Who To Play

Here's some advice that won't improve your game as much as it'll have a positive impact on your flaccid wallet...

Find a mid-sized game. This size of game allows you more of a choice of who to sit by. Watch everyone play. Get a feel for who's playing tight, who's aggressive, and who sucks. Note who check-raised, slow played, bluffed or semi-bluffed in your head (or on paper next to your mouse, you cheater).

You should first and foremost decide whether these guys are better than you. Avoid games with lots of early pre and post flop raises, and avoid games where it looks like one or two players are about to finish cleaning up some chumps. Very aggressive players can be a source of weal or woe. I suggest steering clear of those if you consider yourself beginner or intermediate.

In one sentence, sit to the right of a tight player - to the left of a loose player.

Here's why:
1. With the loose guy on your right, you're always evaluating the hand AFTER s/he makes their call.
2. You can steal blinds easier from the tighties on your left.
3. With very loose or wild players on your right, you can re-raise their bets to try to wipe out mediocre and drawing hands.

4. Fish-hole tight players on your left will more likely call a bet than re-raise even though they might have a decent hand. You can more easily scare them into thinking you've got the nuts and buy more free cards despite the fact that they've got a positional advantage on you.
5. The bankrolls of tight players tend to go down in small amounts incrementally, and periodically go up in mid and large amounts. Loose players have bigger swings. Money tends to move clockwise around the table because its easier to read players to the right. When that loose player is about to take a negative swing, you want to be at a positional advantage over him or her.

Even more, you want what I call Crazy Ass Players on your right, and what I call Short-Bus Players on your left. Crazies eliminate players with okay and drawing hands. 20-year-old high-school students are more readable, and you profit from being able to act directly after them.

Here's another tip. This might sound obvious, but you want to play people who aren't as good as you. Those players tend to play the lower limits and play at the newer poker rooms. Playing against very new players can be frustrating because they tend to make the dumb calls and catch cards on the river. That doesn't happen most of the time though, so those poor decisions can lead to a serious edge in your game if you can identify them. So the lower limits at newer online poker rooms, like at PokerStars, are a good place to start to find the newer players.

Enough talk, take me to the featured poker room.

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