Marcus Bateman / Marcus Bateman / 25 September 2008 / Leave a comment

In my opinion, being able to play multiple tables at once is the single greatest feature of online play. The ability to play numerous tables, coupled with the much higher rate of turnover of hands that virtual shuffling allows, enables a player to drastically increase their profit rate compared to the live arena. What I want to look at here are some techniques that I have found very useful when trying to increase the number of tables you play.

Firstly, take advantage of the hand history as much as possible. If you suddenly see that the stacks have radically changed at a table, go back and look at how it happened - it may be that a certain player is making massive mistakes that you will have only missed if you fail to go back and look.

Secondly, DON'T have anything else running while you play. Watching TV, browsing the web, or even talking on the phone are all detrimental to playing lots of tables. Being able to keep up with four or more games requires the utmost concentration - most outside influences will gradually cost you money through distracting you.

Thirdly, invest in an extra monitor. Most of the best players at multi tabling have two monitors to enable them to tile as many screens as possible together. This can really help you order the games in priority (particularly important if you are a large scale mtt player), for example, I use my left monitor for tournaments that I am either deep in or have larger buy ins, and focus a bit more attention on this side than the other. This can help stop you just playing mechanically everywhere - especially important when you get deep in a tournament and have to start thinking creatively.

Finally, accept your limitations. It takes a great deal of practice to get to the stage when you can start firing up table after table to push your profits up, try and increase the number your are playing slowly and surely and keep track of when your profit starts to go down - this will enable you to find the optimum number for you and really get the maximum out of the hours you spend playing.

Increasing the number of tables you play, if done properly, can drastically increase your win rate in any form of poker. It can also help you deal with the variance of poker much more, as the turnover of hands is so great that it is hard to go on the very long losing streaks that can plague live players games (particularly in the super high variance world of mtts). Utilise all the online games have to offer to maximise your profits and stay as sane as possible.