There are a variety of benefits to playing poker online: No need for a trip to the casino and all the expenses related to it. You don’t have to wait for a table; there’s the ability to switch tables and the 24/7 availability of the games. Add playing comfortably at home or at the office rather than the smoky, loud casino. All great reasons to play online poker, but not the reason online poker has revolutionized how poker is played. What sites like online poker guide site do, is allow new players to play an unprecedented amount of hands in a small fraction of the time.
Two things: 1) hands are dealt more quickly (the dealer and other players all act faster) and 2) you can play more than one table at once. The speed of the game is great, allowing for an average of 60 hands per hour, where the typical casino deals maybe 25. The faster speed of play shouldn’t add too much of a challenge once you’re familiar with the game, it just reduces a lot of the sitting around. The ability to multi-table, however, can be a double-edged sword.
60 hands per hour is good, but nothing compared to what the good multi-tabler can do. Think 200-500 hands per hour, and some can do even more. This means a huge acceleration of the learning curve. It also means a significant increase in profits and bankroll.
Multi-tabling successfully
Multi-tabling successfully requires the ability to absorb visual information and analyze it quickly. This in turn requires a lot of experience, and some natural ability as well. Your approach to multi-tabling should be to slowly add tables as you become comfortable with the number you’re currently playing. Most players can play at least two tables at a time; you should try this as soon as you can consistently make decisions, especially preflop, without taking more than a couple seconds. From two tables on, play at least 10 000 hands before adding another table. If you’re having trouble and timing out, or making unnecessary mistakes frequently (more than 1 per hour) go back down and play another 10,000 hands. Within a year or two you will have found the highest number of tables you should play. From that point you may occasionally try adding another to table to see if your capacity has increased. So what is a normal limit for number of tables?
How much is too much?
It should be clear that there’s no perfect number of tables to play. It depends on your natural ability, and it also depends on what tables you’re playing and your style of play. Short-handed tables means less tables. If you can play six full ring tables you should only be playing four six-handed ones. You can play the most tables in No Limit Texas Hold’em, after that comes Limit Hold’em and finally, Pot Limit Omaha. The looser you are preflop and the more aggressive you are postflop, the fewer tables you may play.
Here are some standards, use them only as guidelines:
Full ring NLH, tight player 6-10 tables
Full ring NLH, loose 4-8 tables
6max NLH, tight 4-8 tables
6max NLH, loose 3-7 tables
Full ring LH, tight 5-8 tables
6max LH, tight 4-6 tables
6max LH, loose 3-5 tables
Full ring PLO 3-6 tables
6max PLO 2-4 tables
