Poker Seat Selection

A Sit and Go an on-demand poker tournament that begins as soon as the seats are filled. It’s usually a single table of 2, 6, or 9 players, although more popular poker sites can fill multi-table Sit and Go’s. Every player starts off with the same amount of starting chips. Aside from Turbo variations blinds are increased every 8-10 minutes. How to Beat Variance in Live and Online Poker; How to Find the Best Seat at a Poker Table. There are 3 main things to consider when finding/picking a live poker table. Personal Comfort. The first thing to consider with seat selection is your personal comfort. If you're not comfortable you won't at the top of your ability. Seat selection is especially important in flop-type games, like Texas hold’em and Omaha, since position is always fixed throughout the entire betting round. Poker guru Mike Caro is famous for saying that money flows clockwise around the poker table, and this is especially true for the flop games. Finding right method for poker seat selection. Jun 14, 2016 3:00 AM Irene Edith. Many poker players are never satisfied with their seats at the table. They often change their seats when a seat.

I arrived very early one morning at a nearby poker room. There were two tables, each with a seat available. I had my pick.

I looked around both tables for the clues I usually search for when sizing up a game and deciding where to sit. I decided which of the two seats was likely to be better for me, for reasons I'll reveal in a bit, and sat down.

As I did, one of the players at the table looked up and said, to be helpful, 'I don't know if you want that seat, buddy. The guy who left it just dropped a ton of money.'

I thanked him, sat down, saying that from my experience if a guy loses a lot of money that means that the seat is going to be lucky for the next guy.

Of course that's not really how to determine whether a seat is likely to be profitable. But it's what some players think. So I thought it made sense to reinforce that view — letting others think I might be a superstitious player.

In truth, though, I had considered many other, genuinely significant factors in mind when choosing my seat that I'll share with you here.

Here is a list of some questions to ask to help you judge which seat that's open might have the most profit potential.

1. Is there sufficient money on the table?

Sometimes a seat isn't likely to be profitable because the table as a whole doesn't have enough money on it. If everyone, or nearly everyone, is playing with short stacks, the rake is likely to eat up all of the profit you can expect.

As a general rule of thumb, I want three or four players to have stacks of at least 100 times the big blind ($200 in a $1/$2 game), and most of the other players to have at least 50 big blinds. So if I see a table with a whole bunch of stacks under $100, even if I judge most of the players to be poor, I'm inclined to take a pass and look elsewhere.

2. What is the quality of the players at the table?

In general, I want a game where at least a few of the players appear to be relatively poor. If I see a table filled with good guys I know to be good or better, without even a couple of potentially soft spots around the table, I am inclined to keep looking for a seat elsewhere.

3. Is the empty seat to the left of one of the large stacks?

As the great poker theorist Mike Caro has pointed out, money tends to flow clockwise around the table. You're more likely to win money from a player on your right than from a player on your left. That's generally because with the large stack on your right, you have first crack at his big stack.

That means an empty seat to the left of a large stack should be more inviting than one on the big stack's right.

4. Is there action?

It usually doesn't take that long to see if the game is lively or a rock garden — just a few hands is often enough. Are players all folding preflop? Do players tend to call a preflop raise? Are some at least willing to gamble it up from time to time?

Yes, it's true that a really good player can make money no matter what the level of action is in a game. But in general, your ideal game is one with a lot of loose and passive players — with players doing a lot of checking and calling.

A few hands should reveal enough to make a good estimate of the character of the game. Your best and quickest indication of this is to see how many players are still in for the turn and the river. If it's always heads-up, or if hands rarely even get to the turn, that's a sign that there are few if any loose gamblers at the table.

5. Are players generally having a good time?

You're much more likely to win money if players seem to be having fun. If players seem somber and serious, that's not a good sign.

What you want to look for is laughing, perhaps some drinking, and maybe even a few Keno betting slips — that is to say, indications the players are playing poker more to have a good time than to earn their living.

6. Where is the seat relative to the aggressive and tricky players?

Assuming the table as a whole is acceptable, you ideally want the seat to the left of the tricky, loose, and aggressive players. You want the advantage of seeing how they will act before you decide to enter the pot, and before you decide how you will play your hand.

If there's an active, aggressive player sitting to your right, for example, you are better able to consider that action before deciding whether and how to play your hand. Similarly, you'd prefer not to have him on your left, lest you find yourself having to face a raise or reraise from him after you have already entered the pot.

Other Questions

There are some other considerations worth making as well, especially if it's a close call between two available seats:

• Does the big stack look like he's getting ready to leave? If he does, the quality of the game may diminish significantly.
• Is the game likely to break up soon? If it's short-handed already and one or two players look like they might be leaving, you may be better off elsewhere.
• Has the big stack stopped gambling? Sometimes players shut down after winning a large sum of money, opting to 'sit on their profits.' If he isn't giving any action, his large stack isn't really a target, and (again) you might be better off elsewhere.
• How fast is the pace of the game? Ideally, though you want to be in a game where people are having a good time, if there are any really drunk players in the game, the action may be significantly slowed, reducing the number of hands per hour from which you can win money.

Conclusion

Many of these questions apply equally well when playing poker online (on sites where you are allowed to select your seats, that is). Picking the right seat is no guarantee of winning, of course. But picking the wrong seat can severely limit your ability to win.

If you can, take at least a few minutes to size up the likely profitability of the seats that are available before you sit down. Then, even after you sit down, occasionally monitor the other games to see if a move might be profitable. Finally, make sure to get a seat-change button for your game, just in case a more profitable seat at your table opens up.

Ashley Adams has been playing poker for 50 years and writing about it since 2000. He is the author of hundreds of articles and two books, Winning 7-Card Stud (Kensington 2003) and Winning No-Limit Hold'em (Lighthouse 2012). He is also the host of poker radio show House of Cards. See www.houseofcardsradio.com for broadcast times, stations, and podcasts.

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There has been a lot of chatter lately in the poker community about poker table selecting. I have discussed the topic before in my post on poker bumhunting, but I think that it is worth revisiting. This is a kickoff post for me since I will be exploring the topic of poker software in the coming weeks. Poker software, is increasingly linked to table selecting (due to the prevalence of scripts.

What Is Poker Table Selecting?

Table selecting is the act of selecting a table and a seat. In online poker, table selecting is a bit of an art. Most partially understand the importance, but many don’t focus enough on it. Unfortunately, poker is a zero sum game (with a large rake being withdrawn) and that makes it very difficult to win at. Unless their is significant value in the game or their is an incredible rewards program it is difficult to be profitable. Following the recent PokerStars VIP Changes it is even more difficult to win without a weak player around. Poker networks all over the world have been cutting back significantly on player rewards, which has had the effect of intensifying poker table selecting.

Table Selecting Techniques

1) Poker Lobby Scan. Scanning the poker lobby for big pot size and/or percentage is a good starting point.

2) Start New Tables: This is one of the oldest and most effective ways to find action. Often if you start a new game a weak player will come an join.

3) Search For A Player: At high stakes games in particular this is a very popular technique. Note, some websites have eliminated the search box.

Poker Seat Selection Rules

4) Computer Software In Poker: In today’s games computer software has become increasingly popular for table selecting. You can expect a post on me in the near future where I discuss this in further detail. This is the cutting edge of table selection in online poker today and is highly controversial.

Poker Table Selection and The Poker Ecosystem?

A lot has been made about the effect that poker table selecting has on the poker ecosystem. I do not feel that poker table selecting has had a significant effect on the volume of poker being played. Obviously, if a bunch of regulars would just sit and play each other (all basically losing) while the house made money on the rake, volumes would be higher. However, this is simply not a realistic expectation.

IMO, the intensity of poker table selecting in today’s poker environment is more a product of the poor position of today’s poker economy than it is the cause. Lots of player (in particular on two plus two) seem to love to run around trolling about how table selectors are causing the downfall of poker, but that is so far from being the case. Best to think of it as the symptom not the disease.

How The Poker Economy Broken

For the past decade there has been a fundamental problem with how many poker operators run their businesses. Instead of recognizing the need for recreational players, they focused on high volume regulars. This led them to compete against each other to give out the most in player rewards to players who were in many cases already significant winners at the game. Poker operators would have been far better off reinvesting those dollars toward recreational player rather than wasting them on regulars. If we look today at one of the networks that has had the most success growing their business it is Bovada. Their model is much more attractive to rec players (no rakeback for regs, max 4 tables, and fully anonymous).

In my article on Daniel Negreanu Leaving PokerStars, I referenced an interview he did where he basically said the exact same thing that I am. A classic example of the broken model is that many operators are raking microstakes games at an absurdly high level and rapidly driving away new players. Over the next 5-10 years I would expect a significant transformation to take hold across the poker industry. Only once this broken model is repaired will we once again start to see growth in the industry – dare we dream for another poker boom…..

Table Selecting Strategy

Seat selection is incredibly important in online poker. Players should sit as close to the left of a weak player as possible. Why? Because it will allow you to maximize the # of times that you are able to play pots against this weak player with position. As we all know position in poker is incredibly important. In many ways your position matters more than your absolute hand strength. Ideally you will be able to play in a highly exploitive manner with position against a weak player.

Poker Seat Selection Game

I discuss position and exploitive play frequently in my book exploitive no limit holdem. A great deal of poker literature in recent years has been focused on GTO poker, which has led many players to take their eye of the ball of what is important. I am a huge fan of GTO (but its applications are limited), and I have found through many years of experience in this game (see my article a Insights After A Decade In Poker) that the more creatively and exploitively a player thinks about the game the better they will do.

5 Table Selecting tips In Poker

1. Snipe the “Jesus seat” An important part of table selection strategy involves getting the Jesus seat. You will frequently hear this term and it simply refers to the seat to the immediate left of a weak player. It is the most profitable or least unprofitable seat (depending on your perspective) seat to be in. Generally the only way to get the Jesus seat is to have tables up already. When a weak player is seated grab the seat to his left.
2. Seating Scripts – these have become increasingly common and necessary at all stake levels. I did a product review for Need-4-Seat as they have a pretty good seating script.
3. Table camping, which I have written a post on in the past.
4. Seat hopping at short handed tables. If there are only 3-4 of you at a table and a weak player shows up, switch seats to give yourself a better position at the table.
5. Computer software that identifies weak marked players. There are a number of companies that do this.

Best of luck at the tables! Oh and please pickup a copy of my book :).

-ThePokerCapitailst (No nonsense, no ads, straight talk on poker)