Table selection: the act of sitting at a table where you are most likely to make the largest profit.
Typical poker theory suggests a pretty basic premise of table selection that says if you can find bad players, profit will follow. But I prefer to look at it as a table where players are most likely to make the biggest mistakes vs YOU, not just poker in general. Mistakes which you yourself can most profitably capitalize on at ALL times, not just the mistake of someone going allin preflop with AQ when you have AA. I think table selection can go beyond just finding the "fishiest" table out there.
For a true grinder, this simply means counting on the laws of poker to come in your favor over the long haul. A player can only limp ace rag so many times before he finally hits 2 pair out of position in a raised pot vs your set. Your job is simply that of a sniper, waiting until the wind is just right so as not to send your bullet off mark, and BAM! You got em. But this can take quite a while, and even then sometimes the natural laws of poker variance will ruin your shot that you have been ever so patiently waiting for.
For everyone else, theres "your edge". Your abilities as a player to know how to get your opponent to do the wrong thing, be that folding when he shouldnt, raising, or even better, calling. This is the definition of a good player and must be learned eventually, at least if your desire is to make it to the top. How you decide to accomplish this is up to you. You can go through the natural poker progression, simply having the information absorbed into your psyche through playing hundreds of thousands to millions of hands, simply picking it up as you go along. Or you can actively seek to attain this knowledge, by putting yourself in the situations that require it, and remembering what happened so it stays in your arsenal of knowledge. Like choosing to pick up a book and learn a language, or simply moving to Japan and listening to people talk, this is my goal.
You see I have neither the time nor patience to try method number one. I also have some inherent beliefs that it’s simply not necessary, and potentially disastrous for your learning (i.e. becoming robotic and having a hard time unlearning and readjusting to radically different play at higher stakes). To achieve this I have thrusted myself into multi-level thinking by playing exclusively one table at a time, focusing on every single hand, even hands I am not playing in, and then using what I observe to play as many pots as possible against people. You know, the whole "play the man, not your cards" thing. Of course having a good hand helps, because sometimes somebody just aint foldin, and thats where you want to capitalize on this.
So how does this all relate to table selection? Well, as mentioned earlier, a typical grinder may seek out the easiest table to play at, where he can rely more on his cards and an opponents inability to play correctly vs them. However if your goal is to strictly play the player, and use your cards only as backup when things dont go your way, your criteria for finding a table changes dramatically. To date, I have had my best success at tables consisting mostly of nits and tags, with the least amount of "fish" possible. If I'm going to play a certain way against a certain player just because it's him, I have to be able to predict what he's going to do. Unlike other forms of competition where you lack information such as STARCRAFT, predicting someone's action and knowing what hand they have can still result in a loss. In starcraft, if you play against a newbie who puts one scv on each mineral patch only, it doesnt matter what he might accidentally end up doing with his strategy, you will simply beat him every time, no matter what. There is no variance, there is no luck, mathematically an inferior player of this magnitude simply cannot win. In poker this is not the case. There is an element of chance. So problem with this lies in the fact that certain players simply NEVER rely on chance. These are the players you can actually play against. The other guys require you to have a hand, which requires you to wait, and which requires you to have money to sustain losses when the best hand doesn’t win.
Due to this standard archetype for playing poker, questions of how much money you really need come in to question. It has been proven many times that one can mathematically play perfect poker, meaning their hand is statistically likely to win, and lose 20 times in a row. Well if this is possible you better be able to reload 20 times at a table. However if you ignore the math, and simply play based upon what you expect your opponent to do, you are less likely to lose as often, simply because if you are right, you win the hand, plain and simple. It doesn’t matter what your hand is, if you KNOW he is going to fold, and I mean know it like a Jamaican psychic, then you are playing perfect poker. Now you can still find yourself in a situation where you know both that your hand is the statistical favorite, AND your opponent will go allin, and still lose, but this will not happen frequently since the odds of a perfect setup occurring at the same time you know what your opponent will do are far more rare. And the times in which you do lose can be easily offset from all the future hands that you will play perfectly.
So back to table selection, if you intend to try to control the outcome of a hand based upon your actions rather than the strength of your cards, you need to find a table where players can be herded around the stable at your discretion. What I have finally figured out shockingly enough, is that this is NOT the fish! I have perpetually held to the accepted advise that I should want to play vs fish so they make mistakes. Unfortunately the kind of mistakes they make are not the kind of mistakes I need them to make in order to win! I need players to fold, or play back at me, not call me to the river with any pair, because clearly I cant win the hand at showdown if I am bluffing and was looking for a fold, the fold another type of player can be expected to make.
There are two types of poker players in this world. Those who care about money, and those who don’t. The players that just don’t care about losing are the players I will not be able to beat, at least not very often. My perfect storm will still come on occasion and I will turn the nut flush vs their straight and win just like anybody else can. But I will lose far too many pots in between battling it out with them as I have no control.
Table selection for me from now on shall consist of one thing and one thing only, table control. If I lose control of the table, I must leave. If I cannot get players to perform a certain action, then I am now playing my cards and my cards only, and if my cards suck I am in some serious trouble. Every few days I sit down at a table which looks juicy, and then mr. maniac fish comes along averaging out 80% vpip for over an hour. My initial thought has been “yesss!!”, and yet every single time I lose to them, and lose BAD. Consider the following show of results today:
Hi, my name is yallan and I play 100% vpip for the first 98 hands. I finally cooled off to a paltry 75.5% vpip as players adjusted to me.
These situations simply do not happen vs thinking players. You will almost never find yourself involved in spots like these vs someone who you know is actually making serious attempts to win the game. While these spots favored me, I was unlucky and I cant have that right now. I am far less likely to have “unlucky” setups against thinking players. With the above hands I had no ability to dictate his actions, I lost my ability to know when I even had the best hand. As a result, I was flying blind. Flying blind can be ok if you are capable of sustaining significant losses. Flying blind with a bad hand is probably not a good idea no matter how big your bankroll. But flying blind without the ability to let poker variance fuck you is a recipe for disaster. You simply cannot count on your ability to survive 6 or 7 flips in a row if that is all you can afford, which is why I put myself in situations that will hardly ever result in a flipping scenario.
So, as I continue to show impressive results one day, and then scratch my head in disbelief as an obvious fish rapes me the next day, I think I have finally figured out what I need to do. And that is AVOID THE FISH. That’s right, tuck my tail between my legs and run away to find another table. Because ultimately it has nothing to do with him playing poorly, it has everything to do with me playing properly. If some experienced pro gives you trouble at the table, there is nothing wrong with leaving. The table is –EV for you, regardless of the reason. I find playing against 70+ vpip maniacs to be –EV for me. Not because I refuse to tighten up, but because even if I do tighten up I can still lose, repeatedly, and I cannot afford that. So I will find another table, a +EV table. For me +EV will mean a table in which I feel I have a grasp on player tendencies, I know what they will do given a certain line of action, and then I can use that to control the hand. I don’t care if Phil Ivey sits at my table, if he folds every time I check-raise then I am in control and know what to do when he doesn’t fold. But if I am at a table with a fish and he just plays completely random, I can only play the best hands to insure my likelihood of winning, and even then, as said countless times by now, I might not win.
So the moral of this story is that I will make serious attempts like never before to actively and precisely table select at ALL times during the game. Not just find a table and stick with it forever. The moment I notice a shift in the game, one in which I cannot or do not want to adapt to, I simply must find another table. This will probably happen far more frequently that most people switch tables. I can end up switching tables every 60-80 hands, whereas most people put in around 200-300 before deciding maybe they should move on.
Made it into the Millions! + Legality Questionby Jonoman92, July 07
So basically I have no money or FPP left at pokerstars but with my last few FPP I entered a satellite for the $1 Million turbo takedown and was lucky enough to win a spot. Arcology=me http://i26.tinypic.com/zu42rs.jpg
I started playing at pstars when I was only 16 so I made the account under my dad's name. If I ever decide to move back to pstars or if I win big in a tourney I wouldn't want to worry about forfeiting my winnings due to illegal play or something like that. Would it work to e-mail pstars, explain my situation, and ask them to change the account to my identity since I am now 18?
Also, about how long, on average, does it take for the turbo takedown to get down to around 500 people, and how long does it last in total?
I emailed FTP like 7 hours ago and they still havnt answered. So I have no account to play at for the moment and my money is somewhere in FTPs system. guess I´ll get them when support please themselves to read my mail but ANSWER SOON!!!
Hate this! I want to play now.. I was on such a nice heater! gahhhhhh
Nothing to do in sweden if I cant play pokerzz.. just booked the first available flight to america, its the middle of the night now but I dont care about sleep or anything else. Just want to leave this rainy shit.. will be landing in Los Angeles sometime tomorrow. Guess I will be visiting Las Vegas too if I get my money from FTP so I can transfer some to my bank account.. TILT!
-54 BI Session AGAIN!!! Jesus f christby Joeingram1, July 07
Okay well I am a fucking idiot so I did it again. Was up 5.4k on the month before yesterday and after yesterday was down -80 dollars. How it is possible to do twice in the matter of weeks I do not know.
Words can't really describe how I felt after these 2 separate sessions. I basically played like 7k hands in the afternoon and lost 3k and was sad, hung out with a girl and then decided to give it another go and lost 2.5k more. After I finally quit I just layed in bed and contemplated what to do next. If there was ever a chance I was going to do suicide in my life, this was as close as I could have been. Luckily I didn't leave my apartment, didn't leave the bed, instead just loaded up a movie and tried to fall asleep. The feeling in my stomach was just an aching one and in my head was a feeling of doubt/wonder. Wondering if I could still win at poker again, wondering if poker was for me still, wondering if I should just quit and get a job and say fuck it. I really don't know If i can put myself through that again to be honest, and I am trying to figure out a way to fix this in the future. I have a bunch of bets still this month on me getting to 10k made at nl100 and I am still confident I can make it. After today I am up around 500 dollars total. The climb up will be harder now but it is one I think I can make and succeed at and ultimatly accomplish. I appreciate the many people posting kind words towards me through 2p2 and friends calling me to make sure I am okay. Defintly makes me feel better about the whole situation. I do thank the people that read and comment on my blog also! Until next time
Just lost 5k € in like 5 min playing 5/10 deep. Last 800 or so was completely unnecessary. Thus; no more playing higher then 3/6 until Friday. Fuck. Still up like a shitton for the month (if the month ended here it'd be like top maybe 6 or 7 biggest months I've had so far) but it really destroyed my mode. There's still some non-poker things that tilts me so damn hard and I just can't handle them while having a losing session or few days. It's just so annoying. Ohh well, I guess I'll grind 2/4 and 3/6 pretty hardcore just to make sure that I keep this month up decently and make sure that I get a solid month. Wouldn't really like it at all if I had another crappy month.
Anyway, it'll be real fun to see Fazi, Pulda and Zografa in London.
July Goals:
[ ] Final table 3 mtts 2 so far
[ ] +$3k in mtts getting there....
[ ] Find an apartment in Stockholm started looking, and got another idea regarding that
[ ] Run at least 5 times Tomorrow will be my first day (i think)
Played well overall...finished the day with 50,525 which is about average coming back to 250/500/whatever on Wednesday. Messed up two hands but other than that thing went well. Owned in position and didn't get much resistance all day.
Table was decent but not great...had David Oppenheim, derek8, thecamel on it. Oppenheim shot up to like 90k but busted just after dinner. I raise JJ to 900 in EP he flats BB...flop A96 it goes check check...turn J...he check raises my 1500 to 3500 with like 12k behind...I thought for a bit and decided to jam...he tanked ~6 minutes telling me I had JJ but he wanted to go play cash games...his A6dd didn't get there on river...I don't get a tshirt for knocking out an FTP pro :/
Saw elky, pooruser, mig, cosmo among others during breaks but approached noone :/ Apparently have David Sklansky on my day 2 starting table but other than that looks to be pretty decent.
Good luck other people still in. Steve (PU) has a retardo monster stack.
I couldnt make a withdrawal from my FTP account so I emailed support to get help.
When I woke up I saw this nice letter from nice support guy saying that my account had been closed because I had two accounts and I could continue using my primary account. It turned out it was some kind of an old account (from several years ago) that I had registered but not played at. TIIIILT!!
edit: at the end of the letter he said he could transfer the balance to my primary account. At first I thought they took my money since the letter just refered to their terms and conditions and there it says that those players may "account suspensions or revocations, and forfeiture of their accumulated Full Tilt Points and real money balances".. phewww..
So apparently I have either a bacterial infection or a strain of my Epididymis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epididymis) which has been causing my left nut to REALLY hurt. Basically take the pain of getting punched in the nuts and multiply it by 2 and thats what I feel like.
Ye im a failure. Cashgames and donkaments have gone really bad during the wsop. Im happy how I played almost every hand in the donkaments but i definitely spewed in cash alot.
Anyways, I busted the WSOP ME after 3 hours. I had an ok table i guess, a couple of softspots but unfortunately I had this very agressive cashgame player Ive to my left. Ive actually played with him before in a cashgame in copenhagen. To my right I had the guy who won the 50k horse this year. Rest of the table was a mix of young decent players and old fish.
Only two really interesting hands I think and both are in the second level.
I have around 31k at 100/200, two people limp and the 50k horse winner raises to 650 in the co. He has 15k in chips. I make it 2k otb with AKo. Villian tanks and 4-bets to like 5k. This was a weird hand because villian had been kinda inline and so had i but on lvl 2 he started loosening up a bit and I had been really active the last few orbits. I was very close to folding but I eventually jammed and he snapped with KK gg.
So now im down to 15k and I play tight for like 20 min until I pick up 94s and open it in mp. The good internet guy to my left calls and an old nit calls in the sb. Flop comes 9s9x5s. I bet 1200 young dude makes it 3k old nit folds. I tank for a while and jam my last 12k in, villian snapcalls with As7s turn 6s river brick. GG LIFE.
Ye so the wsop was a huge disapointment pokerwise, dropped like 20k total in donkaments and cash. I might play a 2k donkament tomorrow at the bellagio but not sure. Atleast Ive gotten really motivated to grind again so when I get back to sweden i will try to grind a ton online again.
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