Game selection. We all hear it, but do we use it?

We’ve all heard them……..”If you can’t spot the sucker at the table, then it’s you”………”you can be the 10th best player in the world, but that don’t help if you’re playing the top 9”………. Yet so many players don’t practice this enough or at all.

Many times I’ve read threads that discuss taking shots at the next level, and there’s always a comment about “playing your standard game and good game selection”. Shouldn’t that go without saying? Good game selection should have nothing to do with taking shots at higher stakes. It should be how we choose tables every time we play any game regardless of stakes.

I’ve played live poker for a long time, and I feel my game selection has been a great part of my success. I will give a few quick pointers that I like to use, and then get into online selection methods.

Without knowing any of the players in a live game, I will just walk up to the floor person and find out which tables are spreading the game I want. Get on the list right away, and then watch each table for a few minutes. The first thing I look for is big chip stacks. Are the big stacks smiling upbeat players, or slouched over grumps. I want to be at a table where the big stacks are smiling and talking and having fun. This more often indicates someone just there to play and getting lucky a bit……….easier to get those chips and a fun table is usually a loose table. The slouched grump that is not talking and watching every move everyone makes…….don’t expect to get his chips easy (hell, it might be me). And then the obvious, look for a table that has a more players seeing the flop. Once you get a seat, make it clear to the floor you want moved to table X asap.

When playing online, I’m looking for the same thing, but in a different way. Every site is different, but I’m going to use Full Tilt for my example here. FTP allows you to open 16 tables at one time, I use a datamining program, but you could do this manually also. Open 16 tables by selecting the ones with the highest % players see flop and pot size stats. Start up PT and import hands on them for a while. I usually do this for an hour, but even 10 mins can help a lot. The first thing I do is close all tables that are full of TAGS and open a few different ones.

Then I start viewing each table one by one. I’m looking first for players that I’ve marked as major donks. I use a specific color for players that singlehandedly make a table worth sitting at. Getting on the table is goal one, then changing position hopefully can be worked on later if you start out too close to the right of the donk. Sometimes when I get seated just to the right of the marked player and there’s one behind me in the wait list. I’ll get up and rejoin the list, but this has backfired and I never got a seat before he was busted. So I only do this when it’s a known player that likes to raise a lot of c bets and pushes too much.

Next I look for tables with deep stacks , this is the same concept as my live game selection. I’m looking for deep stacks that are not known regs or playing standard TAG. I love deep stacks in front of players with stats around the 40/12 range. These guys seem to be willing to pay too much for draws often. If I come across a table that has all other players right around 100BB, I’m passing. Yet I’m not too excited to see a table with a lot of short stacks either. I like find a mixture of stacks, but I would prefer more deep stacks than short ones.

Another thing I like to do is, every time a donk goes bust, I wait about 1 or 2 minutes and run a player search on him. I gladly will follow him all night long. Many times they will just sign off and have probably lost all monies on their account. But every now and then you will find them starting over on a different table, and you will have an advantage over the rest of the table in knowing what kind of player they are and the fact that they are probably still tilting. A few times I’ve even found them moving up in limits to recoup their loss quicker. I gladly sit in that game also if it’s just one jump up in stakes. Along those same lines, I will do a player search on all players I’m sitting with that I think I have a large edge over. Even donks are multi-tabling every now and then.

Once you’ve gotten a few good tables going. Always keep a few more open and review them in the same fashion to see if a better seat than the one you’re in becomes available. I’m very quick to jump off a table as soon as the lone fish leaves, and it’s nice to have a table ready and waiting.

Another thing to consider is moving down a level or even 2. This may not apply much until you get into upper mid stakes, but if you can’t find any good games, then search the next level down. Better to win at 400NL than to break even at 600NL. Don’t categorize yourself as a player of one specific level, be willing to move when the games are better.

One last thing I like to consider in my game selection is site selection. Those of you not in the US have a better ability for this than those of us that live in “The Land of the Free?”. I’ve found that certain sites are easier than others based on certain times of the day. And that’s based only on 3 sites I play at, so I’m sure it’s even better with the endless supply of rooms you “None Free” people can play in. I’m not going to give out all my info for which site is better at what times, partly because it seems to change a lot. For example, 2 months ago, the games on AP were so soft, that you could sign on…….take a nap and wake up with more money in your account than you started with. Now they are getting just as tough as many of the larger sites, (partly in thanks to an article in a major poker magazine stating how soft AP was). And I’m sure it’s also different for each level. But this is something you should be keeping an eye on and adjust your play accordingly.

All the great moves, styles, and methods of play you use only work better and pay you off more when you use good game selection. None of this should be new information to you, but I hope it motivates you to use it more and maybe will give you some guidelines to start out by.

LuckySOB