Poker Lesson 40: Table Selection

Table selection will often dictate your success when you're playing poker. Remember, you are not there to make friends or exercise your ego by taking out the best player, you are at the table to make money. The best way to make money is to find a table where the players are worse than you. If this was your family's holiday gathering, you would be heading to the kids' card table to play against your 12-year-old nieces and nephews instead of butting heads with the adults. In short, you want to play against players who make more mistakes than you do.

If you can find this sort of table, you will win in the long run and if you wind up sitting at a table where the players make fewer mistakes than you, you may as well just hand them your wallet. It is that simple.

The first thing you need to do is to check your ego at the door. Succeeding in poker means it is imperative you find someone smaller than yourself and give them a fiscal wedgie. Just remember, there is no shame in sitting at a table under your skill level, actually, that is exactly where you need to be sitting.

There is a negative side effect to playing poker with those whose skill is inferior to yours. Every now and then one of the them is going to get lucky and you will suffer a bad beat. When you are frustrated, take a break. It will save you money in the long run. Come back when you are ready to bring your "A" game again.