One of the most underrated and under-utilised methods of increasing your win rate is table and seat selection. For some reason many players simply log onto their favourite poker room and sit down at the first free table that has an empty seat available. Whilst this is sometimes fine at the very lowest stakes, by the time you are above the first rung of the ladder you should be actively looking for the best possible seat for you to sit in.
A major advantage an online poker room has over its brick and mortar equivalent is the sheer number of tables the former has running at any one time. Whilst you are often forced to play on the only available table at your local poker room, online you can simply bide your time and choose from dozens, if not hundreds of tables 24 hours a day.
Because you can have a much wider choice of table when playing on an online poker site it you should use this to your advantage and look for the table that has the highest probability of being the most profitable to play at. From the worst to the very best online poker room you will be able to get the information to help you decide this from the lobby.
Each lobby is slightly different but each should show you somewhere the average sized pot and the average number of players seeing the flop displayed as a percentage. You should first sort the lobby information by the average pot size and try to find one that is above average and keep an eye on that table. One that is too high is generally an indicator of a couple of all in pots in quick succession and is usually an anomaly nd one that is too small means you will not get paid off by anyone at the table as they are all playing too tightly. A table that has an above average average pot size is ideal.
The same goes for the number of players seeing a flop, too low and everyone will be so tight that you will only get action when you are beaten and too high will see you essentially gambling and hoping to hit hands. If you play short-handed no limt Hold'em games the sweet spot is generally between 30 and 40% of players seeing the flop.
