Table selection in micro stakes limit

I've been trying to work out how to pick which table to play in 2c/4c limit on PokerStars. I want to play the tables which are the most profitable. That means lots of loose, passive players. I like to be at tables with at least 3 and better yet 5+ opponents seeing the flop. I of course want nothing to do with this and I like to play tight and fold preflop around 70% of the time. But I want lots of people seeing the flop with me on the premium starting hands in position I do play.

I don't mind loose aggressive players. If they want to splash chips around with reckless raising and reraising that's fine with me. There's just more variance against such players since you generally don't know if they have anything more than bottom pair with their raises and reraises. Plus nobody folds because the pot is large and the raiser is reckless and could be raising with anything. So the opponents will all call capped betting rounds to the river with middle pair hoping for late help, or that it is good enough to take it. With large pots and nobody folding there are even more, and more expensive bad beats. But that's the cost of doing business against bad players so I'm not complaining.

Anyway how to pick a table. I like full 10 player tables since the blinds come around less frequently so cost less. That allows me to play tight and wait for premium starting hands without the blinds eating at my stack.

Usually there are around 2-4 tables on Stars at my level with 9 players. I used to use flop % and pick the one with the highest percentage seeing the flop. However I found that after I sat down the table would often be a lot tighter than the 68% flop percentage from the lobby. I think flop % is skewed by a small number (2-3) of players who see the flop virtually 100% of the time. If 1 or 2 such players leave the table then by the time new players join the flop percentage can plummet. So I don't bother with flop % any more since it is unreliable due to the large amount of players coming and going from the tables at this level.

Then I tried just picking a table at random, like I used to in Yahoo. I wrote a small Python script to select one. That was OK I guess, but then I'd get into unstable tables I didn't really like. In Stars micro stakes limit a table can start out well with 9-10 players but then quickly in about 5 minutes disintegrate down to like 4-5 players.

Unstable tables that may be about to disintegrate can be spotted by the following:

• Players (even 1, but especially more than 1) who are holding a seat at the table but sitting out, not playing. This is very annoying, as it makes the table look fuller in the lobby than it actually is.
• Players in distress. If someone has less than 10 BB in his stack then that person often goes bust in a few hands then either leaves or sits out. If there is more than one player in distress then the table can be in rapid flux.

So the random thing wasn't really ideal since I would have to repick after seeing an unstable table with too many people sitting out or in distress.

I came up with a new plan to just pick a table manually. What I do now is this.

• Open all of the tables with 9 players.
• Eliminate the unstable tables with sitters or people in distress.
• Watch a couple hands in progress on the remaining tables if there is more than one.
• Pick the table with the most people seeing the flop.
  
• Also I look for players I recognize, have notes on, and are known to be bad players. The occasional known good player is OK to play with since I at least have a read on him. I prefer that to playing unknowns.
  

This way to pick tables has been working pretty well.