Playing Poker Smart: Selecting The Right Table

 by J Finney

When selecting a poker room or a table for short, you should do it with caution. Essentially you must choose games in which you can stand a chance not only with your poker skills but also with your bankroll. This is best explained if we take an easy example. Let's say you are the 15th top player in the world and you only play at tables with the 10th top players exclusively. It would not be a wonder if you lose more often than you win. You must include at your table players that you know or think are worse than you, not only players about whom you know for sure are better than you. If you do this mistake you may find yourself passed by a player that has worse poker skills but who only plays with weaker opponents. The best is to look for those tables with many weak players, you have more chances to win and to be engaged in a larger pot.

When playing poker and not sure how to select your table, look for these criteria:

- The number of players that enter the flop
- The pot size - average
- Games that have weak known players in them

Online this information is very easy to find. Look in the lobby next to the game you are interested in. The amount of players who see the flop is the most important way to tell the condition of a game. If many players see the flop, then there are many weak players in the game. If on the contrary few players see the flop this means the games is tight because many players that are playing it at that moment are expert players. If you are an average poker player look for games in which the percentage of the players who actually enter the flop is over 40%.

The pot has to be bigger than the small bid at least 12-15 times if you want to make some money in that game.

If you know on a certain table there are sitted for sure a couple of weaker player try to take a sit in that poker room.

Because players move a lot in online poker room, you must be aware at all time of the above indicators. Maybe a game was right for you but in the mean time the players changed and now it is too tough. You can very easily walk out and choose a different table that fits your criteria.