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Table Selection


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From Daniel's most recent post:"When I sat in, it was Barry Greenstien, Chip Reese, Doyle Brunson, Gus Hansen, Lyle Berman and myself. Not too longer after Phil Ivey joined us along with Johnny Chan. Within about an hour and a half I was down about $280,000, but truly feeling good about my play and my prospects in the game..."Here's my question. Does Daniel sit down at this table because:(a) He's got a significant advantage over the others at the table and expects to be able to beat this game regularly? (Possible, I guess, how would I know... but I'd be impressed considering the roster of talent there...)(B) These are Daniel's buds and he likes getting involved in friendly games from time to time? (Losing $280K in 90 minutes strikes me as being excessive for a friendly game, even for pros who earn seven figures annually...)© Once you get to Daniel's level, this is all you can find at limits like $1-2K? (If that's the case, it would seem that all the top level pros in Vegas do is dump their money off to one another, which doesn't seem possible...)So, if it's not one of the three reasons stated above, why does Daniel sit down at this table? Is it just the wild hair that makes someone want to compete against the best players out there? If so, that's interesting... considering the one thing I've always read from pros is that table selection is always of the utmost importance...(I guess what I'm saying is, I would think the pros would want to save the stiff competition for major tournaments, and look for easier marks when playing cash games...)Just wondering...

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I was wondering the same thing. Good post. Maybe Daniel will stop by an answer the question.When I read Ken Warren's book the thing I remember most was his section on table selection. He said something like... If you are the 10th best player in the world and you sit down at a table with the 1-9 best players in the world you are in bad shape.

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I think they do spend a lot of time sloshing the money back and forth amongst themselves. But also realize that a lot of super rich amateurs are going to come and sit down, thinking they're the best poker player in the world. They'll dump their money into the pool to be sloshed around... and not much of it's going to come back their way.Daniel talks about this somewhere. About starting tables with a bunch of pros(mostly not TV names), trying to attract tourists.I would imagine there are few tables at the super high limits to choose from.

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Yes, good question indeed. I was reading one of his articles and he sat down at a similiar table and the first thing that came to my mind is "what in the world is he doing in that game" then the next sentence he said his game selection selection these days were impeckable.

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Well first of all of the high limit games are mixed game selections. That's why you tend to find horse type selections and other medleys.As for the swapping of money between players, that's not really true. For one you have alot of people with money who want to prove themselves. Additionally with each person's strength you will find if the same ten players played nonstop for a year there would be players who are up and those who are down even at the professional level.As for the limits, when you play professionally those are the best games to play. Why would you limit your earnings by playing 100/200 when you could make 10x that in one hour playing 1000/2000? Just doesn't make sense to play at lower limits.Besides once you get to the level that they are, there is a certain comaradarie between everyone and you develop a family type feel.

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lets say daniel, chip, doyle, johnny and all of them are sloshing money back and forth at a 2k-4k table. then just one rich guy comes in on the game all day and buys in with 40-60k [not much considering the limits]. if he loses that 40-60k, considering that hes just there to gamble and have a good time, then thats 40-60k more to the pros to slosh around. from that 40-60k, maybe daniel will make 5k of it that day, chip makes 10k, doyle makes 12.5k, johnny takes 18.5k, and the rest of the rich guy's dough is split among the rest. that's just a profit from one guy's money. and also, that's just one example.

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i'm also wondering, since i am only a 5-10 player, at those kind of K limits in vegas, at one of those "shark tank" tables, are there generally a lot of amateurs that buy in every day? wealthy industrialists? CEOs? trust fund celebrities?

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These guys do not make their living at these 1k-2k tables. If this were the case, you would see daniel posting something daily about his results. However, he posts something about these tables probably once every 2 weeks. These players obviously slosh their money back and forth. Occasionally they may find some whale (ala Andy beal) that is willing to dump 60K to them, however, this is not (IMO) often enough for these guys to maintain the livings that they do. Where does their money come from, well I am sure numerous sources. Greenstein was filthy rich before cards and will continue to be after cards. I am sure many other High limit players have the same story. Yes doyle and others made their living from cards, but these were from going to private games all over the country and sloshing them. Trust me, if these guys wanted to make a living from High limit poker, they would not do so in a Casino card room. They do that, because they love the action (addictiveness) and the fellowship. L* :D

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"(I guess what I'm saying is, I would think the pros would want to save the stiff competition for major tournaments, and look for easier marks when playing cash games..."I think someone mentioned it above that all you would need is one or two players who were not at that level to make that game profitable. If you can make .5 of a big bet/hour at 1000-2000 its a lot better than 1 big bet/hour at 200-400.These type of games is where the real players are. You won't usually see Phil H,TJ or probably 90% of the TV tournament players in these games because they are not good enough and have nowhere near the bankroll to play. I am no expert of the vegas scene, infact I have never even beenthere :cry: , but numerous people who do know what they are talking about mention that most of the tournament "pros" are constantly broke and in some cases 100's of thousands of dollars in debt to their backers.

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