A lot of people don’t realise how important game selection is and they would do well to remember the old poker saying: ‘If you’re the ninth-best player in the world, but you only ever play the best eight, you’re going to be a losing player!’
In other words, it’s important to pick the right games for you. To start with, let’s look at the information available to you. You start any online cash session by scouring the lobby, where you can see average pot size and hands per hour. On PKR this is based on the previous 15 minutes of play, giving you an indication of how the table’s been playing most recently.
This information is obviously relatively inaccurate because it’s only recent, but it does help give you an indication of how the table is playing. I don’t think hands/hr gives you much information for the purposes of game selection, so I’m going to ignore this and move on to pot size. Obviously the larger the average pot size the better, but this can sometimes be misleading, as a couple of random coolers could skew the numbers. Sometimes very good games, relative to others at the same stakes, will have a vastly increased average pot, say 2-3 times the size of other games. These are definitely the games you want to be in.
From here it’s logical to take it to the next step, and look at the composition of the stacks at the tables. A lot of big stacks are clearly a good thing – big stacks and big average pots always make for a lot of action.
Conversely if there’s an exceptionally small average pot size, it might be a tight game with a lot of nits. This doesn’t necessarily mean the game is bad, but it may give you some idea of how the table is playing. Another possibility could be a lot of short stacks, which changes the way the game plays a lot. The pots will generally be smaller and win-rates will be capped at a lower amount.
Player profiling
The next step is to look at the players themselves. It’s usually not preferable to be playing in games where it’s all good regulars when there are better options available – clearly, the worse the players you’re facing the more money you’re going to make in the long term. One way of dividing players is by checking out which players are multi-tabling or single-tabling. Bad and inexperienced players tend to play just one table. At the same time, people who are multi-tabling are dividing their attention, so you may be able to use this knowledge against them.
Seat selection can be just as important as game selection, if not more so. When there are tough regulars at the table, taking the only open seat could be a bad move. In many instances, whether or not you have a profitable seat at a table of five regulars depends simply on where everyone is sitting. What I mean is, you could face the same line-up on three different tables, but depending on the exact seating positions of your foes, some of the tables may be profitable while others are not.
Sometimes there might be a big fish in the game, but only the seat to his right is available and he’s relatively difficult to play out of position. Again this could lead to other tables being more worthwhile. On a side note, if you do take the seat and another seat becomes available, it is always more profitable to move closer and closer to the left of the fish. I’m generally opposed to giving up free hands and free buttons, but if someone’s a huge whale it won’t take long for the very best seats to be filled. Don’t make a mistake – switch seats and reap better long-term profits.
Drop and roll
To find the best games possible, dropping in stakes is occasionally a good idea. I’m very much against the idea of playing at just one stake simply because that’s what your bankroll can manage. Considering all the points touched on above, it can often be correct to play a level lower because of the players, stack sizes and available seats. Some games at a lower stake could have the same average pot, easier regulars and more huge whales.
At the lower end of the spectrum this may not be applicable, as there is often a very wide selection of low-stakes games available, but as you move up the levels it becomes more and more important. I often play extremely different stakes within the same day and I’d suggest that for most people a band of three or four levels should be ‘your game’.
Take an example where someone is currently a NL50 ‘reg’. In my opinion, he/she should be playing anything between NL25 to NL200, where they play NL100 only when games are extremely good with few regs, and NL200 when there are specific big whales in the game. Having this kind of mindset helps to make shot-taking a more regular and comfortable thing to do, as you already have experience playing different limits. After all, the game is still the same – it’s all just poker!
Another factor to consider is how you are feeling. Tiredness, hunger and your general mood can all affect your game and should influence which stakes you play. Obviously the fresher you are the higher you should be playing. However if you are not feeling your best but you still want to grind some money, being willing to drop stakes can be of huge benefit to your bankroll in the long run. Bankroll is basically a product of win-rate and volume, so increasing volume increases bankroll. Remember that dropping in stakes means a softer game, less variance, less stress (hopefully) and more opportunity to practise multi-tabling.
A final thought on game selection: when you see two people playing heads-up, like Antonius and Townsend, Ivey and durrr, etc, at least one of them has to be practising bad game selection!
Andy 'golfpro699' Teng is a member of Team PKR Pro. To find out more about him and to read more articles written by Andy, please click here