Playing Two Tables Or More At Once

I seem to get the machine really humming sometimes. But do you think I do worse or better when I do it? I'm playing 4 tables right now with decent results while typing this. It can get your fingers, wrists, etc. sore.

Depends on the person. If you can still make accurate observations, and understand the lines that the players take in hands while multi-tabling then playing up to 4 tables(most start with 1 and slowly work their way up to more) is fine. But generally more than 4 can put you into multi-tabling robot mode.

AAChipMagnet said:

I seem to get the machine really humming sometimes. But do you think I do worse or better when I do it? I'm playing 4 tables right now with decent results while typing this. It can get your fingers, wrists, etc. sore.

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We don't know if you do better or worse...You could post some stats I guess or some examples. Pretty vague though.

I find that 3-4 is just right for me, but I agree with the above poster about posting some stats.

Yea I do better with more than one game going 3 or 4 seems to be the sweet spot. I have done 6-8 and it just crazy. And i tend not to do to well in some

i thought about 4 was my limit. but i've been practicing. its kinda retarded, but those fun step sng's at carbon. you get 10 shots a day at the first step, so i 10 table those, they're over in no time and usually get about 6 of them to the next step...really awful players though...then just start tackin on the step 2's and 3's as i get in there. its not so bad...i haven't decided if i like the windows big and cascaded when there's so many or tiny and tiled...both have advantages and disadvantages. when there's 2-4 i'd rather just see all of them.

it seemed like a fun way to try to play a bunch of tables at once for free with a little chance at the end of getting a dollar though. i see your game is stud though. so i would recommend, if you're tryin to multi-table it up, that you try it out with no risk first so you'll know where you're comfortable and get some practice in where you don't feel comfortable but maybe where you'd like to be.

It is all based upon how comfortable you are playing with a certain amount of tables. For me personally, I play a much more TAG game when I am playing more tables, because I have so much action going on, it doesn't bother me that I'm not playing a ton of hands at a certain table. I kind of find that the people who are the loosest at the tables seem to only be playing one, maybe two, tables at a time. And that makes sense, they are sitting there, and if they are serious about playing, they want to do just that, play hands. But they are playing a lot of hands that they shouldn't be just to keep themselves from falling asleep. That used to happen to me back in my one-tabling days. You felt like if you weren't playing every other hand that you were bored out of your mind. This is a little different than in a b&m because there you are playing with your chips and seeing action happen right in front of your face, so it doesn't seem as though it is dragging on so much in between hands(talking about to the 1-tabler, for usual multi-tablers, b&m cash games DO DRAG ON, lol, especially when you're used to seeing 500-1000 hands an hour online, compared to about 45 in a b&m)

Sorry I don't have any personal accurate stats of my own playing but this is the sorta conversation I wanted to start because I was curious how many people find that they actually play better when playing more than 1 table. I'm sorta going both ways on this. I seem to play better if I can concentrate but at the same time I agree with Absoluthamm that playing only 1 table can put you to sleep waiting for "good" hands to play. Is it concentration? Is it the software reacting to MultiTable play? It does seem to me that when playing a game like Razz it can get too "busy" and take away from concentrating on other tables. I have a decent widescreen laptop that I play on and 4 tables of Hold'Em at once isn't out of the question. I personally try to limit it to 2 or 3 though because I don't run into multiple actions being required at the same time. I've missed bets and even left money on the table with winning hands because I couldn't get back to the table in time.

I'm quite comfortable with 4-tabling ring games and prefer at least 2-tabling to single tabling. For MTT/SnG play however I still prefer single-tabling unless I can start tourneys with the same structure at about the same time. The need to constantly re-evaluate strategy based on blinds and stacks, as well as new players shuffling in as tables are balanced, require much more concentration per table (for me, at least).

There are many online players who 16 and 20 table (and more). That is what amazes me, you know they're in total robot mode. I'd have an anxiety attack trying to keep up with all that for more than about 2 minutes...

24 tables FTW.....go big or go home its EZ

I usually get bored after a while playing only 1 table, but thats me, dont know if others doing better or worse with multi-tabling

3 is my number. Any more than that and it takes up too much time to determine your best play and to keep focus. Some play more and find it ok and play with ease.

I can't see anything wrong if you are confortable with the number of tables and your results.

I've seen a guy online play 50 tables at the same time, he was a winning player but he basically plays like a machine. I always watch a show or a movie and have 2 tables on.

I always struggle when I try to multi table. Two is okay but any more than that and I find I make lots of mistakes.

i'll add this to what i posted earlier, no actual relation. i don't have a photographic memory, i have a selective memory. i only learn things i'm interested in fast, and fail tremendously at things i'm not interested in (like a lot of classes, damn). so, that being said...maybe you should give it a shot to try to play like a machine and see how it goes. i could print out a list of the odds of this hand against that hand or this hand against random, and stare at it till i'm blue in the face, sleep on top of it, pray to it, make love to it, etc...it just isn't going to sink in. but having 10 tables open at once, blam blam blam, hand after hand after hand...things start to sink in.

i see it as a little challenge, and hopefully a way to improve my game. sometimes its a good minute before you see the results of that hand you bet a pretty good chunk on...but just giving that a shot, and not having the whole "staring down the turn and the river" deal going on sometimes lets me know i made the right decision. it doesn't seem as big a deal to lose when you had the bad guy dominated and he sucked out on you with a crap hand, ok, he's just a lousy player and he got lucky...fine, there's like 9 other tables going on i have to be a machine on.

giving it a shot at little or no risk...i mean, you may as well. pressure to perform can improve your game...i mean this isn't sex when you're not in the mood here, we've all been there...this is something you've chosen to do, maybe even to avoid sex for the night, put the pressure on and see if it helps your decisions

I struggle with 2 tables. At times, I am not comfortable playing at 2 tables. My hat is off to all of you who can. As long as your having fun go for it!!!

STOP POSTING HERE WHILE YOUR ACTUALLY PLAYING!!! Thats my advice. As for how many tables to play, it's totally a comfort thing. Try one table one day then 9 the next day then 6. Pay attention to how you do and how you feel, and you'll eventually figure it out and settle into a comfort zone. Make sure you wait till after your done playing before you tell us about it. Just like drinking and driving - NO POSTING AND PLAYING!

FREEROLLSFTW said:

I've seen a guy online play 50 tables at the same time, he was a winning player but he basically plays like a machine. I always watch a show or a movie and have 2 tables on.

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AND YOU - TURN OFF THE DAMN TV!!!!!!!! Turn on the radio instead if you really need some sort of other stimulant

FREEROLLSFTW said he watches a show or movie, but I doubt he meant that he's really paying attention to it.

I've played in tournaments and ring games with the television on for background noise. Music's actually worse for me because I get way more into it than I do the television. I'll even work on a painting while I have the tv on. It's no biggie.

Sheesh, how many people play with a house full of adorable rug rats running around? Personally I'd be more distracted by 5 kids aged 1-10 than I'll ever be by something on the boob tube.

Oh yeah and on two tables, I don't see a genuinely huge difference for the better or worse. I know that multi-tabling is essentially hedging your bets. For the most part though, I either get equally good or bad results from both tables, or I do exceedingly well at one while doing poorly at the other.

I'm sure you need to use PokerTracker or some such to keep track of how well you're really doing over the long haul.

N.D. said:

Oh yeah and on two tables, I don't see a genuinely huge difference for the better or worse. I know that multi-tabling is essentially hedging your bets. For the most part though, I either get equally good or bad results from both tables, or I do exceedingly well at one while doing poorly at the other.

I'm sure you need to use PokerTracker or some such to keep track of how well you're really doing over the long haul.

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For serious multi-tablers, it's not about hedging your bets - in other words, it's not about controlling your variance. It's about improving your hourly winrate. If I win 10 big blinds for every 100 hands I play, and can play 10 tables at the same time with that winrate, I'll win 100 big blinds ten times as fast as I would if I were playing a single table. Of course, since your decision making time is reduced the more tables you play, you can't expect to maintain the same winrate, so you have to find an optimal balance point.

Table selection is an under-rated skill in online poker. If you find that you're doing really well at one table and really poorly at the other, start looking at the table dynamics to see if you should leave the second table - for example, if the two guys on my right are tight and the two guys on my left are loose, I usually leave the table - that kind of table does not fit my playing style well.

I couldn't agree with you more on the table selection sly. I have the lobby open all of the time during my sessions to see if there is a new, juicy table that just opened up(going on avg. pot, plyr/flop, and hands/hr of course). This doesn't ALWAYS guarantee a good table, as there have been quite a few times where I think I am going into the sweetest table ever, then find out that it was heads up 5 minutes ago and the stats are all screwed up because it got back to full handed. I think one huge mistake a person can do is to just go pick the first open table that they find without taking those stats into consideration. Helps you find the fish.

slycbnew said:

For serious multi-tablers, it's not about hedging your bets - in other words, it's not about controlling your variance. It's about improving your hourly winrate. If I win 10 big blinds for every 100 hands I play, and can play 10 tables at the same time with that winrate, I'll win 100 big blinds ten times as fast as I would if I were playing a single table. Of course, since your decision making time is reduced the more tables you play, you can't expect to maintain the same winrate, so you have to find an optimal balance point.

Table selection is an under-rated skill in online poker. If you find that you're doing really well at one table and really poorly at the other, start looking at the table dynamics to see if you should leave the second table - for example, if the two guys on my right are tight and the two guys on my left are loose, I usually leave the table - that kind of table does not fit my playing style well.

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Oh, I think I get it. For instance I keep buying in for 40c as I'm cash-poor and trying to do the 0-10k thing. Well FTP's doing that Take2 thing and when I finally got around to clicking the link to see what it was I was a couple days shy of playing for the full period. Nevertheless I'm still playing enough to get $25 added to my account...

Anyway, my attitude's been to keep my head above water no matter what and wind up ahead by about $10 from where I started no matter what.

I'm playing PLO h/l because it's great for points. Almost every pot's a family pot and they get pretty big whether I'm in them or not, so I collect my points rather quickly. The problem is I'll push that 40c up to over a dollar in short order at one table but at the second table I'm floundering. Still making profit overall, but it's not that optimal more than 2x my buy-in for even one table once the winnings and losses are averaged out.

So according to you I should just up and leave the second table that isn't panning out for whatever reasons. In PLO hi/lo it's generally not panning out because of chasers. I can't complain because those are the same chasers who can push 40c up past $1 even as high as $2-$3. But they're always a great asset or a great detriment, rarely do they seem to fall somewhere in the middle. Thanks, cuz this should really help during my little points gathering endeavor.

Now for something extra. Being in PLO hi/lo mode I completely forgot about NLHE on 2 or more tables at once. I remember from when I used to play at a site with heaps of freerolls b4 they closed to US players, that I'd play in as many as 8 freerolls at a time and it did make a big difference.

The main difference I remember was patience. It's a lot easier to be patient and wait for better hands and situations with 8 tables open than just 1. Patience pays off quite well in this game.

I'm not talking about why serious multi-tablers multi-table, insomuch as I'm talking about how playing on multiple tables can improve your game overall.

It's harder to mult-table with omaha games and even harder with stud games. For me it's impossible to play 2 or more stud games simultaneously and play them well.

If your biggest short coming is losing money because you hate not being a part of the action, multi-tabling can really help with that.

I doubt I could handle upwards of 10 tables of NLHE though. Fixed limit sure, but not no limit. That's probably just me though.

Myself three or four is the max for me,,,, and I'm not sure I'm making good decisions anyway it seems to help me from playing hands that I shouldn't because I'm bored.
Take care

I never seem to be able to play more than 1 table in a way that suits me.
i can play 3-4 max if a want to, with freerolls and such but its hard for me to divide my attention to so many pots and people. i try to get to know the players at the table in their different styles and when i play more than one table, it feels like im racing the computer trying to click things fast and without much thought proccess. it makes sense, you play more tables, each one gets less of your attention.