Playing Multiple Tables

Bloggers / Matthew Pitt / 24 August 2009 / Leave a Comment

Following on from Marcus Bateman's excellent article on increasing the number of tables you play in order to reduce the dreaded variance, I thought I would give some tips on how to progress from playing a solitary table to becoming a mega-tabling monster!

I am not going to go over old ground covered by Mr Bateman but if you are a winning player online, you should be playing more than one table at a time, otherwise you are simply leaving money at the table each and every session.

The mistake most players make when they try to play more than one table is running before they can actually walk. They usually play one table and want to try multi-tabling and fire up four or more tables when really they should just be adding one more to their screen.

People fail to realise how different playing just one extra table is compared to their usual single game. If you're playing six-max cash then instead of seeing 80 hands per hour, you're now seeing 160 an hour meaning you will now be involved in almost three hands per minute. This is a lot of decisions to make if you are not used to doing so.

Simply, add one extra table at a time and see how you fare. If you find yourself timing out or are uncomfortable just drop back down to one table and try two tables later on in your session. There is no shame in admitting defeat this time, you can always try again when you are feeling fresher and more alert.

Whilst increasing tables can reduce variance, you must also be honest to yourself and find the sweet spot for the number of tables you are profitable at. Personally I can play 16+ tables of SNG profitably at my stakes and six tables of short-handed cash, but I feel most comfortable playing four cash games and 12 SNG.

I make more money six tabling cash games then four tabling but it starts to feel more like a computer game and not real poker to me and I start to make silly mistakes, play too tight and become more readable to my opponents so I have dropped the number of tables I play.

If you are serious about playing multiple tables you need to invest in a HUD and some tracking software such as Holdem Manager and Poker Tracker. These programmes take information from your hand history files and display statistics on screen, in real-time, for you and your opponents. Using these statistics makes up for the lack of reads you will have due to paying attention to your actions on other tables.

Finally, you need to make sure you take notes on the regular players you come up against as you have less time to react and these notes can save you a bet or win you a pot. You may be faced with a big decision on whether to call a raise on the river whilst you have five tables bleeping away wanting your attention and knowing from past experience that your opponent only raises the river with the nuts will allow you to make an easy fold and get back to the action elsewhere.

So to recap, if you want to progress from one to several tables simultaneously, invest in some tracking software and a HUD, take some detailed notes on your opponents, try to add more tables slowly and find the optimal number of tables you can play before your win rate really starts to suffer. Good luck.

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