Ask Spoony About Poker, Life, and Anything Else

[deucesomething]

What should one look for when selecting a table? Also, where is the ideal spot to sit down - to the left or to the right of deep-stacked players & short stacks?

[spoonitnow]

What should one look for when selecting a table? Also, where is the ideal spot to sit down - to the left or to the right of deep-stacked players & short stacks?

The table itself doesn't make much of a shit, it's really the seat that usually matters. Things you can take advantage of in the players to your left and right. For example, people who fold their blinds 90%+ of the time are great to have on your left. People who fold to 3-bets 90%+ of the time are great to have on your right.

All things being equal, you'd rather be to the left of a deep-stacked player than to the right. With that having been said, it's difficult to play well pre-flop if there's a good 30bb or less player on your immediately left in blind stealing scenarios.

How you keep from ever going on tilt during your long sessions? If you get it in with the best several times during one session and lose does it not get to you? And how did you come to be so insensitive to the beats at the table?

You can't play your best 100% of the time, and so you're going to tilt sometimes no matter what you do. What you CAN do is make it so you tilt less often, and make the times you tilt not as bad.

I've not tilted in a very long time from a beat or cooler, and I know a lot of people who feel the same way. I just don't care because it's not important. You probably care so much because you don't understand poker and/or EV. You're simply not SUPPOSED to always win when you get it in ahead. If you're playing 100nl with $100 stacks and there is some guy pushing every single hand preflop and you get it in with AA, you're SUPPOSED to lose that about 15% of the time (about 1 time out of 6).

So what probably happens is you get it in and you think to yourself something like YES I WON A STACK and then get crushed emotionally when you lose instead of thinking YES I JUST MADE A PLAY THAT'S WORTH ABOUT $70 ON AVERAGE and not even watching the rest of the cards come because you give so little of a shit about the outcome and have other tables to act on.

As far as how I became so insensitive to beats, it's more of the same thing. It's like asking how I became so insensitive to it raining whereas you might get pissed off if it's raining. I have no reason to care, so I don't care. Surely you have more important things to worry about.