Importance of table selection!

[Kicker]

Hi,

I have played poker for about 8 months, and is playing 2/4 on party and ultimate bet.
I am using pokertracker to evaluate my game.
I am seeing about 18% of flops, and I do not chase a lot.

I have always thought players at ultimate bet are better than party poker players. They are much tighter and the pots are smaller, and they know when to throw away hands. There is still plenty of bad player though.
I have played both sites for about 15 000 hands on each
during the last 3 months(when I purchased pokertracker).

I find my win rate is higher on Ultimate be than party, and I started thinking.

I am tight and play big cards, which is correct on ultimate bet where fewer people chase you, and the fish who
do, make a mistake which adds to my winrate(they do not have pot odds to chase).

While on party the pots are bigger and more people chase you, which they are correct to do because the pot odds are increased.
They are actually not doing such a big mistake as the players on ultimate bet when they are chasing longshots, they might not be that bad after all.

And the statement "you make the most money when people are doing mistakes against you" comes to mind.

The thing is that I have always searched for the tables with highest pots on party(the loosest games), while I should have searched
for games which are not too loose, because my playing style suits these conditions better.

I am sorry if this seems lame, but I hope someone can give me their mind on this subject.

Thank you in advance!

-Kicker

[asdf1234]

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I have played both sites for about 15 000 hands on each

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This isn't enough hands to come to any concrete conclusions about your win rate on each site.

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While on party the pots are bigger and more people chase you, which they are correct to do because the pot odds are increased.

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They're making plenty of postflop mistakes on party, in addition to the horrendous preflop mistakes.


You're going to experience bigger swings in looser games like Party usually has, but your win rate will be higher if you make the correct adjustments (value bet more, bluff and semi-bluff less). You can also loosen up yourself preflop at most party games. You can play small pairs, suited aces, and suited connectors much more than you would be able to in the few ultimate bet games I've observed.

[Cannes]

I think you draw the wrong conclussions
Yes you will win fewer pots when alot of people chase, but with you as the favorit to win the pot you will still get the best of it from all the people who are chasing long shots.
When people play very loose it will lead to greater variance in your results as you will encounter many horrid bad beats, but when you do win the pot it will be a much much larger pot.
You have to look at it in terms of odds.
Disclamer! I don't claim to be good at this and these numbers are a figurement of my imagination /images/graemlins/tongue.gif
If you are 50% favorite in a tight game on UB and the final pot will be 6 BB of which 2 BB are your own you (Let's asume you know to get out of the hand in time when you will lose it) stand to make 10 BB on that hand when playing it 10 times. Now say you have the same hand in a loose game on party, now there are several more callers, you are only 30% favorite to win, but the pot size is now 12 BB of which 2 BB are your own (Same assumption as above). you expect to make 12 BB when playing the hand 10 times. winning you an extra 2 BB by playing a larger looser field of players.
My math and statistical skills leave something to be desired, but I think the numbers are generally correct.

Something to consider anyway...

[benfranklin]

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And the statement "you make the most money when people are doing mistakes against you" comes to mind.

The thing is that I have always searched for the tables with highest pots on party(the loosest games), while I should have searched
for games which are not too loose, because my playing style suits these conditions better.

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I have seen a lot of posts here stating as a given that the higher the average pot, the better the game. I am relatively new to online poker and I accepted that at first, but I am having second thoughts. By coincidence, or because I was thinking about the idea, I recently came across two essays on the subject, one by Roy Cooke and the other in Mason's first volume of essays. Both expressed a preference for an average size game to one with very large pots. There are several reasons for this.

Especially in lower limit games, bigger pots are caused by one or more very aggressive players, or even maniacs. Maniacs make other players play differently than they normally would, often making loose/passive types tighten up. At the same time, tight players may loosen up because of the big pots.

Even without true maniacs, aggressive players bring about two other factors that affect the game in an almost paradoxical manner. Excessive raising preflop can make it incorrect to play drawing hands, such as suited connectors, because the extra bets you have to put in decrease your implied odds. On the other hand, the bigger pots make it correct for poor players to stay in postflop to try to draw out with weak hands. They don't know that they are getting better pot odds, they just keep calling because the pot is so big.

I have been finding that I do better at a smaller, calmer game where I am the most aggressive player. Better to be the big frog in a small pond.