'ers when I'm grinding and playing 16 tables. Tables that have less regs are going to be more profitable, I'm not saying that we need to avoid the regs all together but we don't need to searching them out either.

Starting tables and playing shorthanded can be one of the most profitable ways to play FR holdem. For the most part FR players are horrible HU and Shorthanded. When we join these HU or Shorthanded tables we are looking for tables with very regs, and the majority of the players full stacked.

So back to finding your tables. What I like to do is set myself some rules for joining tables. I change these rules based on what day of the week it is and also what time of day it is. For instance, my table selection methods are going to be much tighter on Friday night at 9 pm then they are at 3 am on a Monday. A set of rules would look something like this for me:

-No table under 20% Players/Flop
-No More than 1 Player on the wait list
-No More than 1 Player with a stack smaller than 20BB
-At least 7 players with 80BB or bigger stacks

I know a lot of you are sitting here reading this and basically thinking that I'm crazy. I cant tell you how many players I talk to that tell me looking for tables like this are impossible. The thing is, if it was easy everyone would be doing it. We are basically looking for that diamond in the rough. OK, so onto your next step.

I'm at the table, what to do now?

So you've done good, you picked out a good table with a high percentage of players to the flop, plenty of fuller stacks, and mostly unknown players. We grab our seat, were all done right? NO! Finding a table to sit at is only half the battle. The next thing we want to do is make sure we have a decent seat at this table. Things that make a good table imo:

-Any SS'ers to our left
-Aggro Regs across from us
-Fishy players/Maniacs to our direct right

We've all been there, we open the button with 67s only to have a SS 3bet shove and now we have to fold. I think at the lower levels having the SS to your right is best so that you can keep your normal opening range. Also, if the player is a bad non reg type SS he will make things much more difficult for you postlfop as they are more likely to just call preflop and put you in an awkward multi way spot.

I'm not talking about the 10/8 guys, cause quite frankly it doesn't matter where you sit at in relation to them. I'm talking about the 15/13 regs with a 4% 3bet. A good reg who is paying attention can make things uncomfortable for you. Its best to just try and not sit next to them. This can also change if you feel like you have an advantage over them

Having a fishy player or a maniac to your right gives you the most profitable spot at the table. You have the advantage of knowing what there going to do before anyone else. Not much to talk about here, common says that we want to sit with as many of these guys as possible.

I think I found a home.

Well, we did it! We found our table! We've been here for a while building a nice stack and outplaying everyone at the table, but when is it time to leave? I think this is probably the biggest problem when it comes to table selection. Just looking at the table when you first sit down and then ignoring it for the rest of the night is a huge leak. We need to use the same methods of table selection that we used when we sat down at the table to help us decide if we should leave the table. Below is another set of “rules” I set for myself when I have been at a table for around 20 hands

-An average table VPIP of less than 18%
-Three to Four Mid stacks
-Good regs to your left and right
-No Known fish at the table

A couple more random thoughts.

One of the things I have to add is about Table selection using software. The biggest problem with this is that more and more sites are starting to not allow the use of software such as spade eye. However, if your at a site where you can use software like this there is something to take into account. I think the thing that makes software for like this unattractive to me is that it is going to direct me to a table that has a high average VPIP due to stats that I Have on a player. The most important thing that we are missing here is the fact that we don't yet know the stats of the unknown player and may be missing out on tables that are loaded with fish.

There are some other thing we can do to identify who the fish and regs are before we grab our seat. On FTP u have the advantage of being able to color tab the player in concordance to there player type. Something to the effect of red means reg, green means fish, and purple means pro SS. On pokerstars my method is to only take notes on the players that are regs. I don't feel like it is necessary to take notes on fish since they will play the same hands quite differently and most likely you will have very hands on them. This way when you go to sit at a table and only see 1-2 notes under players names you know that the table is mostly made up of fishes.

I saved the best for last and its something that players are either to lazy or to scared to do. START TABLES!! In general poor players do not like to wait to play, so they will sit down and play HU/Shorthanded before the table fills up. These are some of the most profitable players to sit with not to mention you get to start 50BB min table so that you dont have to worry about SS joining your tables and ruining your game. The same "rules" apply for me at these tables, if table fills up with regs or 7 Half stacks its time to go table shopping again.

Well, thats going to about wrap it up for me. I'm sure I have more to talk about and I'm open to all questions. Thanks!!

furst.

EDIT: good advice. My 2c for Full Tilt players: do only a quick-and-dirty first step search (what Jason describes as "Whats in your lobby"), load up 18 tables, and let HEM/PT run for 6-7min or so before you start playing. That's sufficient to get a half-way decent "Table VPIP" stat. That will be a bit superior to the lobby stats imo. Then I basically proceed similarly to the post above.

Another comment: I disagree with the seat selection suggestion on maniacs. I prefer have the maniac sitting to my direct left (for relative position) unless the table is passive.

What about average pot size, yo?

Very cool thanks.

So we want short stackers to our right at the lower levels if i read correctly?

Some regs are good (read: profitable) to have on your direct right. One thing I take from this is that my standards for # of SS'ers is way too loose.

I think its a skewed stat. I mean if two players get it in pre with AA and KK its going to be sick high. On the other end if everyone is card dead it will obv be very low. Just find the fish, they have your money.

WOW amazing stuff!! nice job.

Reading this asap! Thanks Jason

this is datamining and is grounds to get your account banned at FTP. i don't suggest it

I have to disagree with this. You don't want maniacs to have position on you. If you have an aggro fish on your left, it can be better to stand up and find a better spot. (You cbet TPTK and get 3 bet. What now?)

If I can get two regs in the blinds to my left and the fish on my right, I'm in table heaven.

Great advice in the OP. I do look for higher VPIP than OP and try for no more than 2 shorties per table.

+1

Great read for the OP, I actually haven't been doing as much of this as I should be, and Im always torn as to when to leave the table. Maybe its time I start doing that stuff. Do you have any more advice on when to leave?

Obv. This is just for an example purpose. A "good" plr/flop average is going to depend on the level you play.

I do use avg pot size in my filters. I have "sort by players/flop then by avg pot size." Best of both worlds and the skew doesn't affect you at all imo.

Great thread btw. Thanks!

This is the way I prefer it. When I talk about SS being on our right I more talking about the SS regs and not so much the weekend oddstack 24BB reg that is going to play passively.

Another thing about sorting pls/flp.... if you look at hands per hour. If there are more then 75+ then usually this table has just got started it could very well be full of nitty regs. The reason pls/flp is so high is obv when its short handed this will be higher.

This concept is covered in Harrington on Cash Games. I think the theory is to get the aggro maniac on your left coz he bets everything and then you get to act last. To pull this off you have to adjust your play - it doesn't make sense to bet into him coz you give up your relative position advantage. Its similar to "checking to the raiser", knowing he is going to C-bet a huge %ge of the time. So in the example given, you check to him with TPTK and call him down, knowing you are good a huge % of the time. Just bet into him with monsters hoping to get raised. Once he figures what you are doing and stops giving action to your big hands, start betting into him with air.

You know he is going to bet most of the time, and float/raise C-bets most of the time, so don't play into his hands. (If you are not comfortable making this adjustment, then by all means get him on your right).

Thanks alot Jason

A+ read

SS's on ur left is better. when they are on our right we stand minimal chance to make money from them (either they dont put money in the pot, or they steal and we forced to play an effective SS game where the WR is very low). If they are on our left then we can steal our normal ammount unless they adjust, and their adjustment freq is super low given their masstabling.

+1. Essentially having a SS on our direct right makes us play effectively short-stacked.

I'll adjust my steal raise sizing when I have SS on my left (lots of BTN min. raising) because these guys rarely adjust and you save BBs when the decided to 3bet/shove.

Of course you can adjust your play. My point is there is never an advantage to playing OOP, unless everything I've learned about poker is wrong.

I would see his example as more applicable to live play, or high stakes games where tables are limited and I don't have the option of 40 other tables at the click of a button where I might get better seat selection.

i've read and heard the idea of relative position other places too; basically you sort of aren't actually out of position if you see what i mean... bear with me

think about why you don't want to be OOP. it's because your opponents get to see what you do first, so they have more information. when you are IP you have more information.

well, if you see a flop 4handed, you are first to act, then the 100% cbet maniac is next to act, you have the worst possible absolute position, but the best relative position.

say you will check 100% of the time. then you get to see how the others react to the maniac. if you have a marginal hand you are happy to take to the felt vs the mainiac, but wouldn't want to go up against one of the other players with, you can wait and see what they do first. voila, you get more information than they do. if they fold you can happily play just vs the maniac, if they get involved you can fold for no extra cost.

or, if you are insanely strong, maybe they have a mediocre hand they want to take up against the fool, but not you. NOW they might call the loon, and so when you checkraise you trap their money in the pot, money they would not have put in if they knew you would contest the pot.

hope that made some sort of sense

+1 on andyhai's comment. I thought it was more or less consensus (i.e. you don't just see this in HoC) that relative position on, say, a 70/60 maniac is more important than absolute position.

Mike Caro wrote a piece recently suggesting rather than searching out tables with large average pots, the optimal table is one with a high plrs/hand and a low average pot size. His argument was that it shows the table contains a bunch of weak tight players and can be dominated by an aggressive player.

I think there is some merit in this if you are unable to seat immediately. Most of the time, there is only one person driving the pot sizes up. It seems like I end up replacing that person, or they leave shortly after I arrive because they doubled or tripled up and are happy because for once they won.

Thoughts?

^ Interesting, I hadn't thought about this.

It does seem to make sense. I'm guessing this is because if there is more than one person driving the pots up constantly, one of them will be gone fairly quickly, leaving one person in charge again.

So I suppose the reasoning goes that high players/flop and low avg pot would mean lots of weak-loose-passive players and no one in charge. I'm going to try this out.

also 5 people might limp then all fold on flop. the thing is when people are calling, you can keep the pot small with small hands and get it big with big hands. pot size makes no difference imo