A couple thoughts on Good tables

[flair1239]

I was playing last night on a site that I frequent and was at a "good" table. There was one 38/17/.50 type about 4 seats to my right, a 65/4/.50 type to my immeditate right, and a Maniac type two seats to my right,and tight players behind me.

So Yes I was in a great spot. However sandwhiched between the Maniac and the 38/17 player, was a player I considered to be "good". I have about 1500 hands with this player and he is solid. He may be a 2+2er, but anyway he plays well.

He was getting the crap kicked out of him. Now part of this maybe running bad, but the other part of it is his position at the table sucked and may have even been -EV. If it was not -EV, then there was definetly a better situation for him somewhere else on the internet.

He had no abilty to control the action. Little hope of isolating the LAG behind him. No hope of stealing blinds. Was forced to play hands that he would like to play for a single bet for 2-3. Also he saw many capped PF situations, where he definetly would have rather not have it capped. Also he was faced with many difficult and costly post-flop situations.

That got me thinking. At a "good" table, depending on the composition and texture, There are probably only 2-3 (maybe four players) who can lay claim to being in a "good" situation. The other players either do not have it as good as they might think or are just plain in a bad spot.

Now having a maniac to my left, is not by itself enough of a reason to leave a table. But at some point you have to look at the positives and the negatives of your position. I think if you do this, you will consitently find that you can probably be better off at another table. With the dearth of table selection the internet provides (even at a level like 5/10 or 10/20, both of which have limited selection relative to other levels) there is really no reason to play at a table where you are in a less then optimal situation. This is not the same as saying "if you are losing you should leave the table", it is about evaluating your EV at the table by taking into account factors other than just pot size and VPIP.

Sometimes you may choose to except certain positional disadvantages because of other factors. Maybe you have a really good feel for the players at the table, or maybe you have a high degree of control over the table at that particular time.

What made me think to jot this out, is also later that evening as I was shutting down, I watched one of the Party 5/10 tables with a 9-10BB pot average and a 16 person waiting list. People were happily popping into and filling seats that clearly would be difficult to play from, all because they were seeing the big pot size.

I forget where but I think Malmuth talks about the best tables having 4-6 tight passive players and 2-3 Loose Passives, with a moderate pot size and little raising.

Anyway, a little bit of a ramble and most of you probably are up on this stuff anyway. But I figure, there are enough newer posters now where this might help.

Here is a link to one of Bisonbison's posts where he does a pretty good job of explaining this:

Bison link (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=1567311&page=&view=&sb=5& o=&fpart=all&vc=1)

[brettbrettr]

Good post.

My feelings are that at a soft loose passive table there are few bad seats. But when you're adding in lags and the uber-loose, really, you have to be selective. Sure, you can get a lot of money in pre-flop with good hands but being OOP leaves you with fewer ways to maximize profits. In short, being OOP just plain sucks.

Mostly your seat will determine whether or not a table is good. A good seat at a tight table can be a much better situation than a bad spot at a "great" table.

[W. Deranged]

This is an excellent post.

I've started paying increasing attention to seat position, primarily because the game I've been playing recently is a 10-20 live game which is very close to being "the only game in town." Since I have no other options for games at that limit (or even really limit hold'em games of any kind) I have to either play NL or make a point of paying very close attention to seat selection. I'm very conscious of where I sit in relation to certain regular players (keeping the best players across the table and the lags on my right), and am chronically calling for the seat change button(always trying to explain that the seat I was just in was getting cold cards, of course). I've found that at the tables I've been playing, which generally have ~3 standard loose players, ~1-2 very loose players, ~3 tight players (at least one of whom is usually very good), that usually well over half the seats at the table are undesirable for some reason or another, though not necessarily enough so to be -EV all the time.

[flair1239]

[ QUOTE ]
This is an excellent post.

I've started paying increasing attention to seat position, primarily because the game I've been playing recently is a 10-20 live game which is very close to being "the only game in town." Since I have no other options for games at that limit (or even really limit hold'em games of any kind) I have to either play NL or make a point of paying very close attention to seat selection. I'm very conscious of where I sit in relation to certain regular players (keeping the best players across the table and the lags on my right), and am chronically calling for the seat change button(always trying to explain that the seat I was just in was getting cold cards, of course). I've found that at the tables I've been playing, which generally have ~3 standard loose players, ~1-2 very loose players, ~3 tight players (at least one of whom is usually very good), that usually well over half the seats at the table are undesirable for some reason or another, though not necessarily enough so to be -EV all the time.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is also where game availabilty comes into play. In your situation, it is not always possible to have an "optimal" situation. So in that case (since you want to play... we sometimes forget that this is a really fun game all other things aside) the main concern is just getting in any +EV situation.

On the internet (with the exception of when you are clearing a bonus on a smll site that has a limited time period in which to clear), there is usually no reason at micro thru Small stakes level to accept a mediocre or marginal situation.

I want to make it clear, that I have problems with this too. Sometimes you just don't feel like changing tables. But I have found that I have better weeks/months, when I really focus on constantly evaluating the table (evaluating the table probably also has the benefit of making me pay more attention to my tables, so I make more notes (physical and mental) which in turn improves my play in general... I don';t know call it a "unintended benefit".)

[W. Deranged]

Definitely. I much prefer to play live games to online for many reasons (chief among them is that I play better live). Given that I am a young player trying to improve my game, taking a less than optimal situation in the "only" 10-20 game is often much preferable to playing the ever-present 1-2 NL or playing online.

[crunchy1]

[ QUOTE ]
Definitely. I much prefer to play live games to online for many reasons (chief among them is that I play better live). Given that I am a young player trying to improve my game, taking a less than optimal situation in the "only" 10-20 game is often much preferable to playing the ever-present 1-2 NL or playing online.

[/ QUOTE ]
This doesn't make any sense to me?!? /images/graemlins/confused.gif

[jb9]

Good stuff (as is the linked post).

Multiple LAGs/maniacs at a table can definitely make things interesting and getting caught between them is not a good thing.

Isolation raises will rarely work, and hands you'd been hoping to play for 3 bets vs. 1 opponent end up playing capped vs. 3 or 4. The pot gets big enough that it becomes wrong to fold top pair unless you can be fairly sure you are beat -- which you can't be against players who play middle pair and sets identically and who are as likely to have AJs as 85o.

It's tempting to stay at the table because you know they are making so many preflop mistakes, but without good position, you may not be the one who gets to take advantage of those mistakes.

[W. Deranged]

It's an odd comment, I understand. My point was simply that: a) I enjoy playing live more and I find that on average it is more profitable; b) I approach much of the time I spend playing as learning/improving for the future, and playing a slightly less-than-optimum limit game will do more to improve my game for the future (read: increase future profits) more so than residing in the mind-numbing boredom that is loose-passive 1-2 no limit.

As I am not a full-time/pro player (though poker is a significant portion of my income), I have slightly different incentives for how I choose my games.

That is all.

[bobbyi]

[ QUOTE ]
With the dearth of table selection the internet provides (even at a level like 5/10 or 10/20, both of which have limited selection relative to other levels) there is really no reason to play at a table where you are in a less then optimal situation.

[/ QUOTE ]
There is a dearth of tables online? Wtf? And from the rest of the sentence, it looks like you are saying the exact opposite (that there are plenty of tables online).

[W. Deranged]

I think the quoted poster misspoke and intended to mean "bounty" or some such thing.

[Moneyline]

Yeah, I'd rather have a maniac 1 or 2 seats to my right, but if that's not possible my next choice is to have the maniac on my immediate left. The "problem" with having a maniac to your left is that you have to abandon your marginal limps that are profitable for 1 bet but not for two. However, in trade for folding your marginal hands you are given the benefit of getting huge action on your big hands and big draws. As a tight player your raises will get at least some respect, but the maniac’s raises will get no respect, so you can constantly check/raise and build humongous pots.

Here are two examples of where it is better to have a maniac on your left than on your right:

Flop: A /images/graemlins/heart.gif Q /images/graemlins/heart.gif 4 /images/graemlins/club.gif and you hold J /images/graemlins/heart.gif T /images/graemlins/heart.gif

With a maniac betting on your immediate right you have to just call with your monster draw as your raise may scare out the other players. If the maniac is on your left however, you can check to him. When the maniac bets he will get a lot of callers because no one respects his bets, and then you can check/raise and jamb up the pot.

A similar situation would be preflop holding a hand like KJs. If a couple players limp and the maniac is to your left you can call instead of raising. The maniac will raise the pot for you, and his raise will get plenty of callers with marginal and weak hands because they don’t respect his raise. When the action gets back to you, you can limp/raise. Not only does this move carry a lot of expected value with it, but limp/raising with hands like this will do wonders for your image and make you tougher to read. With the maniac on your right you will probably just call his raise and play the same hand for 2 bets instead of 3.


While isolation raises are more straightforward when the maniac is to your right, you can still do them when this player is to your left. The only difference is that you let the maniac put in the raise or reraise. For example, you once again hold J /images/graemlins/heart.gif T /images/graemlins/heart.gif. Only this time the flop comes T /images/graemlins/club.gif 9 /images/graemlins/spade.gif 5 /images/graemlins/diamond.gif and the pot isn’t huge enough that your opponents will be tempted to call two cold. With the maniac on your right it’s easy, you just raise his bet to knock out hands that are +EV for 1 bet but not 2. With the maniac on your left, you just bet and let his raise knock out those same players. (Even though people are more likely to call a maniac’s raise preflop, when a tight player bets out and is then raised by the maniac they’ll be much less inclined to do this IMO. Of course, if they now call without the correct odds that's fine too.) True, you’re “out of position,” but many times this will allow you to get in extra bets. In position the maniac may just call your flop raise, but out of position you can then 3bet the maniac’s flop raise. Preflop isolation raises are similar. You can open raise a hand with showdown value like ace-high and let the maniac 3bet you. If there are tight players behind the maniac you’ll frequently get the pot heads-up with the best of it.

With a maniac on your right you are like a boxer slugging away with your big hands occasionally sneaking in a jab when you get to play a marginal one. With the maniac on your left you are more like a ju-jitsu master, using the other guy’s weight to bring him down. It doesn’t really matter much if you end up being the boxer or the ju-jitsu master at the poker table, because either way you get to kick ass. Just don’t get scared and move across the table from him. When you do this you’ll have fewer opportunities to take advantage of his sub-optimal play.

Just my opinion…

[brettbrettr]

Yes, of course, there are plays you can make with the maniac on your left. But you're severely disounting this:

[ QUOTE ]
abandon your marginal limps that are profitable for 1 bet but not for two

[/ QUOTE ]

Also, think about all the times you isolate (or should be) a maniac with a weakish ace or small-mid pocket pair. These hands are often not easy to play *in* position...

There's a post on this forum somewhere where someone says something like this:

"You're exagerating how bad it is to be out of position."

The OP's reply, and I agree, was this: "You're right. It's worse."

[Bascule]

[ QUOTE ]
Now having a maniac to my left, is not by itself enough of a reason to leave a table.

[/ QUOTE ]

I have trouble playing with a maniac on my right. Preflop, you'll frequently be faced with a raise with the rest of the table rest to act. If there are any limpers, they may be sandbagging a big hand, hoping to reraise. If you try to isolate and other players at the table know what you're doing, this can result in playing marginal hands out of position against a preflop capper.

An advantage of having a maniac on your left is that, in multiway pots, he can effectively give you the button on later betting rounds. But, my preferred position is to have the maniac safely on the opposite side of the table.

[Moneyline]

[ QUOTE ]
Also, think about all the times you isolate (or should be) a maniac with a weakish ace or small-mid pocket pair. These hands are often not easy to play *in* position...

There's a post on this forum somewhere where someone says something like this:

"You're exagerating how bad it is to be out of position."

The OP's reply, and I agree, was this: "You're right. It's worse."

[/ QUOTE ]

IMO in multiway pots you're in fantastic position when the maniac is to your left. You will frequently be closing the action so you'll know if you have the odds to call, and you can jamb up your big hands. I'll grant you that it sucks being OOP heads-up, but against a player as bad as a total maniac I don't find it particularly hard to play my hand. Just check/calling every street and then showing down would likely be a profitable strategy, and it's not particularly hard to employ a more sophistacted (and profitable) strategy than that.

Just my opinion...

[brettbrettr]

Certainly in a multiway pot you're going to have the button with this guy in. You're 100% right. But in my experience less pots will be multiway with this guy at the table. This might be overly simplistic and of course depends a lot of table conditions and how other players are reacting.

As for this:

[ QUOTE ]
Just check/calling every street and then showing down would likely be a profitable strategy, and it's not particularly hard to employ a more sophistacted (and profitable) strategy than that.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm just going to go with a straight "no." Sure, you'll win your fair share of pots but you will in no way be able to match the bets you would have earned if the seats were switched. And you'll certainly earn less in this spot that you would sitting across from this guy.

I'm not trying to say that being in this seat is a bad spot and you should get up. Again, much of it depends on how the table is reacting. If guys are fed up and playing for 2 what they would for one then this should make for a fine table. But if people are tightening up I'd walk pretty quickly.

[jb9]

A good discussion of how to play vs. one maniac, but what about the situation OP was describing where you have a maniac, a very loose passive player, and a loose aggressive and you are in the middle of them.

It can be nearly impossible to control the pot sizes as you could raise the maniac, get 3 bet by the LAG, have LP call, the maniac caps, then it's 2 back to you with at least 12 small bets in the pot.

Now, if you got a big pair or big suited connectors, no problem. But if you made that first raise with a weaker hand like 88 or KJo hoping to isolate, things aren't that great.

You probably have to show down a hand to win and there will often be 3 players seeing the showdown. You can win some nice big pots when you flop a good hand, but if the cards aren't falling for you, it can get expensive fast.

You'll beat 1 maniac enough just by starting with better cards so that situation will be favorable as long as you can get heads up vs. the maniac fairly often.

When you can't get heads up though, you can run into problems on the turn and river where you cannot control how many bets get made and end up having to throw in a lot of bets to see a showdown or else fold your TPTK to watch middle pair beat Q high.

Probably still profitable in the long run, if you can wait that long without going on tilt...

[flair1239]

[ QUOTE ]
A good discussion of how to play vs. one maniac, but what about the situation OP was describing where you have a maniac, a very loose passive player, and a loose aggressive and you are in the middle of them.

It can be nearly impossible to control the pot sizes as you could raise the maniac, get 3 bet by the LAG, have LP call, the maniac caps, then it's 2 back to you with at least 12 small bets in the pot.

Now, if you got a big pair or big suited connectors, no problem. But if you made that first raise with a weaker hand like 88 or KJo hoping to isolate, things aren't that great.

You probably have to show down a hand to win and there will often be 3 players seeing the showdown. You can win some nice big pots when you flop a good hand, but if the cards aren't falling for you, it can get expensive fast.

You'll beat 1 maniac enough just by starting with better cards so that situation will be favorable as long as you can get heads up vs. the maniac fairly often.

When you can't get heads up though, you can run into problems on the turn and river where you cannot control how many bets get made and end up having to throw in a lot of bets to see a showdown or else fold your TPTK to watch middle pair beat Q high.

Probably still profitable in the long run, if you can wait that long without going on tilt...

[/ QUOTE ]

This is kind of what I had in mind. Your in a spot where you will have a hard time exerting any control over the situation. It gets worse if one of the LAGs, plays halfway decent after the flop. Or not even decent. Some of the really LAG types just get a kick out of knowing that they are making you uncomfortable. And when you get a couple of them going everything gets expensive and it isw difficult to read hands.

I firmly believe that in the worst of these situations many decent/good players may be in a -EV situation (as I said in the original post). Ray Zee touched on this a little a couple months ago in a highstakes post on cold calling. In that situation the Loose PF players also played well after the flop. But I think the same effect is present with LAGs who may not play well, but are not retarded. I am not saying everytime you are at one of these tables you are "in trouble" just that certain dynamics at the table combined with your position can put you in a situation that is very borderline.

In my original post I misused "dearth", I was in hurry to get to a job meeting. MEant to say "Glut". Sorry Bobbyi.