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One of the biggest selling points of online poker is that you can play a ton of hands in an hour, especially if you are using a multi-table strategy. Multi-table poker is simply where you sit down at more than one table at a time in an effort to increase your earnings per hour. This can be quite useful after you have a good amount of notes on your opponents, or if you plan on utilizing a very tight starting hand strategy, but if you haven't taken plenty of notes on your possible competition or if you plan on playing more hands, multi-table poker can be a very dangerous game for you to be playing.
Online poker rooms encourage players to play multiple tables at once because it increases their earnings per hour through their rake system. Players are then awarded points per number of hands played and get to trade them in for prizes or use them as tournament entry fees. The downside here is that your focus is diverted in different directions. Let's say for instance you pick up pocket nines at one table then at the same time you pick up Ace Queen offsuit from late position. Both hands are playable hands and are exactly what you've been waiting for. Now the problem is, how are you supposed to pay attention to exactly who you're playing against, put them on a range of possible hands, and bet properly to ensure maximum chip earnings while decreasing your exposure to possible losses when your focus is split?
Some players become experts at doing this. Others just let their time window click away until they decide what to do at the other table. Of course, your decision making process will not be as sharp if you are trying to pay attention to opponents at two or more tables at one time. Your guess of range can be off, putting your pocket nines up against an opponent slowplaying pocket jacks, or your Ace Queen could be dominated by an opponent playing Ace King that you would have picked up on had you been paying attention to their betting patterns.
The biggest issue with multi-table poker is tilt. Let's say, for instance, you take a very bad beat at one table yet are doing quite well at the other. Suddenly your mind is clouded because you can't believe that donkey just called you with 43 offsuit and you begin dumping chips at the other table out of rage. Your winning session at one table has now turned into an overall losing session simply because of what happened during one hand at one table.
It's best to stick to one table at a time when you are first collecting notes on opponents that way when you do start multi-tabling you'll have a much better idea of what your opponents are up to. You'll also be able to take advantage of some of the mistakes multi-table players make. For instance, a player who is sitting at three tables may accidentally fold or call against a bet of yours simply because they meant to click that button on another table. Or you may be able to adjust your strategy slightly to sucker them into betting against you when you're holding a very strong hand.
You can spot a table full of multi-table players simply by looking at how many hands per hour are being played at that particular table. Tables where less hands are being played per hour have more multi-tablers than tables with a lot of hands per hour.
Do not multi-table if you are playing in different buy in level Sit N Go tournaments either. You'll lose track of what level buy-in you came in at, and you'll have more difficulty adjusting your game strategy based on your chip stack. You may be the chip leader at one table and be able to bully but if you try the same strategies as the short stack at your other table, you'll be out of the tournament in no time.
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