Keys to Game Selection

[Talking Poker]

Um... I dunno. Not in a hurry and testing one step at a time, I'd say it was less than an hour from the time I started until I had data importing. I was playing and doing some other things at the same time, so I wasn't giving it 100% of my attention.

To be conservative, call it 3-4 hours (one evening) from beginning all the way to having a functioning buddy list and having the AutoResizer and PAHud (which I already used) set up the way you like, etc.

[melioris]

thanks again pshabi, this system kicks ass. Unironic ->

Is anyone else having problems with searching for players? When I open the "find player" option and then click on the "buddies" button next to the text box, I only get a small subset of my buddy list, usually the same names. Is anyone else experiencing this problem?

[PShabi]

The only players that will appear in that box are those who are online at the time.

You see a small set because:

a) you don't have many in your list
b) not many are online at the time
c) you're not using the arrows to scroll

I probably only have 100 or so online at a given time, and my list is probably getting close to 1500.

Out of those 100, a substantially smaller amount are actually playing at my limit.

[melioris]

Thanks. My small subset is usually 50-75 from the buddy list of lots and lots. Essentially everyone at 1/2 falls under the parameters you recommend.

[Talking Poker]

I wonder if it would be a good idea to change your parameters to get a smaller sample. I was thinking of doing the same myself, so I could focus on the super-donks instead of just the donks. ie:

VP$IP >= 50
PRF <= 7

FP$IP >= 60
PFR >= 7

Something like that.

Cause those are SERIOUSLY bad players.

[Talking Poker]

I assume you're only getting the ones who are online at that very moment, which is going to be a small fraction of your entire list.

[johnp158]

My favorite so far: The 55/3 guy who you sat to the left of and drilled; next time you open party, he's at the 15/30 table instead of 3/6.

[MathBabe]

This is good stuff. I was home sick today, so I found and installed the hand grabber and iWitness. I also installed PartyPoker, since I had never played it on this machine - I gave up when I lost my initial deposit there, and was playing at lower limits than they offer.

Well, hello, $20 returning bonus! I had a little trouble with iWitness, but I spent the morning collecting data on Limit .50/$1 and the afternoon seeing if I could use it.

On the first table I joined, my fish disappeared as soon as the blinds got to me. It wasn't a waste of time, though, because I got dealt TT, A5s, and AKo in that orbit before I left, almost doubling my money on that round.

Then I found a guy who was VPIP 51% and PFR less than 2. I eventually managed to get to his left by joining the waitlist several times, and sat with him for half an hour until he decided to take his remaining $2 and leave.

It's beautiful playing against these calling stations! My $20 bonus is now $46.75 in my account, where I had $0 this morning. Thanks, Pshabi!

[Talking Poker]

In my limited experience so far, I've found that it's a real pain i nthe ass trying to get the perfect seats.... but seems to be worthwhile. Being in the seat directly to the left of the donk is a huge advantage. Being 2 to the left is ok (provided the person in between isn't an above average player), but if you are even 3 to the left or even get someone in between you and the donk that knows what they are doing, it almost makes it not worthwhile.

I guess I'm still trying to find the balance of sitting at a table with bad players and winning vs. trying to sit in the perfect seat against a horrible player.

Any thoughts on this, pshabi? Now that we have all this data, maybe you can walk us through the details of how you choose your seats.... I understand this:

But how long does it typically take you to get 4 tables going where you are happy with your seats.... and once you do, do you still keep an eye on your other fish to see if better seats open up? Or are you just happy with what you've got and focus on your play?

[MathBabe]

I'm interested in this as well.

First, I only take the seats right next to the donkeys. I find it annoying, because I find I have to get myself on the wait list for 7-10 tables at once. But I can get them eventually.

Secondly, isn't the conventional wisdom that you want the donkeys on your left, and the more aggressive players on your right?

[PShabi]

When fishfinding, I usually will sit to the immediate left or one to the left of the fishy player. However, I'm not that picky.

For instance, I'm on a waitlist and a table pops up with a seat open. It's directly across from my targeted fish, so the position isn't that great. However, if I look and see that the person to the right of the open seat is sitting with $90, I'll sit down anyway.

Players sitting short is a true sign of retardedness. Even if I don't have stats, I'm pretty confident that it's probably a good seat. If I find out that's not true, I'll move after one orbit sometimes. I change seats a lot.

It's kind of distracting and is definitely a much bigger pain in the ass than just opening 4-tables and sitting down. It's worth it to me though.

With a list as big as mine, it's hard not to find 10 buddies online at once. You'd be surprised at just how many times the seat that opens up is the seat you actually want. There's times where I'll join 10 waitlists and the first 3 tables that open up have juicy seats.

I'm very meticulous when it comes to poker. Any edge I can get is an edge worth exploiting. The sea of fish is just so vast at Party, that after you've collected enough data, it's not that hard to find them.

While you are still accumulating names on your list, my suggestion is this:

When you know you want to play, start datamining first. Open up your software, start mining, go get a drink, have a smoke, fix a snack, etc.

Come back 30-40 minutes later and while you don't have totally significant data, you have a good idea where the fish are. If a player has been dealt 30 hands, played 18 of them, and never raised prefloop, well, you don't need 10,000 hands on him to know he's a weiner.

So, start mining before you play, join all 10 lists when you come back and see what pops up.