single vs multi table

[sc24evr]

I am a fairly good player, and I am trying to decide between playing one table at a time or more than one. If you guys play more than one table, why do you do that? Can you get any reads on people when you play 4 tables?

[lucky_mf]

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If you guys play more than one table, why do you do that?

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It should be pretty obvious why people do this. If you can maintain your win rate (or not have it take a huge drop) but see 4 times (or more) as many hands you are going to win a lot more money. Furthermore, some people get impatient playing only one table because playable hands don't come along often enough.

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Can you get any reads on people when you play 4 tables?

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Yes. If you use PAHUD you may have accesible stats on most of the players you are sitting with. Futhermore, depending on where you play you may have a lot of history with many of the players you are sitting with on 4+ tables. A lot of people who play a bunch of tables will pay really tight and look for opportunities to that don't rely heavily on reads. They are sacrificing something on their win rate, but seeing more hands makes up for this.

I don't think you can be serious about making money playing online poker at your current level if you are only playing 1-table. That said, I think many people make the mistake of trying to play too many. I find 4 tables to be very manageable if I'm not trying to do other things (like pay attention to a TV program). I typically play anywhere from 2 to 6 depending on how I'm feeling, what is available (I table select), and what else is going on.

If you are going to multitable it is important that you can do so without a lot of table overlap. With a lot of overlap it becomes very difficult to keep up and make good decisions. To avoid excessive overlap when 4-tabling on a site without resizable tables (Party, FT, and Stars have resizable tables - other sites don't) you basically need a monitor with 1600 horizontal pixels and at least 1050 vertical pixels (preferably 1200). You can also use multiple monitors.

Lucky

[deacsoft]

I play multi-tables for a number of reasons.
1) I have many years of on-line poker experience.
2) I have a bankroll that easily allows me to do so.
3) I can pay close attention to each table.
4) I'm a winning player.
5) I have software (such as PT and HUD) that helps.

Reasons 1-4 should pretty much be rules (with reason 1 not specific to "many years"). Reason 5 is helpful but not exactly necessary. There are more reasons, but I believe the ones I have listed to be the most important.

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If you are going to multitable it is important that you can do so without a lot of table overlap. With a lot of overlap it becomes very difficult to keep up and make good decisions. To avoid excessive overlap when 4-tabling on a site without resizable tables (Party, FT, and Stars have resizable tables - other sites don't) you basically need a monitor with 1600 horizontal pixels and at least 1050 vertical pixels (preferably 1200). You can also use multiple monitors.

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This is also very important.

[shymijo2love4]

i play 10 tables. i do it because i know im going to get atleast one premium hand out of the ten tables. helps me stay interested.

[deacsoft]

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i play 10 tables. i do it because i know im going to get atleast one premium hand out of the ten tables. helps me stay interested.

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= worst possible reason.