on seat selection

[elindauer]

Let's say you have 9 opponents. 3 players that are perhaps slightly too loose and slightly too aggressive, the 29/12 type, 1 very tight and passive, call him 18/6, 3 tough players who are generally tight but not afraid to take shots at a suspected steal, say 20/10, 1 maniac 60/30 type, and 1 loose passive 50/5 type.

1. Arrange the table to give yourself the best possible seat.
2. Arrange the table to give yourself the worst possible seat.

Finally,

3. Would you rather play a) the good seat at table 1 above, or the bad seat at the table 2, but with one tag replaced with another 60/6 type?

Thanks.
Eric

[Moozh]

Ok, let me take a shot.

For the first, you'd probably want the tightest guy immediately to your left. He will let you steal to your heart's content. Immediately to your right should be the maniac, and to the right of him we'll put the loose-passive. This will let you isolate the two of them more often and give you position with which to take free cards and showdowns if offered. After the tight player , you probably want the solid players to his left because you don't want to deal with the slightly loose-aggressive guys to your left.

So we have:

SLA, SLA, SLA, LAP, LAG, you, TAP, TAG, TAG, TAG

For the worst seat, you can get into serious problems when there's a maniac and a solid player on your left. You won't ever be able to limp in, and if you try to isolate, you'll be out of position. Also, it would suck to act after the slightly loose aggressives with a maniac behind you to trap. Almost all of your hands would become unplayable. Couple that with TAGs after the maniac trying to isolate, and you've got yourself a bad situation. Also, by spreading the TAGs around, you guarantee that one of them always has position on you.

TAP, LAP, SLA, TAG, SLA, you, LAG, TAG, SLA, TAG

So, the main difference for me is whether or not you have position on the LAG...

[1800GAMBLER]

I shall skip this thread, too drunk to think in so much irrevalent detail.

[Piiop]

1) sLA, sLA, sLA, LP, Maniac, Hero, TP, TA, TA, TA

I want position on both the maniac and the loose passive player with the tighter players acting after me. In this setup, I envision myself being able to isolate both terrible players frequently and the maniac will probably allow me to get more bets out of the loose passive player. I'll also be able to enter a lot more unraised pots and even coldcall more. The maniac and loose passsive players spots can probably be interchanged, currently I can't think of a great reason for it to be one way or another. Ok, I thought of one, I guess you should be first to act after the maniac raises you should 3bet to isolate a lot. The LP player will frequently come along anyway.

2) Maniac, TA, TA, TA, TP, Hero, LP, sLA, sLA, sLA

The good players get the first shot at isolating the maniac, so it will almost always be 3-bet before it gets to me which would suck terribly. Anytime I'm entering a pot, I'll have loosey mcpassive and other loose, trouble-making players acting after me. This position would suck.

3) I'm assuming you mean all the seats are the same, but a TAG is replaced with a 60/6 player. In that case, I would easily take the good seat.

Edited to add my reasoning.

[chief444]

Sounds pretty good to me. I wouldn't even sit in the second setup. I think I'd rather have just one maniac and 8 tight players than one maniac across the table and 4 loose players behind me.

[elindauer]

[ QUOTE ]
I shall skip this thread, too drunk to think in so much irrevalent detail.

[/ QUOTE ]

But not too drunk to click the "post" button I see. Thank god for that.

[elindauer]

So you guys both think that seat selection is HUGELY important, even more important than opponent selection? This seems counter-intuitive to me, but I'm open to your thoughts.

[Piiop]

Well I didn't really say that, but I do consider seat selection to be "HUGELY" important. To me "seat selection" includes opponents, specific seat, and table conditions. It doesn't matter if you're at the same table as two really loose-passive players if one is on your direct left and the other is across the table. I think all that stuff is very important and should be considered when choosing your seat.

[chief444]

[ QUOTE ]
So you guys both think that seat selection is HUGELY important, even more important than opponent selection? This seems counter-intuitive to me, but I'm open to your thoughts.

[/ QUOTE ]
Yes. I think that seat selection is very important. I'm not saying I'll leave a good game because my seat isn't optimal. Certainly not. But on the other hand playing OOP most hands you enter because you have most of the loose opponents to your left sucks. Having to fold AJ preflop because the TAG to your right raised ATs sucks. I think anyone saying seat selection isn't very important would have to defend that statement by somehow showing that position isn't very valuable and I'm not sure how that could be done because position is very valuable.

[brettbrettr]

[ QUOTE ]
For the first, you'd probably want the tightest guy immediately to your left.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hmm, along these lines, I think it might be beneficial to have to him 2 to my left. This way when I'm stealing I'm in position. Or, of course, just on my right so I can see him raise before I get involved.