Picking the Right Poker Table Increases Your Chances

When it comes to finding an online poker table to play at, most people’s thought process is simple: find an open table and sit down. This line of thinking saves time, it’s quick, it’s easy, and…..it’s completely wrong!

Not knowing how to pick an online poker table is almost as bad as not knowing any strategy for the game. After all, if you’re consistently landing on tables stacked with sharks, you are going to lose a lot of money in poker. Since you obviously want to be picking tables with soft competition, you’ll want to keep these tips in mind before playing again.

At First Glance

Luckily, many of the things you need to properly pick an online poker table are provided by the poker rooms themselves. The flop-viewed percentage is one of these things, and you can look at this in the poker lobby. When looking at the flop-viewed percentage, you should be attracted to the tables with a higher percentage. The reason for this is because most fish like to limp in before the flop, and a lot of people seeing the flop means a lot of fish on the table.

In addition to looking at the flop-viewed percentage, you will also want to look at how many hands have been played per hour. The reason why you need to look at hands per hour in addition to flops viewed is to make sure that the flop-viewed percentage isn’t just high because play has been short-handed. If the table is playing over 100 hands per hour, you can bet that it’s been short-handed, and the flops-viewed percentage will be artificially high.

Stack Size

Good poker players like to bring the maximum amount of money allowed to the table. By having the full amount of chips, players can maximize their edge on excellent hands and take an opponent’s full stack. Even if a good player loses chips, the poker room software will replace this amount to fill their chip count back up to the maximum amount.

With that being said, most fish don’t expect to be taking anyone’s stack so they don’t bring the maximum amount of chips. They’re happy playing with whatever they have, and bringing the max amount of chips allowed only increases the temptation for them to lose a whole stack. So if a certain limit allows $200 at the table, and you see people playing with $140 or $150, there’s a very good chance they are fish.

Start a Table

Besides combing the lobby to look at stack sizes and flop-viewed percentages, another great way to find soft competition is by starting your own table. This is great since you’ll get the aforementioned short-stacked fish that jump onto your table simply because it’s open. Competent players, on the other hand, wait to see certain statistics like the flop-viewed percentage and hands per hour before they play at a table.

Much like starting a table, you can also go to a table that’s just been started and play some heads-up. If you are good at heads-up, this is an excellent way to make some cash. Plus, there will eventually be some fish that don’t look at table statistics and will join your table.

Tag Players

Most poker rooms give you the option to tag or note certain players at your table. Whether the tagging option involves written notes, color-coding, or some other method, the key is that you’re given a very valuable tool here. Tagging players allows you to designate those who are fish and those who are excellent rounders. After you’ve tagged certain players, you may even be able to tell what tables they’re at by looking in the lobby.

Realize when to Leave

It’s always great when you can find a gold mine of a table and win lots of money on it. However, there will come a point where the table is no longer good, and it’s full of everyday players.

Once a table starts to fill up with great players, it will be about time for you to close out that table and find a new one. A good way to find out when a table is no longer profitable is to monitor the fish and see how long they stay. If the lesser players start leaving your table and they’re replaced by quality players, this is a good time to close out that table.