table selection

tim.daughters · #1 11-07-2002, 10:58 PM

I have been wondering about table selection. Suppose there is a player at a table that I know is weak, loose, and passive. Also seated is a player that I know is strong, tight, and aggressive. Should I play there? Will these players cancel out? Will the good player cost me more than the weak player will earn me? Vice versa? Perhaps I am better off at a table of strangers. Maybe I am better off at a table full of players that I know are just average. What do the rest of you think?

MS Sunshine · #2 11-08-2002, 02:53 AM

Look for the fish, and worry about who you must share the feast with after.

MS Sunshine

lorinda · #3 11-08-2002, 09:23 AM

Something Ive been meaning to ask MS for ages..
When your wife chooses a table, does she factor in the hands per hour.
Some fish are horribly slow players.

I would rather win 1BB per 40 hands at 90 hands per hour than 2BB per 40 hands at 40 hands per hour.
I know you like to "hit and run" but even these hits probably last longer than an hour.

To original poster,
If the fish is an aggressive breed then I like to have them on my left, this way you can see who else is check raising them before you have to act.

Lori

MS Sunshine · #4 11-08-2002, 03:45 PM

She looks at pot, and flop, average. Doesn't care about hands per hour.

I rarely leave a good game because of the slowness of the play only. If someone else besides the live one is having connection problems, which are unlikely to change, then I shop for a better earning game. I'm willing to put up with alot from a live one.

MS Sunshine

MS Sunshine · #5 11-08-2002, 04:10 PM

"If the fish is an aggressive breed then I like to have them on my left, this way you can see who else is check raising them before you have to act."

I strongly disagree with this strategy. The ability to isolate a loose aggressive from the rest of the table is so important to getting more than your fair share of the live one's money, compared to anyone else. I feel the seat to the right of a loose very aggressive player is the death seat, and if the chance for a seat change is slim, as in internet poker with a list, I would rather quit the good game then play with this disadvantage.

It is possible my style of play makes it difficult for me to adjust to this situation properly.

MS Sunshine

tim.daughters · #6 11-08-2002, 10:42 PM

Actually, I was able to answer this question for myself. I keep an extensive database from the transripts of my play. I was able to come up with these statistics. The skill groupings are my own assessments, and the averages aren't properly weighted averages, but here goes. These are the hourly win rates by skill group:

Strong: +2.93 BBs per hour
Average: -0.70 BBs per hour
Weak: -7.67 BBs per hour
Unknowns: -8.01 BBs per hour

So, it does seem that the weak player more than compensates for the strong one. I was surprised to find that strangers are as valuable as known weak players. Perhaps I need to be more careful with my averages, though. A player who showed up for 10 minutes, lost 10BBs, and was never seen again would get equal weight toward the average and an hourly rate of -60BBs. This requires more study, but I found the result interesting.

In case the results seem unbelievable, let me tell you that I am playing for pretty small potatoes.

MS Sunshine · #7 11-08-2002, 11:10 PM

In my databases, with about 95% of the players that I have played with at different sites, half have no rating, or comments about them and most of these players are rarely seen again. Of new players, the poor players stick out pretty quick, so they do get rated and comments.

The great wad of unknown players that don't return were players where no bad played hand was showed down and they didn't seem to have loose pre-flop starting hands. They took a shot and never returned.

MS Sunshine

tim.daughters · #8 11-09-2002, 03:29 PM

I corrected my averages by lumping all strong, weak, average, and unknown players together before calculating the average win/loss rates. Here they are:

Strong: 3.46 BBs/hr
Average: -0.35 BBs/hr
Weak: -4.42 BBs/hr
Unknown: -3.64 BBs/hr

me: 1.19 BBs/hr

So, it seems that the one strong player does cancel out the one weak player (almost), but the fresh blood is probably sufficient to fund the game. I included the last line to show that the reason I wonder if I should stay when a strong player arrives is that they are better than I am.