Table selection was always one of my strong points when playing online. There were times that I even elected not to play games because they were filled with regs. However, when playing live a big leak in my game is not occasionally getting up and looking around to see if there is a better game that I should be sitting in. 9 times out of 10 the table that I sit in when I arrive is the table that I'll be at hours and hours later, even if the game is 'the suck'. I think I put a little less emphasis on table selection when playing live because it sometimes tends to ruin a game. The few times that I did do it, the party-fun-time atmosphere of the table I was moving to would quickly turn to serious because a player with chips had elected to come there and ruin the fun. Now I understand that taking the risk and possibly killing the action at the 'party-fun-time' table is far better than me staying and playing a bad or even a very tough table.
Lesson learned...
Bart Hanson recently spoke extensively about table image at low stakes poker, but not in the classic way that many do. He contested that at low stakes poker your table image has less to do with your playing style(ie. Loose-aggressive, Loose-passive, Tight-aggressive, etc) and has much more to do with "A Winning player" or "A Losing player". I agree with this 100%.
If the players at the table you are at perceive you as a 'winning player', you are less likely to be called down light and less likely to be played back at w/o the nuts at these games. However, if your table perceives you as a losing player(or even a winning player having a losing night), then it's best to tighten up your range because nothing you do will get any credit.
And this is the situation I was in during session 29. The room was quite busy when I walked in and I was seated at table 7. There was nothing about table 7 that made the game any better or worse than any other table. There was one guy in the 9 seat that I didn't recognize that had a sizeable stack of chips, so my plan was to sit back for an orbit or two and see what was really going on at that table. However, before I knew it I found myself in a really tricky spot with Q10s OOP on a Q59J10 board, and soon after I was reaching in my pocket for another buy-in. Do I think I played the hand badly, probably not. Did losing a major portion of my stack that quickly after arriving at a table effect my table image, for sure. From that point forward, I really couldn't get anything going at the table. Even being card dead for a few orbits gave my bets no credit, I was being called down super light, drawn out on river after river, and just slowly sinking into a bad funk.
I honestly didn't realize this until a friend I have that deals there asked if I had seen another table. "Another table?!" Oh how simple a solution!
Session 30
I move tables to a much better table! There are quite a few losing players that I recognize(and thus I know what they are and aren't capable of) and only 1 player that I would consider competent. He's an Ameristar regular named George. We typically have a good and friendly relationship and 9 times out of 10 just choose to stay out of each others way. Unfortunately, the table sort of dried up soon after I arrived. It was getting a bit late and a few of the bigger stacks decided to call it a night. I won a few big pots, and lost a few but I was much less concerned with my play or the money changing hands and much more excited about the lesson that I learned this night around table image and table selection
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