Poker Table Selection

Ring Game Selection

Online cardrooms provide you with all the information needed to make an informed decision about what the action is like at a particular ring game table, so you can find a game that's suitable for you.

Stakes

This refers to the size of the small and big bets in fixed limt, it represents the small and big blind in no limit and pot limit.

Limit

Used to determine whether the game is no limit, pot limit or fixed limt vareity.

Players

Tells us both the maximum number and the curent number of players seated at the table.

Wait

If all the seats are occupied, there is a waiting list of players which is listed here.

% Flop

This indicates how tight or loose the game is playing, the higher the percentage of players who see the flop the looser they must be playing.

hands/hour

Shows how quickly the game is being played, the fewer the hands per hour the longer players are taking to make their decisions.

Average pot size

The average pot size when used in conjuntion with the percentage of players who see the flop tells us how passive or aggressive the people at the table are playing, the bigger the pot the more aggressive the game is, especially when fewer players are seeing the flop.

So if you are looking for a wildly loose game you could pick table 'Nijinsky' because a high percentage of players are seeing the flop and the pots are huge despite the small number of players at the table. Table 'Montjeu' is a good example of a tight and passive game because very few players are seeing the flop and the average pot size is small.

Tournament Selection

Although it may be impossible to accurately predict how a tournament is going to be played before buying into the tournament, there is still plenty of information worthy of our consideration.

Payout Structure

Not every site uses the same payout structure, some sites favour the players that finish in 1st to 5th place whereas others favour the lower ranking finishers. The better Online Poker Tournament player you are, the more you should prefer tournaments that payout favourably to the top 5 players.

The best value tournament around is the poker sit and go; the typical payout structure for a 10 seater poker sit and go pays 50% of the prize pool to 1st place, 30% to 2nd and 20% to 3rd. It can be argued that multi table tournaments offer poor value in comparison to sit and go; tournaments because 30% of the players make the money in a Sit & Go whereas a multi table tournament pays out only to the top 10% of players.

Blind Structure

The poker blinds structures employed by different online cardrooms vary sufficiently enough to have a strategic impact on the way you approach that game. A conservative blind structure means tight play and an aggressive poker blinds structure means aggressive play. In order to judge what type of blind structure is being used, you would calculate what percentage the big blind would consitute of your starting stack; 1% would be considered conservative for the first level of a tournament, 5% would be considered aggressive.