By
CardRunners.com
This article is by Andrew Wiggins, AKA muddywater, an instructor for www.cardrunners.com.
I think that possibly the best thing about online poker is that it allows you to play multiple tables at once. If you aren’t taking advantage of this perk, then I believe you are making a mistake. Some people tell me that they aren’t capable of playing more than one table, but I don’t believe that. I think with practice, anyone can play more than one table at a time. The fact of the matter is that most of the time you are just folding hands while you play poker. You can use your downtime to play more tables. Playing several tables at once will increase your winnings, lowers your variance, and keeps you more focused.
For several months, I was an up and coming internet NL player. I wanted to be the next Green Plastic. I had the desire to sit at the biggest NL games with the best players in the world and win. I had been crushing 5/10NL on UB and I began to make the move upwards. For two months, I played mostly 10/25 and 25/50 on both UB and FTP. I must note that when I was playing the higher limits I was not playing as many tables as I did at 5/10NL. During that time, not only did I have some sick swings, but my earnings for that period equaled less than half of what I was making in a single month at 5/10NL. When I finally sat down and looked at the numbers, I had to be honest with myself and realize that I was not doing very well at the higher limits. I also thought back on how stressful those two months were in regards to poker. I was losing about half the days I played and some days I had some big loses. This was a big change for me. I had 3 or 4 losing days in 3 months at 5/10NL. It was then that I decided to go back to 5/10NL and play as many tables as possible. That was one of the best poker related decisions I’ve ever made. Lately, I have been playing 9 tables of 5/10NL on PP and I couldn’t be happier. I am making the best money of my life and it is stress free. I can handle the downswings that 5/10NL has to offer. However, the great thing is that I see fewer downswings because playing more tables reduces my variance.
Playing more than 1 table basically shortens the long run. You are seeing many more hands in a given period of time. This means that you are less likely to have losing sessions. If you are losing at one table, it is likely that you are making up for it at another table. This fact also helps me avoid tilting. It’s hard to tilt when I am winning most of the time I am playing. I will sometimes get stuck early on in a session, but I know that if I play for over an hour it is very unlikely I will still be stuck. This is a motivating thought process. Furthermore, when you are seeing more hands your win rate is going to increase. It is likely you will see a decrease in bb/100 from playing 1 table, but your increased numbers of hands will more than make up for that decrease.
I believe that playing many tables keeps me more focused. When I am playing fewer tables, I find myself talking on AIM and searching the net among other things. This is a very bad habit. It is hard to play my A game while I am doing other things. I try not to get distracted, but I often get bored if there is not enough action at the table. When I play a lot of tables, I have no choice but to focus on the games or I would be timing out left and right. I believe that when my mind is 100% focused on poker, I play much better.
I think the best way to learn to play more tables is to slowly work your way up. I started off playing 1 table and slowly added more and more tables. When I felt that I was comfortable with the amount of tables I was currently playing, I would add one more. I got to the point on UB where I was playing 5 tables. Then a great thing happened and Party Poker released its beta version with the resizable table option. When that occurred I began playing 6 tables on PP. Lately I have bumped my number up to 9 tables. The most important thing about multi-tabling is to have a good monitor. If you play a lot of poker, it is absolutely worth your time to go out and buy a good monitor. I promise you that you will make your investment back quickly. It is necessary to not have overlap if you want to play several tables. If I am ever on a computer with a poor resolution, I won’t play more than 1 table, because it is too difficult when you have to flip back and forth between the tables.
The best way to improve in poker is through experience. I would not be where I am at today if I had always stuck to playing 1 table. Playing multiple tables allows me to see hundreds of thousands of additional hands each year. This has provided me with vital experience that has helped me improve much quicker than I otherwise would have.
Online poker is unique in that it gives you the option to play as many tables as you want at once. If you are a serious poker player and you are not taking advantage of this, I believe you are making a crucial error. I urge you to try playing several tables on a good monitor if you have tried multi-tabling before, but on a poor monitor. The monitor makes a vast difference. I feel that increasing your winnings, lowering your variance and increasing your focus on their own warrant playing more than 1 table. Combined, these benefits are too good to pass up.