Table Conditions Redux

Back in bonus whoring mood. This time, though, I'm only going after $100 in bonus money, rather than the full $200. This will allow me to scale back from three-tabling to two-tabling without worrying I'm not gonna play my 700 raked hands. Hopefully that will improve my bottom line over last time. I'm also going to stick with 3/6 - those games have been fairly good to me lately, on Full Tilt and on Party, so I may as well stick with what's working. Got in a quick 40 hands last night. Nothing spectular, finshed up $10.

Scurvy Dog recently posted some theory-ish type thoughts, and one of them was entitled "Table, Schmable". He wrote:

...more and more I think table selection is overrated, especially at lower limits. Yes, with GameTime+, PokerTracker, and other tools you can definitely cherry-pick situations that are more optimal than others. But table makeup changes so rapidly in online poker, with players coming and going, that a "juicy" table suddenly becomes un-juicy. The real, underlying point is that you're eventually going to need to be able to adjust and compensate for what's going on at the table.

I both agree and disagree with him. I disagree that table selection is overrated. Table selection may be *somewhat* overrated at Party Poker, where conditions can change in an awful hurry, but at less popular sites that have fewer tables spread per limit, table selection is huge. If I see three 3/6 tables at Full Tilt, and two of them have average pots of ~$20 (I actually saw a table the other night at $18.90!), and one has an average pot of $30, I know which table I want to be at. Now, sure, these "average pots" and "players per flop" statistics are somewhat misleading, and they're probably not even rolling averages or anything as complex as that, but they do at least offer a starting point. And believe me, I opened up that $18.90 table the other night - there was a reason the average pot was $18.90.

The point is, at least when you are first sitting down for a session, especially at a large site like Party Poker, you always have a choice. Choosing the best table, or a table that is at least better than another, is +EV, because you are effectively selecting to sit with the players that are most likely to pay your hands off. Pure and simple.

That said, I do agree that table conditions on the large sites like Party can change quickly and that you need to be able to adjust - that's what good players do. You can't constantly spend your time table-hopping, and on some sites like Full Tilt that aren't as popular, you generally don't have the option of table hopping anyway.

For me, if my table conditions start to become rockish, I open up my preflop raising standards a bit while continuing to stick with the table. If another two orbits go by and things haven't improved, and I'm talking about a span of 8 out of 10 unraked hands, that sort of thing, I will a) get up and look for another table if I'm on Party (because the fact is that on Party there is NEVER a reason to sit at a table full of tight players since you will always be able to find a better table); or b) decide if I'd rather just end the session if I'm playing at place like Full Tilt. If I'm in a poker playing mood, I might stick around and try to adjust, loosen up the table with more frequent raising, etc., but I'm also just as likely to try again another time/day.

This philosophy applies to live play as well, by the way. Obviously, in some of the smaller card rooms you don't have much choice but to adjust your game, but at the "card barns" (as Al likes to call them) in LA and at the larger rooms in places likes AC and Foxwoods, it's generally pretty easy to get a table change.

Go where the money is, and where it's most likely to wind up in front of you.