Knowledge is power. Everybody knows that. At the hold 'em table, look at the actions of your opponents as their way of giving you knowledge that you can use as a weapon against them. For that reason, you'd like certain types of players to act on their hands before you do. Those players are:
1. Loose players. People who play too many hands cannot possibly have a premium hand every time. When you call against these players, you'll usually have the better hand, so you'll show a profit over a period of time. When you raise, the loose player will already have one bet in the pot, and he will almost always call the raise from you. If you've got a loose player on your right, you've got him trapped.
2. Very aggressive players. These are not the same as loose players. While a loose player plays too many hands, a very aggressive player bets, raises and reraises too much with the fewer hands that he does play. Against such a player, you'll often be in the position of having to call two or more bets cold. This is good for you for two reasons:
1. At least you're not in the position of having called one bet and being trapped into calling another bet when someone behind you raises. You can fold without having called any bets.
2. If your hand is very good, you can leverage the aggressive player's raise, using it to drive out other players behind you by raising yourself. You can't do this if the aggressive player is on your left.
3. The money. By this I mean the player who has the the biggest winner in the game. True, he could have bought all of those chips, or he could just have been lucky enough to win the biggest pot of the day. In the absence of any other information, though, you can assume he's a good player. If you spent a few minutes watching the game before you got in, you'll know what kind of player he is, and you'll be able to tell if his winnings come from luck or skill. If he's really good, you want him on your right, where he'll act on his hand before you most of the time.
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