Multi Tabling: it's Perils and Benefits.

One of the greatest advantages online poker offers against live poker is the possibility to play at several tables in the same time. That, coupled with the fact that online poker play is infinitely faster than live poker, makes it possible for players to log about 1,000 hands per hour, instead of the 20 or 30 they’d be able to complete live. Such a huge hands-volume increase should automatically lead to an increase in the hourly rates of every winning poker player. It will also definitely lead to an MGR increase (players contribute more rake) which means they’ll earn more rakeback as well, rakeback deals like the Full Tilt rakeback represent a direct percentage of this MGR.

The problem however is that the more tables one plays at, the less attention he/she can afford to spare on each of these tables. The key concept here is the hourly rate. Suppose you win an X number of Big Bets (BBs) every hour. In theory, if you play two tables then you should take your hourly rate to 2X BBs. Thus, every time you double the number of tables you play at, you should double your hourly rate as well. The problem with this logic is that after a while you simply won’t be able to perform on your usual level at any of the tables. Therefore, your hourly rate will take a hit as well.

Your thinking will go into automated mode, and you’ll act based only on your cards and the board, not paying any sort of attention to your opponents. This is one of the main reasons why your hourly rate will plummet. You’ll slip back to the first level of poker thought, and all the edges you’ve created for yourself through years of hard work and experience gathering, will be thrown right out the window.

At this stage, you have to take a long and hard look at the situation and draw your conclusions. Think about it like this: were you ever able to walk away a long-term winner when you were a beginner, and you played on the first level of poker thought at a single table? If the answer to that is no, then there’s absolutely no point in doing the same thing at 10 tables.

The area of your play that going to suffer the most is your non-showdown win rate. This may even cause your overall session to be a losing one, but you don’t have to be an overall loser to lose justification for playing at 10 tables. If you know you can make a certain amount of money per hour playing only four tables, and you know you’re making less than that at 10 tables, again: you should stop working more for less money.

The question is, how many tables should you play then? There’s no definite answer to that unfortunately as every player has a different multi-tabling tolerance threshold. As a beginner, you’ll have to be content with 2-3 tables and as you get used to it, get the hang of how things work, you can add more tables. Always keep an eye on your hourly rate though. That’s the factor that will always be 100% honest about how well you’re doing. Keep adding more tables until your hourly rate rises, and cut back on them as soon as you see that it’s headed south.

Some poker rooms have a user interface and software optimized for multi tabling. Others don’t. Back in the days when PKR first surfaced (and players had to take a peak at their hole cards every time they forgot what they held – not sure if this hasn’t been corrected through a patch yet) my first thought was: this is going to make life impossible for multi tablers here. As that comes to show, how many tables you can play at simultaneously is a function of many a factor, some dependant on the player, others not. Make sure you understand all this before you decide to wreck your red-line by biting off more than you can chew.