How should you place yourself compare to your opponents when playing poker? Is choosing a seat crucial? Make no mistake, seat choice is important. It’s also an aspect of the game most gamblers ignore. Choosing a seat is one of the most critical decisions you’ll make in a poker game since your position is permanent until you’re out.
The most important consideration in poker is game selection, and determining which cards to enter a hand with runs a close second. Depending on the contest you’ll be up against, seat choice is generally 3rd in importance between strategic options encountered in a poker game. In Las Vegas or Los Angeles, where there is generally more than one game at every wagering level, game choice becomes an art.
Regardless of your expertise as a poker player, most of your winnings are the consequence of wrong decisions made by your rivals than tactically smart moves you make. In other words, the best gambler in the world, sitting in a game with gamblers who are slightly inferior in ability, will not be favored to win as much as a better gambler in a game populated by weak players.
When recommending seat choice It is best to “Sit to the maniac’s left.” When you’re in a game along a maniac – the kind of gambler who wants to raise every pot – place yourself to his left, so you make your move after he does. That way, when you have a hand and he raises, you can reraise. Even in games where players routinely call raises, very little will keep calling without a hand. In fact, if you get to sit to the left of a gambler that raises all the time and you have a hand and you know he’ll raise for sure then you can loosen your game a little and milk him, as long as you are re-raising with hands that are sure to take him.
