A good poker player is someone who sees the overall "picture" and someone who understand the importance of choosing the right poker table in order to maximize his profit from each game. In real casinos a good player will seat at the table with the most "fish" or "bad" players as he sees them, but nowadays when the on-line poker world is thriving, it isn't an easy task to accomplish; It's much more difficult since you have to pick the right room first, then you have to pick one table from a long and diverse list of tables and the freedom of choice just makes it harder on your decision, specially when it comes down to money-making.

So how can you make up your mind which table is the most suited for you and gainful then others? To begin with, despite the increase in the number of online poker rooms, it's not very common to find multi-options lobbies full of important information which allow us to obtain a large amount of live- information, like Walker Poker which is one of the leading poker rooms in terms of user experience.

There are number of factors that you need to take in consideration before you choose the perfect table. Of course that first you need to know how much bankroll you willing to risk and then you should look at the three numeric features at the lobby: the average pot size, number of hands per hour & average number of players per flop (at Walker Poker's lobby this features updates every single second).

This feature provides us a statistic of how much money is played in the average pot and also gives you an indication about the post –flop feeling at the table, If it's "dry" or aggressive. When the number of the average pot is higher and when you hold a nice hand you'll win a large mount of money. Therefore, as a trickier poker player you should seek for these tables with the higher figures.

This figure shows the average percentage of players at a specific table who make it to the flop. It is addresses the issue of how loose are players at the table. When the number is high, then we can presume that the players holds a low starting hands and there is a big chance that they might be an "amateurs" poker players (loose-passive) that some of them calls pre-flop, so if you got high cards and with a little push on the flop you will be able to eat all the "fish". Then again if the number is low probably there're tight players at the table who stays only to see the flop in case they have a premium hands. This kind of table is very beneficial for tight players.

Eventually a right usage of this information can contribute a lot when it comes to the right table selection that is the most suited to your playing style, no matter if you tight or loose and which type considers to a better player.

Tells you the total number of hands who plays at the table per hour. This is an excellent indication of the play rhythm at the table. A high number of hands per hour indicate that there are a lot of winnings pre-flop, with a minority of hands going all the way to a showdown. A low hand per hour ranking shows that most hands keeps on playing until the turn or the river, and usually this type of players, to put it gently, won't be so keen to fold.

You need to pay attention and check attentively the number of players at the table, because
sometimes these statistics can be misleading. In case there are a small number of players at the table it means that it's a Short Handed game at this specific table, obviously the hands per hour statistics will be high. When a high figure appears at the hands per hour ranking and the table is full or almost full, a quality poker player will try to steal the blinds from good position. In addition it's a red sign for players to be careful about getting into an exhausted battle on the pot with the other. So choosing the fuller table apparently more profitable when it's comes to optimize our bankroll, which is our main goal at the end of the day. So it does worth give up a little on the "quality of the game".

After we studied the three most important features it highly important to know that they go hand in hand together and the preference of one of them can contribute nor damage your table selection. So make sure you take them both into consideration.
Now we'll illustrate you how to apply the factors which written above when you're about to choose the right table according to a real chart of NL Texas-Hold'em From Walker Poker lobby:
As you can see on the chart we've picked 5 poker table and numbered them from 1-5.
The table with the highest average pot is table #4 which circles in pink.
The tables with the highest number of players per flop are #1, #2 and #4 which circles in green.
The table with the highest number of players per hours is table #5 which circles in blue.
Let's compare between the combinations of the features at each of these tables and then use the elimination method.
Table # 4 has better date than tables #1 and # 2 therefore we can eliminate them, it seems that table #4 has better specification than # 3 because it has probably more amateurs and a highest pot average.
It is a question of personal like but we will prefer table #4, the same calculation will apply to table # 5.
Next week in "Tip of the Week" we'll continue with our rundown about the most crucial factors that we need to check before we sit at the table, i.e. the right table selection.