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Scoping Out A New Game

Sometimes you'll walk into a casino and find a choice of games available to you, and whenever you do, one your most important poker playing decisions will occur even before the first hand is dealt: You'll have to select a table. You have that same decision to make when you play online too, and it's even easier because there is usually more than one game at the betting limits you prefer.

Even if you are assigned the first open seat, you can always tell the floor supervisor that you'd like a table change, and when a seat becomes available you'll be moved into that seat before any new players are seated in the game.

Assessing New Games

It's important to spend some time checking over the game you're playing in when you first sit down. In fact, if you have a good vantage point, you should be clocking the game even before you are seated at the table. Fifteen to twenty minutes should be time enough to get a good handle on your opponents if you know what to look for:

Are we having fun yet? Happy games, lots of chips, and jovial table atmosphere typifies a game full of players who are having fun, and players enjoying themselves at the table tend to be a lot looser than those who are hunkered down and scrutinizing everything that goes on. If you see lots of friendly flirting going on, that's good too. And if your opponents are drinking anything stronger than bottled water, that's a good sign too.

Who's loose, who's tight? Within a few minutes you should have a handle on which players are callers, which are aggressive, and which players won't gamble unless they have unbeatable hands. There are all sorts of clues to loose play in addition to the obvious ones, such as seeing the kinds of hands they show down as a clue to the kinds of starting hands they're prone to play in early, middle, or late position. If you are the new player at an established game and notice that when one player bets, everyone else folds, you'll know to be careful when calling this player because it's probable that he only raises with premium hands. Similarly, if one player raises and everyone else calls, it's probable that this player raises with less-than-premium hands.

Who's passive, who's aggressive? You can be loose and passive as well as loose and aggressive. You can be tight and passive as well as tight and aggressive. Obviously, the aggressive profiles are more dangerous because they are less likely to get out of your way when you bet, might not throw away a hand if you bluff, and may even play back at you by reraising with or without a strong hand.

What's showing up at the showdown? Look closely whenever a hand is turned face up at its conclusion. Then replay the hand in your mind and try to scope out the players in that pot based on how they bet and reacted to bets and raises, given the hands they were holding. This is the absolute best way to learn the playing styles of your opponents.

Who's winning, who's losing? While winners tend to be the better players, the short-term variance in poker can play havoc with this when all you have is 15 minutes to determine which players seem to be doing well and which ones are stuck for the day. Not even their chip stacks are 100 percent certain indicators. Some players just buy in for more money than others, and although 25 big bets is a typical buy-in ($1,000 in a $20-$40 game) some players will buy in for $1,500 to $2,000 while others will sit down with between $500 and $800 in front of them. But if you examine chip stacks and correlate this with a person's demeanor-happy or sad, upbeat or morose, outgoing or hooded over with introspection-you should have a good idea about the game's winners and losers.

Can we play musical chairs? It matters where you sit relative to the aggressive, good players and chips. In an ideal world you want the tough, aggressive players on your right along with any maniacs at the table, so you can get out of the way of the good players unless you have a very strong hand, while raising the maniac with any reasonable hand so that you can play heads up against him. You want the tight, cautious, conservative players on your left so you can bet them out of the pot, and they don't represent all that much of a threat to you, since they tend to raise infrequently, if at all.

If you happen to have an aggressive player on your left, you have to constrain the number of hands you play. On the other hand, when you have a good hand, you can let your aggressive table mate do your betting for you and you may be able to trap him for a lot of chips by hand's end.

Anytime you have someone's number, you should try to sit to his left, especially if he has a big stack, because the money flows left. Poker expert Mike Caro first pointed out that money flows clockwise around a table, and if you could sit on the ceiling and watch the game you'd see a time-lapse photography swirl as the money moved in that direction. So, if you can sit to the left of a player with a big stack of money, count your blessings; some of it figures to be yours.

If you could set up the seats at a poker table in such a way as to theoretically maximize your edge, you'd want tight, predictable players to your left, since you can bet and drive them off the pot a remarkably high portion of the time. But more importantly, you'd want loose and overly aggressive players to your right. That way, when they come out raising, which is generally far too often for the hands they're dealt, you can fold your poor and marginal hands, but make it three bets by reraising with your good ones. This usually results in you playing the pot heads-up with the maniac who presumably raised with a lesser hand than yours. That makes you the favorite. He'll win his share of pots, but you'll win your share too. Since you are entering pots with cards that figure to be superior to his, you'll come away the winner a whole lot more often than he does.

Don't get involved in a new game too soon

It takes a good fifteen minutes of so to get the lay of the land. Sure, if you're dealt a big pocket pair, like aces or kings, you can get involved in a pot because you figure to come away with the money at the end of the hand. But stay away from speculative hands until you've got your opponents characterized and know the playing propensities of them all. A good rule of thumb is to try to win the first hand you play to conclusion. If you do that, you will have established yourself as a good, tough player in the mind of your adversaries, and you'll be off to a great start. And by trying to win the first hand you play, you are saying, in essence, that you will avoid all but the very best hands when you first sit down at the table.

Develop a Theory

Develop a theory about everyone at the table as soon as possible. Pay attention and revise accordingly. Here are some valuable observations you might make that can put money in your pocket:<,br />
One of the great things about playing online is the ability to take and retain notes about your opponents. If you diligently take notes while playing you'll soon have a small book on most of your opponents, and even if you don't see them for a month or more, you'll notice your "note flag" when they jump into your game and you'll have them clocked before their first hand is played.

It's a lot easier to remember people's playing styles in-person, because you can associate their play with their features. I've seen players walk into a card room that I haven't seen for a year or more and while I may not recall their names-I may not have ever known their names-I recall how they play, and for a poker player that's what matters most.

Article by Lou Kreiger of Royal Vegas Poker

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