Letting a weak table select you

[AleoMagus]

In thinking about table selection lately, a couple things have been making me think.

It started a while back when a successful high buy-in sng player stated that when seating themself, they always took the same seat becasue they knew another great player who also always took that seat (at least they always did this when they noticed that other player was at the tables). This made a lot of sense.

Also, I have recently stopped playing 'anonymously' through the party skins (with names nobody knows) and have put a lot of money back onto party where I am playing as Aleomagus again. I have been recognized by name more than once and in those cases, I have been really able to put a read on players because I could assume certain things about them. I suppose they could put something of a read on me also, but at least it gave me an indication of who to maybe watch out for.

Then yesterday I sat down in a sng when suddenly heyrocker sits down to my immediate left. Now I have played heyrocker in a few 2+2 sngs and I did not like the thought of him having position on me for the next 45 minutes. Just when I was about to say bye and get up, he noticed me and graciously offered to take the next sng.

So I guess what I am thinking is that perhaps making oneself know to other good players could be an edge in
table selection. The fish are mostly just herding through anyways so it makes sense that good players avoid one another so they get as many as possible at their table.

This is all kind of obvious I realize, but it still seems like something I (and others) don't exploit often enough. Many times I have gone to heads up with another good player, got a good banter going, and once that sng is over, sat myself down in the next avaliable sng with that same player! Why?! Sure it can be fun to have good conversation, but why should it be at the expense of profit.

When you think about it, if ALL winning players decided to all sit at the same seat all the time, everybody's ROI would probably go up 10%. The fish might start to really think party is rigged when seat 5 somehow always seemed to be finishing well.

Oh well. Just some idle thoughts. If anyone on here wants to volunteer their party names, I'd be happy to make a list and never sit down with you.

Regards
Brad S

PS. heyrocker, maybe I should have got up in that sng. I ran into a big pair on the bubble and it had an unhappy ending for me.

[heyrocker]

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Then yesterday I sat down in a sng when suddenly heyrocker sits down to my immediate left. Now I have played heyrocker in a few 2+2 sngs and I did not like the thought of him having position on me for the next 45 minutes. Just when I was about to say bye and get up, he noticed me and graciously offered to take the next sng.


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Actually in most situations I might not have, welcoming the fun of playing someone good for a while. However I just bought back into Party as an experiment after reading the other posts about the $55s there and I wanted to get as normal a game selection as possible.

The way I see it, playing with other knowledgeable players has its up ands downs. The good things are you have some knowledge of things and will and won't do, to some extent because they are knowledgeable and wont call all in with bottom pair, but also individual-specific after you play with people a few times. Of course, it goes the other way too. However even that you can use to your advantage. I know I have made various posts about my style of play and I have used people's perceptions of me to my advantage in the 2+2 SNGs at times. With non-knowledgeable players all they know about are the two cards in front of them. You cold fold every hand for an hour, then push when you get AA, and have someone calling you with TJs because they never noticed you were tight as...well...something really tight. Again, this has its good and bad sides.

Anyways, what I think I'm getting at is that playing with other good knowledgeable aware players is not always a negative thing, although i admit you can probably make more money with the fish. Its not an autpilot game anymore though, thats for sure.

Then again this isn't to say table selection doesn't amtter either. The people I avoid are the people who I know get verbally abusive or annoying in chat during games, because they really rile me up and I know it affects my game. So obviously, anything that affects your performance should be avoided.

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PS. heyrocker, maybe I should have got up in that sng. I ran into a big pair on the bubble and it had an unhappy ending for me.

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Sorry to hear that. I got first in mine so it worked out for me [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]