Choose your seat (complex)

[TStoneMBD]

30/60 game and youre about to sit down.

seat 1 is the worst player at the table. not too fishy but hes sorta dumb. misses bets, is predictable etc.

seat 2 is a highly aggressive player but he is a little too loose and is a poor handreader often making bad call downs.

seat 3 plays well preflop but is passive postflop

seat 4 is 46/12/1 over 39 hands.

seat 5 is a winning player but hes tight passive. he makes some stupid chases sometimes though with flop peels and never bluffs. he likes to call down alot.


if you could sit anywhere between these players where would it be?

[Spicymoose]

Initially you would think to sit behind the worst player, but that seat isn't too good because you have a hard to play against player on your left. Furthermore, you don't make that much money blind stealing because both him and one further left defend too much (for you).

It would be nice to seat between 4 and 5, as you get to isolate a very loose player, and you get to steal 5's blinds. A bonus is that when you steal on the button, you will get to play seat 1 a ton, and make lots of money off of him. You are also opposite the agro guy, so are at a safe distance.

I like between 4-5.

I can't even find another seat that compares.

Edit: I guess my initial seat of between 1-2 is decent, but you really have to know how to use the agro guy to your left, which can be hard.

[Catt]

I read Spicymoose's response but I disagree and am going to sit between 1 and 2. Having a very aggro guy on my left isn't ideal, but if he's very aggro and a bad hand-reader to boot, it is pretty easy to adjust to him -- there are going to be lots of opportunities to have him bet our hand for us and trap other players who see the flop (like the passive post-flop guy to his left and the worst player to our right), and lots of opps to C/R him and let him make his bad calldowns. I want to act after the worst player at the table barring counter-arguments, and I think tight-passive in seat 5 is a reasonable button on our BB (though he's a winning player), so I don't think the seat 2 guy is enough of a counterargument to forego sitting on his right. Seat 4 is just about totally unknown and I haven't a clue how he plays postflop, so I can't really evaluate - call him unknown and take the best seat I can find, which I think is between 1 and 2.

[Spicymoose]

If seat 4 was after 1000 hands, would you then choose between 4-5? I am currently unsure of how many hands I need to know a player is too loose, and have posted in the Probability forum for someone to help me. I know people always throw out numbers like 50, or 100, or whatever, but at any number of hands, we can have some sort of confidence interval. I think that even though this is only 39 hands, we still know his VPIP is probably too high a good portion of the time.

I agree that seat 1-2 is good if you can know how to use it. My main problem is that a lot of our money comes from blind stealing on the button, and in this situation we will be up against relatively good blind defenders. They do have many post flop mistakes, but the agro guy is helped automatically by being in a blind stealing situation. Seat 4-5 rocks because when we have SB, we are stealing against a tighty, and when we are in the button, we are stealing against a tighty and a horrible BB.

[Catt]

[ QUOTE ]
If seat 4 was after 1000 hands, would you then choose between 4-5?

[/ QUOTE ]

I doubt it. He'd be too loose pre- but that's not enough for me to overcome "worst player at the table." He could be very decent post-flop, his "too looseness" could be inflated by the fact that he never folds blinds in steal situations, etc. And note that while seat 5 is labeled tight-passive, he's also labeled a winner in the game, which means he's better than most you'll come across. I see no great reason to want have him on my immediate left.

[ QUOTE ]
My main problem is that a lot of our money comes from blind stealing on the button, and in this situation we will be up against relatively good blind defenders.

[/ QUOTE ]

They could be good or bad. We know aggro is a bad hand reader and over-aggro. We know the other guy is passive post-flop. We don't have a good sense of if they apply pressure correctly or react to it correctly (although both have a bit of the call-down in them). These two acting in tandem should mean that we'll be able to play pretty well post-flop when its us against the blinds.

[Spicymoose]

[ QUOTE ]
And note that while seat 5 is labeled tight-passive, he's also labeled a winner in the game, which means he's better than most you'll come across. I see no great reason to want have him on my immediate left.

[/ QUOTE ]

How about "He never bluffs"? We also get free cards OOP more than often which is awesome.

[ QUOTE ]
We know aggro is a bad hand reader and over-aggro. We know the other guy is passive post-flop. We don't have a good sense of if they apply pressure correctly or react to it correctly (although both have a bit of the call-down in them). These two acting in tandem should mean that we'll be able to play pretty well post-flop when its us against the blinds.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think we will probably make good money playing against the blinds from 1-2, I just think we will make more from seat 4-5. We get to play against the worst player very often when we have the button, that is great. Our blind steals from the SB are good because he is too tight, and won't be defending enough. When he does defend, it will kinda suck, because he is a good player, but even if he is good, passivity is not a good trait to have in blind steal situations.

[sthief09]

you really dont like having a very aggressive player on your left

i think the seat value runs proportional to the amount of hands you are able to play. at this table, you can play the most hands with the 2 biggest donks on your right, between the 2 and 3. the guys on your right is where your money comes from.

[Catt]

[ QUOTE ]
you really dont like having a very aggressive player on your left

i think the seat value runs proportional to the amount of hands you are able to play. at this table, you can play the most hands with the 2 biggest donks on your right, between the 2 and 3. the guys on your right is where your money comes from.

[/ QUOTE ]

If they are aggressive and bad, I don't mind having them on my left, especially if there is a pssive guy or two after him. It's not ideal, but I'm not convinced that sitting after an unknown in seat 4 (the guy has a stat-read only over a measly 39 hands) with a winning player on my left is great. If seat 5 were "a slightly winning player but much too tight" then I can see wanting to be able to push him out pre- with successful iso raises -- but I am assuming that if he's a winner then he's going to recognize obvious isolations and adjust accordingly (maybe that is going too far with my assumptions).

I don't understand your point though - you want to sit after the aggro -- I think if we want to play the most hands we're going to be three-betting pretty light pre-flop, and the post-flop dynamics don't seem as potentially profitable when we see a flop with at least one other player.

[Spicymoose]

[ QUOTE ]
you really dont like having a very aggressive player on your left

i think the seat value runs proportional to the amount of hands you are able to play. at this table, you can play the most hands with the 2 biggest donks on your right, between the 2 and 3. the guys on your right is where your money comes from.

[/ QUOTE ]

Having the agressive player immediately to our right means he will be raising a lot preflop, and we won't be able to play as many hands as usual. Sure, we will be able to adjust, and loosen up a bit, but we still won't be able to play as many hands as usual. I agree it is a good seat once we see the flop, but we won't be able to play as many hands as from other postions. Furthermore, you have a good preflop player on your immediate right, which takes away from your blind money, and what looks like a loose player two to the right. This is bad because not only is he probably defending his BB closer to optimal than most, but we don't know enough about his play yet to fully take advantage of him.

[poker1O1]

at first I thought it was between 1 and 2, then I read the posts and thought maybe it was between 4 and 5, then, I thought some more and decided it was between 3 and 4 because you'll be able to steal so many blinds.