The books all say (or it's said that they say - I've only read one) that game selection is an important part of maximizing your EV. What they really mean is you don't want to play at a game where you're going to get your ass handed to you on a silver platter.Oh, sure, you can play under your potential, playing, say, play money games when you're ready to play for real cash. Since I play poker for fun, that doesn't really apply to me so much.
(I admit that as soon as it's real cash, I start worrying about things like "I've been sitting here for two hours and made $0.20 -- WTF am I doing?" Of course, when the blinds are $0.02, that isn't a bad rate of return, but since it's real money it seems like a ludicrously small amount, even though I'd be happy to play two hours and make 100,000 in PokerStars Dollars, which is worth bubkus.)Anyway, back to game selection. In conversation with a person who tracked me down last night (some of it not very cordial) the person tracking me said something about me not tracking him down, and added "Don't you like playing with bad players?"Actually, I don't.I sometimes get lucky (everyone does) but for the most part I don't think I'm a lucky player. Put another way, I feel (true or not) that I am unlucky relative to the greater population. (In defense of this feeling, I would point to my running relationship with Quads.) The biggest problem with playing bad players is they don't know when they're playing stupid, meaning more money is in the pot when they suck out on me. So for me, the right game is one with decent players who aren't a hell of a lot better than me. As you might tell from my current bankroll status, I've not been having a lot of luck finding those games recently....Bankroll status: 3.63M PSD, 53.45 USD