Table Selection

[mojo6911]

Anyone ever sit down at tables with 2-3 players? I have found a lot of success doing this. They are almost always fish, plus you can choose your seat much better. I try to find one with 2-3 big stacks and sit with position on them.

[MOJO_ERASER]

never. Always 4 and up.

[chinz]

I either choose the tables with players marked on green (fish) or if there isn't any such tables I just join some tables where's a lot of 50-90bb stacks.

I also like opening own tables, I usually start 1-2 tables every time I start playing 6max.

[podbelski]

I'm looking for tables with 4-5 players, no more than one somewhat decent reg, and very preferably with no more than one shortstacker. Halfstaks kinda okay if there is no better option...

Also, it is often good to look for deepstack tables due to:
1. some spewy fish love to play BIG money, never shortstacking, and they come to these tables
2. it is much more likely everyone will play with decent stack at least

[djoe77]

Do you use any table selection software for this or just go by trial&error?

[podbelski]

I'm playing at FullTilt, so I lookup unknowns ASAP at PTR.com to categorize their type - nit, tight, loose, ATC, passive, overaggressive, losing or winning etc.

As long as I play with them my HUD pretty much shows most of the above, but it helps me when I start either to not make mistakes or realize the table is not fishy and leave.

[Vantek]

Playing at Party...

In my experience tables with 2-3 players are typically just about to break up completely and leave you sitting alone... If I am just starting a session, I will sit at such tables if they are available, because while they last they are good and they give me a lot of hands to play while I wait for more tables to pop up. Never noticed that they are going to be particularly good in the end though (they just break up quickly), and once I have 4 tables up I never sit at a table with less than 4 players because having to play every other hand will suck up my concentration with too little edge left after rake to justify it.

I find myself having to switch tables constantly. Probably a table every 3-5 minutes. Simply the fish leave and I will have zero reason left to stay at them. I don't have any table selection software, I just hit a ton of waitlists based on flop% and less so avg pot, accept what pops up if I'm low on tables and play 1-2 orbits. After that it's usually clear wether or not the table is good.

Given that I change tables so much I would probably benefit from table selection software quite a bit. Is there any table selection software that is free or at most has a cheap one-time payment? I have registered HEM microstakes version. What techniques do you guys recommend?

[podbelski]

Originally Posted by Vantek

I find myself having to switch tables constantly. Probably a table every 3-5 minutes. Simply the fish leave and I will have zero reason left to stay at them.

Same thing. On occassion I'm lucky to have 2-3 really fishy tables that don't break for 10-20 minutes

[chinz]

You are probably game selecting more than you should be. Of course you should try to change tables if they're completely awful, but when you're playing micros, you're #1 goal should be improving, instead of maximizing your winrate. You'll learn nothing if you're just going after the 60/5 fish.

This is just my personal opinion, but I never understood why people game select so much at the micros... It's not like you're ever gonna make any significant money grinding NL25 or such, and moving up also feels great (and you'll probably be able to move up faster if you game select less).

I kind of fell into the same trap myself when I was playing micros. I was 9-12 tabling, because I got the best hourly winrate doing that. Now when I look back, I'd say that I probably could have moved up to smallstakes at least a few months earlier, if I would've 4-6 tabled instead and had focused on trying to learn the game.

I have to admit that I do some game selecting myself at HU, but I try to 2-table some weaker regs every now and then, even if I don't think I have any notable edge against them. Playing against competent players (or at least not complete droolers) is way more rewarding and you'll also learn much faster.

[podbelski]

I think I've exaggerated that thing about 3-5 minutes, I think it's really a bit more.

FWIW, I'm playing 3 tables, not even 4 now. I definitely prefer to have several LP fishes, but in general the main criteria is to have no more than 1 player that will be screwing my game (TAG/LAG more experienced than me and sitting to the left)