Playing Multiple Tables

Online Poker offers several areas that can allow the more talented player to achieve more bang for the buck. Such as: More hands per an hour, for instance, and the ability to play more than one table.

Under what circumstances should I consider playing more than one table and under what circumstances should I STOP .

Basically you need to look at your winrate and your confidence.

- If you are a losing or break even player, stick to one table. Any mistakes you are making will only be compounded by multi-tabling.

- If you're not confident in your game and trying to learn, stick to one table, same reasoning as above.

- If you are a confident winning player at a given limit, try adding a table and see how it affects your winrate. Start off with 2 tables - don't expect your winrate (in terms of BB/hr) to double, but it should be higher than your winrate for 1 table if you're to continue adding tables. For example, say you're winning 2BB/100 on one table, but only 1.5BB/100 when 2-tabling (because of missing out on the occasional read, rushing the odd decision, etc). Your BB/100 has gone down, but as you're playing twice as many hands your winrate has actually gone up.

- If you find your winrate is actually dropping, switch back to 1 table or move down in limits if you're insistent on getting multitabling practice.

- Add another table if and when you're more confident playing the number of tables you're at, and repeat the analysis above.

there is a book I saw by Doyle Brunson called "playing poker online" or something like that... and it touches on multi-tabling...You have to tighten up alot because you're more often going to make mistakes due to lack of total focus on one game or the other - it will be harder to put plays on people, so your game will haev to be much more mechanical. And it may just be me, but multi-tabling no limit games seems MUCH MUCH harder to do than limit games...but like i said, it may just be me.

Dorkus's advice is excellent. Start with two tables before getting nuts and playing four or more at a time. I just recently started multi-tabling on Stars at the .1/.25 no limit games. I started with $100 and turned it into $250 within a week or so. You'll hear success stories that dwarf mine, but considering I only play an hour or so a day it's not bad.

E