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Coaching > Articles > Table Selecting 101


Posted by stipey169 on 12/15/2008

So you’ve decided which online poker room you want to play, you’ve signed up for your Rakeback, you’ve made your deposit, and you are ready to play poker.  Now you need to find a table to play on.   So what’s the big deal, just pick a table with an open seat and start playing, right?  Wrong.  Good table selecting will directly impact your bottom line and is one of the most overlooked and under appreciated parts of playing online poker.  

Think about it.  One of the advantages of playing online poker vs. brick and mortar poker rooms is that in online poker you have a large number of tables available to you at the level you are playing at vs. maybe 1 or 2 tables at your brick and mortar poker room.  Use this to your advantage and pick tables that have some fish and weak players vs. a table full of rocks, shortstackers, or solid regulars.  

Here are some things you want to look in the lobby when choosing a table:
  1. High % of players seeing the flop.  You want to see high percentages here because it indicates that there are likely a number of loose players at the table.  For full ring tables, look for tables more than 30% of players seeing the flop and for 6-max tables look for 40% or more.  As you move up in stakes, the percentages will be lower so then just look for the tables with the highest percentages.
  2. High average pot size.  Large average pot sizes is an indicator that the table has a lot of action on it.  
  3. Less than 3 shortstackers.  You don’t want to be on a table with a bunch of shortstackers (those who buy in between 20 and 40 big blinds) because you just can’t win a lot from them since their stacks are so short.   Its ok if there are 1 or 2 shortstackers at your table, but any more than that starts to hurt the profitability of the table.

The ideal table will have all 3 of the above points, but those can be hard to find.  Of the 3, if you can’t find one with all three, then look for tables with a high % of players seeing the flop and not a lot of shortstacks.

In addition to the information you can get in the lobby of an online poker room, you want to check your fish list or buddy list to see if any known fish are playing and if they are get on their table and take their money.  There are number of ways to get a fish list:  You can write down names of fish you encounter as on a piece of paper or word processor document, or you can use one of the many programs/tools available for fish lists/buddy lists such those found on tableratings.com (this sight also provides a list of juicy tables).  There are other programs available to help you find good tables – just do a google search and see what ones are right for you.   

Choosing a table is just the beginning.  You must constantly keep an eye on the tables you are playing to make sure its still a good.  In online poker, players are constantly sitting down and leaving and before you know it, the two fish you’ve been making money off of have left and have been replaced by two shortstackers or two tight regulars.  When the table is no longer good, don’t hesitate to leave and find a better table.  
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