How many cash games do you play at a time and why???

Hi Chaps, hope u r all well

Over the past few weeks I have started playing a lot more cash games, mainly limit and normally $1.00/2.00

I have tried to play 2 tables at a time but I can`t decide if I should concentrate on playing just one table.

Any thoughts or advice guys???

TY

I can handle 4 sometimes 5 cash games at a time but I started keeping track and my best stats are when I'm playing 2 games.

Just one. I only recently became a fair cash game player and have been coming out with profit so dont wanna blow it with wild experimentation yet lol.

i usually play a tourney alongside it though, but have recently busted out and played like crap in every tourney ive been in so i think one table is best for me now.

I play 4 pretty much religiously.

The reason is fairly simple :- After getting a huge chunk of data, this is where my hourly rate is the highest. Historically my HR goes down if I play above 4 tables or less than 4.

It also exposes you to less variance.

If for example, you played 4 simultaneous tables of 3/6, and managed to average a long term hourly rate of $20. This is preferable (IMO) to the alternative route of say one table of 10/20, where in theory a good hourly rate would also be $20. Psychologically it helps as well. That one extremely cruel cap,cap,cap 2 card suckout bothers you less.

My advice to you is to :-

1) keep the buy-in levels the same (or very similar) for all tables
2) keep all tables the same format game
3) not to multi-table more than 2 if your game of choice is Stud, Stud8, Razz or Horse.
4) Track your hourly rate religously across your experimentation phase for the next year or however long it takes

Thanks for that guys.

Welly, do u play FL or NL? Also, if play that many tables u can only play the cards, would that be correct?

So, if for example, u had pkt 10`s, u raised and got a caller, u would need to fold to a bet on a flop of say A95 (the point I`m making is u would have to fold to a bet on a card above your1s)

One because I'm a very poor multitasker, even with PT and PAHUD running

I also have found my niche with a very aggressive style of play at the NL tables, and I need %100 of my attention in order to make sure it works out for me. If I'm not on the ball completely, I may miss out on a huge read/tell that could cost me big time.

I play mainly FL, and occasionally sets of PL. (not holdem though)

Through previous experience and lots of analysis I can make pretty quick and (more often than not) correct decisions. Remember these are vastly different decisions to those in tournaments. If you play mainly tourneys, to an extent you need to relearn how to play.

Dont get carried away with it being a honeypot though...it isnt. Out of say a million people playing cash games, probably 999,000 do nothing more than contribute to the rake. Even "good players" wont make money. You need to put in work to reteach yourself, and even then the edge is small. If you can convert 1BB to an hourly rate then you have done extremely well.

In answer to your specific example :-
I dont play NLHE/PLHE/LHE for cash. I dont like it, never have. I can appreciate an edge in LHE could be forged through lots of experience, good temperament, and analysis. But in NLHE, it sends a shiver down my spine even thinking of trying to play that for cash.

Good luck to you.

TY all for contributing

I have been playing usually 3 tables at a time, .10/.25 NL. I have been taking a stab at 4 here recently and it's working out pretty well. I find that you can't focus solely on 1 table getting good reads and notes which sucks but you can make up for it by the sheer number of hands where you get the nutz. At least 2-3 times a session I'll have the nutz and get people betting into me thier whole stack. I try to maximize my chance for this happening by playing more tables and playing very tight.

i normally play 2/3 tables. i can concentrate well enough on 2 tables so they are normally the higher limits and then play a freeroll tourney etc to keep from getting bored or to play those silly suited connectors/ ace rag that we all like to play and usually cost us . so u can still get ure reads on the 2 cash tables and play ure frustations out on a table that means nothing and costs u nothing which helps to keep ure bankroll healthy

i am happy to play a tourney n 1 cash game at the same time,but mainly just 1 ring game.The simple fact is more than one cash at the same time you just use more cash waiting for that monster hand to come your way.And since my last deposit on dec 2006 £20(now $700) i am not in a hurry to change

I normally will play anyhere from 2 to 4 tables at once or 2 cash games and 2 or 3 more sit and goes I find I am more focused and less bored by doing this I make less stupid plays cause I dont over think the hands go by odds and outs and works well for me

I like playin 2-4 tables.I have a short attention span in the first place,so one table gets kinda old quick.I can easily concentrate on em anyhow

This is pretty interesting to me, as I rarely play more than one table, mostly to conserve my bankroll relative to the amount of hours that I want to be able to play.

On the other hand, I understand about the variance being controlled by playing more than one table at a time from the few times that I have tried 2 tables at once. And being able to deal with the boredom of one table.

But it seems like almost everyone plays multi tables.

One at a time for me, and for a couple of reasons.

1) I sometimes get a little confused with more than one, confusing players with other players, even sometimes forgetting what stack I have or the portrayal I have painted of myself at that table.

2) I'm skint.

I usually play between 2-4 tables at $1/$2 NL. It really depends what your purpose of playing is though mate.

If your goal is to play top notch poker then one table is probably a good idea as you can focus on making quality reads and getting maximum value from every hand.

However if your goal is just to make money then you are probably better off playing a very NITTY game and mulit tabling. You will find that your bb/100 hands will drop but the amount of hands that you do in an hour will sky rocket making your hourly rate more profitable.

I have a fairly interesting situation where I can spend my whole day doing poker activities and call it work.

Basically what this means for me is that I can play boring unimaginative nitty poker online and garner a nice profit and I also get to the casino for some live poker at least 4 days a week.

Obviously live poker is the slowest thing ever and I use that fact to my advantage. Where I play about 200 hands per hour online we would be lucky to play 30 at the casino. That means I can focus alot more on ' playing poker' then on just 'having an edge'.

To summarise this obscenely long and pointless post I will say.

It all depends on what you hope to achieve.

If your goal is money then multi table and tighten up.

If you want to become a better poker player then play less tables and focus.

Hope this helps!

Not nice U saying my post is pointless

I think he meant his own post reply - not your thread lol.

I know dakota, just playing

I used to multi table a few years ago but now i stick to playing 1 game at a time, by doing that i can concentrate on all the players at that table, when i did multi tables i would lose track of what different players were doing at different times, I think by playing 1 table at a time i do better and my game has improved, buck

i nearly always play one

never more than 2, and only 2 if resizable windows are available

i cannot bear clicking between overlapping windows

4 6max ring games... Altho i've been debating setting up my other monitor so i can play more..

For the record, I was talking about my own post.

It's myu second day on this forum, I dont want to start any arguments just yet!

No probs m8, I was only messing

It's difficult for me to concentrate on 3-5 games at once, so I usually stick to 2 max. Depends on the stakes too.

yep same here, i usually just stick to 2 cuz this way i can better concentrate how others on the table are playing

8-12..playing less gets me bored.

Also, to those saying you only play 1 table because you are skint, thats BS. You need the same bankroll for 1 table as 8.

To those saying there is less varience the more table you play, this is just completley wrong (presuming you keep the stakes the same, which you should be doing anyways)

I hope you are joking . I didnt even think that many tables was possible . I play 2 tables at a time and thats just perfect for me althoug if I was a better multitasker then 4 at the most but beyond that is crazy.

nope, not joking. According to PT, I play on averyage 7.5 tables at once. But thats only b/c it takes time to load up tables, shut them down, and then when i coach my friends, I obv cant have as many running.

So I would think a fairer average would be something like 9 or so

Usually a couple table, but only one ring table the other is a tournament table. I find it keeps the pace going and the momentum full swing!

With all due respect m8, I think this statement is BS !!!

I only play 2 tables at a time, but what ppl are saying has to be true. I assume they mean, as an example, u r playing 5 tables at once. U get dealt AA at the same time on every table. In this scenario, your AA will get busted at least once. If that table had been the only table u had been playing u would probably be upset. However, because the other 4 held up the beat would not be as noticeable. Therefore, the variance will be less

ummmm....lol.

Sorry dude, but you seem to not understand variance at all. What you are trying to say is that b/c you play more hands, variance is lower? This is wrong for 2 reasons:

1) variance is not a function of how many hands you play. I don't understand why you think it would be. Its simply a function of your playing style and your winrate.

2) what I think you MIGHT be trying to say is that your winrate converges to its true winrate quicker? The problem with this is that it probably takes something like 500,000 hands to converge to your true winrate, so adding an extra table or 2 isn't really gonna do much for helping that. And even if it did, you're still not reducing variance, you're winrate just converges faster IN TIME, but not at all in HANDS PLAYED. ie. if you played 1 table for 2 hours or 2 tables for 1 hour, your variance would be the same.

For all I know, u could be right!!!

Most of the people, however, stress that the reason they play more games is to reduce the bordem of waiting for playable hands and their `luck` is more even. I understand what u r saying, dbitel, don`t get me wrong, but generally the reasons I have stated is why ppl multi table.

I`m gonna set up a poll

Just a comment; be careful if you're not playing the same game on every table.

Last night I was playing a Soko freeroll, got bored and joined a cash NLHE table.

Called a raise from the BB with K2o, forgetting it was NHLE and not the Soko table.