Multitabling – Playing Multiple Tables to Make Extra Money
Most serious online poker players play multiple tables at a time. Some players play 2 tables at a time, some 4, some up to 10 or 12. There are distinct advantages and disadvantages to playing multiple tables at a time.
Advantages: If you are playing four tables at a time, you should make four times as much money [assuming you are a profitable poker player]. This is not rocket science. You might find that you earn 15 dollars an hour playing poker online, playing 4 tables at once could bring this figure to 60 dollars an hour.
Playing multiple tables at one time will help even things out statistically. You will find that the larger the sample size, the less variance. Basically, everything will even out if you play multiple tables at once. The bad beats you suffer will even out, as will your lucky wins.
Many online poker rooms offer special bonuses or freeroll tournaments for players that play a certain number of hands. Playing 4 tables at a time will get you to 1000 hands four times as quickly, assuming that you keep your same playing style at every table.
Many online poker players suffer from impatience. Waiting 15 to 30 seconds to see if someone at your table 2000 miles away from you in real life will call or fold can be frustrating, especially considering most online poker players are in their twenties. Playing multiple tables at once will help to solve this problem.
Playing multiple tables at lower stakes could be more rewarding then playing one table at high stakes. The higher the stakes, the better poker players you are going to encounter, playing several low stake tables at once will give you the opportunity to go up at against some of the worse online real money players there are, which means more chips for you!
Disadvantages: There is a ton of concentration needed to successfully play multiple tables online. It is hard enough already to profit by playing one table at a time, imagine having to repeat this by playing three, or five, or ten tables at a time. You have to be on top of your game every single hand of every single table. I find that I play my best when I can concentrate on one table, but that is just me. Hands I would normally play aggressively I play tightly, hands I would normally call to see a flop I fold away to hurry on to the next table. I am simply not cut out to handle more than one table at a time online.
Multi-tasking is beginning to become common. Try walking into a local grocery store, you will find a mother grocery shopping, looking after her kids, and talking on her cell phone at the same time, it is almost an epidemic. Playing multiple hands at one time is the same way. It is tough enough for me stay away from “tilting” by playing at one table, but if you play six tables at a time, you might press to get your chips back at one table after suffering from a bad beat at another. For me, there is simply too much that can go wrong by playing several real money poker tables online at once, it is a recipe for disaster.
All other distractions, kids, wives, girlfriends, the TV, your roommate… Whatever they might be, are magnified when you try to play several tables at one time. There is so much concentration required to be successful day in and day out in online poker that being consistently successful while playing 5+ tables is absolutely impossible for most. Make sure that you are playing in the perfect environment if you are going to attempt to play multiple tables at once.
The verdict: Playing half dozen tables online at once is not for me, but you might be one of the rare breeds that can pull it off. You do not know until you try. You have to test this out yourself, try playing at only 1 table for 1 hour and see how you do, then play at 6 tables for 1 hour and compare results. If you did significantly worse playing multiple tables, the choice is clear, only play one table at a time. If your results were similar, there is potential, fine tune your game and see what happens. It is safe to say 80% of people who play poker online for a living routinely play multiple tables at once, so if you ever want to make enough money to quit your job playing online poker, you will have to be able to handle playing several tables at once. Give it a try, the worst thing that you can do is fail, if you are afraid of losing money, play at a free table for a while.
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