Table Selection on Party Poker

[GrunchCan]

It's easy to tell after only 9 hands if the table you are at is good or bad. A good table has bad players, who will make themselves known to you on almost every hand. If nobody makes themselves known to you after only 9 hands, the table isn't good, and it's time to go. Usually it only costs you 1 big bet to see 1 orbit - the cost of posting in the CO.

I always check my buddy list first, but usually nobody is playing what I want to play, so I just sit at a random table. I may go through 5 or 6 tables before I find just one I like. Nothing wrong with that. That's only 3 BB I paid to find a good place to work, and if I found a good place to work I'll make that 3 BB back in just 1 pot.

[Lurshy]

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Anyway, I have also now been more willing to get up from tables where I recognize a lot of the players

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Although some players I may avoid, usually I like playing with some known players even if they are tough. It is good knowing what that preflop raise (or limp means). It is good knowing what types of hands they've shown down before. I don't mind giving them a wider berth, and you can often raise PF to isolate against somone else, but if they come....

The unkowns are tougher in mho. Someone mentioned you can see what a table is like in one round. Maybe, but that is a dangerous leap. Is that guy that just pounded with KK tight or a lag? you don't know. That guy that took down the pot on the turn on a draw, or a made hand, or a bluff - you don't know. Is that guy that just open raised with 89s mixing it up, on a rush, on tilt or a LAG you don't know.

Long term I have a VPIP of 19% short term I can be in 5 hands in a round. I limp or raise with big hands depending on the action and my mood (straight forward or tricky) observing a round of mine isn't going to get you that far. Yeah if you don't see me in a hand in a round you can suspect that I'm tight, but thats about it.

I guess the bottom line though it was certainly easier to pick tables on Paradise - fewer players, more table stats, updated quicker. The % of people to see a flop combined with the avg pot size, can really tell you if a table is Tight Passive, Loose Passive, Loose aggresive or Tight Aggressive.

Thanks for all the responses. I will give the buddy list a bigger shot though it doesn't look too promising. I think the datamining will be a big tool as well - PT can gather stats in the few minutes in the day I am not playing [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]