There is a widespread misunderstanding that in order to win money at poker you need to be good at it. You don’t – you simply need to be better than the people you’re playing with. Poker is a relative game. If you make better decisions than your opponents you win – it doesn’t matter if you’re all world-class or all beginners. This is why game selection or table selection is so incredibly important to your profits.
Let’s say you’re a semi-regular winning $0.50/$1 cash-game player. If you sit down at a six-max table with three other winning regulars this table may be a breakeven proposition for you. If you’re worse than the average player this could well be a losing situation for you. However, if you find a table with only one other regular and three loose-passive casual players you would expect to have a big edge. You’re the same player – the limit and game and the site are all the same – but your expected results are completely different. Sound simple? It is!
Practise what you preach
If you asked most players with a decent familiarity of the game they’d be able to tell you exactly what you’ve just read, but it’s unlikely they practise good table selection. In fact, most players don’t practise good game selection. In most cases it’s because they don’t realise just how important it is, but there’s also a huge factor that when you log on you just want to play. It’s a bit like brushing your teeth at night – everyone knows they should do a thorough job, that it doesn’t really take that long and is good for your long-term results, but most people just can’t be bothered with the extra hassle. If that describes you, change your mindset and take time over picking your tables. Your reward in cold hard cash will make it well worth it.
The importance of game selection was summed up in a quote about legendary player Eric Drache: ‘He is undoubtedly the sixth-best stud player in the world – unfortunately for him he regularly plays against the best five.’ Remember to leave your ego in the lobby and to scope out the players you have an edge against.
Read Part II