Seat Selection

By Wesley R. Young

 

While it is true that winning poker players will win and losing players will lose no matter where they sit, choosing the correct seat will help any player improve their profitability. So where is the best place to sit? It depends on your opponents and your own playing style. Lets take a look at a few different opponents and decide the best place to sit in comparison to each of them.

Maniac:

You know the player I’m talking about, the guy (or gal) who likes to cap every round and bully the whole table through unchecked aggression. Usually the best seat is the one directly to the left of the maniac. The largest advantage of this seat is the ability to re-raise with your best hands after the maniac raises. This will allow you to isolate a player with a weaker hand and often be paid off quite well. If the rest of the table will let you isolate the maniac on a regular basis, you can even re-raise with your good hands in addition to your best ones. The true maniac will raise with poor and average hands and this is something that you can take advantage of. One thing to watch out for is if there are other good players at the table, they will quickly realize what you are doing and isolate both you and the maniac. One place to lose a lot of money is to be stuck between a maniac and a good player who has a better hand than you.

Professional:

The professional is the tight/aggressive player that we all want to be. They understand the game and take advantage of every edge, no matter how small. Just like the maniac, but for different reasons, try to sit to the immediate left of the professional. The professional won’t play many hands and it is a great advantage to know what they are going to do before you have to act. When they are in the pot, only play with your best hands. If there is a raise and the professional re-raises, you should throw away almost everything because these players don’t play a raised pot very often without a superior hand.

Tight/Weak:

The tight/weak player will only enter the pot with good starting hands but are prone to not play aggressively enough and will let you draw to a good hand inexpensively. You want to sit to the left of the tight/weak player because they will often check to you, giving you the opportunity to see the next round for free and maximizing your profits when you hit your hand.

As you have probably noticed, the best place to sit is on the left of any of the above players. The important skill that I haven’t mentioned is the ability to correctly classify your opponents in order to take advantage of them. Start keeping track of the playing styles of your regular opponents. You never know when this information could turn a losing session into a winning one or a small win into a large one.