Game selection is the most important decision in Holdem.

*This article was inspired by an article I read somewhere else, possibly in a Cardplayer magazine, that I can't find a copy of right now*

Let's imagine a world in which Holdem players can be perfectly ranked from #1 down to #2,000,000 (or whatever). Who do you think would make more money - Mike McWonderful (the #10 player in the world) or Joe Monkey (the #1,999,990 player in the world)?

Mike, right?

Well, normally, he would.

But, what if Mike really wants to be the best player in the world, and only plays with #1-9? And Joe is a clever monkey and makes sure he only plays with #1,999,991-2,000,000?

Well, then, Mike is going to go broke, and Joe should win regularly. Mike might be a much better player than Joe, but Joe is clever enough to ensure he plays a game he can beat, while Mike is stupid enough to stay in a game that is beating him.

Joe's game selection makes him a winning poker player where all Mike's poker skills can't. One simple skill makes all the difference that years of study and vast amounts of natural talent can not.

There's a saying in poker that if you can't see the sucker at a table, then it's you. It's a good saying, and one I am paranoid about when considering entering big games (for me that's 10/20 and higher). I simply will not play at a table where I don't have at least two of the players marked as total morons.

It's all very well to say that game selection is very important. But what exactly is it? Like the name suggests, game selection is the art of sitting down at tables with lots of bad players.

Just being aware of the importance of playing against bad players will help. There's no shame in walking away from a game when you've found a nest of good players.

But how can we go even further and make our game selection skill even more effective?

The best way, as you might guess from my policy on 10/20 games, is to sit down with players you know are worse than you. This is easy to do on a small site, where you can easily keep notes on every player you go up against.

Keeping track of other players gets a lot harder on the huge sites. There are several tracking packages out there that you can use to keep information on every hand you play (at the major sites). I use Poker Tracker (www.pokertracker.com) and I found it a powerful and informative package.

But what if you don't want, can't afford, or can't run a stats package?

How do you pick a soft game from a lobby?

Well, that's a hell of a skill. All I can do is offer some suggestions.

Look for tables with a high% seeing the flop - this suggests that there are players playing a lot of bad cards.

I also like tables, especially No Limit, with a large average pot size - this suggests that players are throwing chips around.

If there's nothing on the list that looks appealing, or I feel like playing a little wild, then I look for tables with a very low flop% and small pot size. This suggests that there are a lot of tight-weak players. If you know how to do it, and when to back off, this can be very profitable.

But usually, you're picking the loosest (high flop %age) and wildest (largest average pot) table on the list. I don't like wait-listing myself, mainly because the table will have changed by the time you get there. Plus I'm inpatient.

It's definitely not an exact science though, so don't be afraid to leave a table if it's not as easy as you had hoped, there's plenty more fish in the sea.

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