I want to multi-table - what hardware do I need to buy? PLEASE HELP

[J.A.Sucker]

Long time listener, first time caller.

I have a serious question. I want to play Internet poker with 8 tables. El Diablo tells me I need to purchase two Dell 2001FP monitors. I'm a computer moron, though, and I think I also need a computer with these monitors.

Is Diablo right about these monitors? Someone please give me the prescription for the cheapest rig that will run 8 tables of online poker onto these two monitors. Everything should be purchased at one spot (Dell or wherever) and should not involve installing, opening, or doing anything besides turning on the computer and plugging in the monitors.

Much luv and peace out kids,

Sucker

[Dynasty]

He's right about the monitors.

[theBruiser500]

I used to think your alias, JASucker was your real name until I was browsing the archives and saw it meant, "just another sucker." I used to think that picture was of you too until I saw in the archives you are in your 20's (right?), so who is that picture of?

[Clarkmeister]

It's him. And he, he rates to be the kind of guy who knows the odds.

[theBruiser500]

That picture makes him look old.

[mikech]

It's James Woods. Although I don't know why he'd have James Woods as his avatar. Is James Woods a sucker? I thought James Woods was supposed to be a pretty decent poker player. But the bow tie does look spiffy on James Woods.

[Senor Choppy]

James Woods is supposed to be decent by celebrity standards.

And the 2001FPs are awesome.

[scrub]

Search the archives. J.A.S and Mr. Woods played some 20-200 spread limit a few months back. It's worth a read.

scrub

[Sponger15SB]

Does anyone find it funny that JA just thinks he can waltz into the online poker world and play 8 tables at once?

[illunious]

[ QUOTE ]
Does anyone find it funny that JA just thinks he can waltz into the online poker world and play 8 tables at once?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes.


Playing 8 tables takes some serious getting-used-to, especially if you have never played online before.

I get my roomate to play for my while I go outside for a smoke and he's always timed out on half the tables when I get back.

[Zeno]

[ QUOTE ]
Is Diablo right about these monitors?

[/ QUOTE ]

I find it hard to believe that Diablo would be right about anything. He believed that the Astros could beat St. Louis when I told him that the without a better bullpen and home field advantage it would be impossible.

However, he is probably right about the monitors. A little reasoning should inform you that you should not scrimp on monitors since you will be glued to two screens for hours at a time wasting your life away when better things could be done with your time. Liking finishing school, or taking a hike, or dancing at a fun club, or going fishing, or going to Asia and having sex with 17 year old high school girls. You need to reassess your priorities, Mr. Sucker. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

Good luck with the online adventure.

-Zeno

[Lawrence Ng]

You will need two 19 inch monitors and a video card that supports dual monitor set up.

If you can let me know what kind of a setup you currently have I can tell you whether or not you need to upgrade anything else.

[Senor Choppy]

[ QUOTE ]
You will need two 19 inch monitors and a video card that supports dual monitor set up.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not good advice for someone unfamiliar with computers.

Monitor size isn't relevant, resolution is what counts.

[J.A.Sucker]

Clarky, you are the man. If you want to tell the story, go ahead. Otherwise, just remember... these other people, I expect it from them. But you! YOU! You rate to be the kind of guy, who knows... the odds!!!

[J.A.Sucker]

I am in my 20's. Hard living takes its toll, good man.

[J.A.Sucker]

[ QUOTE ]
Does anyone find it funny that JA just thinks he can waltz into the online poker world and play 8 tables at once?

[/ QUOTE ]

My thinking is almost as funny as you thinking that I've never played online poker before. Your reading comprehension skills are terrible. Besides, even if I haven't played multiple tables of poker, I would build up to the 8 tables over a short time. Right now I play 4 tables on a laptop, and I can't add the 5th, since the space is limited.

[J.A.Sucker]

Amazing. Not just one of you cannot read, but two. If you don't want to help me, that's fine, but you're way off base.

[J.A.Sucker]

Good points Zeno, as always. However, my desire to while away the hours playing 43 tables on online poker is actually based precisely on this idea. I don't have as much time as I wish I could, but I would like more income, you know? Thus, I can get more money with less time. I usually play online for about an hour or two in the evening before bed. I figure that this computer will pay itself off quickly, then I can save up for other things, like guns!

[J.A.Sucker]

I have a laptop, and I don't think that I can sync it to multiple monitors (it's a Fujitsu Lifebook, PIII, ~ 900 MHz). I don't own a desktop, or even a desk. I would appreciate it if you could advise me on a package deal where I just pay money and it shows up at my house. I don't know how to select the correct video card, nor do I want to install it. I hate computers. Thanks a bunch, man.

[Sponger15SB]

[ QUOTE ]

My thinking is almost as funny as you thinking that I've never played online poker before. Your reading comprehension skills are terrible.

[/ QUOTE ]

Here is what I was thinking while reading your post:

"This guy has a ton of money yet he has no freaking idea what he is talking about"

Is that a fair assessment?

[ QUOTE ]
Besides, even if I haven't played multiple tables of poker, I would build up to the 8 tables over a short time.

[/ QUOTE ]

Spoken like a true poker player.

[Popinjay]

I always wondered how people got over 1000 posts on here. Now I know.

Anyway, dual 2001fps are the best deal easily. But you want to get them on sale, check a hot deals site, like gottadeal.com everyday. The 2001fps go on sale a lot, u want to get them from $650-$725, thats a good deal. As for the computer, any new computer from Dell will work. The tricky thing is you will want Dual DVI which some video cards have (like a 5600 Ultra, but it costs like $400). The cheaper Dual DVI solution is getting a PCI video card in addition to whatever is in your computer, which you have to install and setup. My suggestion would be to just call up Dell and tell them you need a computer with Dual DVI, hopefully they can hook it up for you.

[WEASEL45]

i think the picture is james woods

[challenger84]

Why do people read the first four posts on a thread, find a question they know the answer to, then respond without reading the rest of the thread?

[sfer]

[ QUOTE ]
Here is what I was thinking while reading your post:

"This guy has a ton of money yet he has no freaking idea what he is talking about"

Is that a fair assessment?

[/ QUOTE ]

Heads-up showdown to settle this?

My money is on the dude from Salvador.

[Sponger15SB]

sure I'll do it.... provided we play heads up on 8 tables at once. /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[JimRivett]

I received the "Dell" magazine this week, it's an monthly (I think) advertisement for Dell by Dell. Anyway the 20" Dell Ultra Sharp 2001FP is listed at $799, (however without system puchase it's $899).

Perhaps what you need to do is go to the Dell web site, select a desktop and configure a system there. I'm sure if you communicate with the folks at Dell and explain what you want to do they will be able to help.

Once you have placed your order you can shop around for a desk /images/graemlins/wink.gif

On a somewhat different note, I recently started internetting it with poker, I play exclusively on Party Poker, and once I tried to get on more than 4 tables and I was told (via a screen message) that 4 was the maximun. So I guess you would have to have an account with another poker site to accomplish the 8 table thing or two different accounts with Party?

Hope this helps,
Jim

[Ulysses]

Right now the Dell 2001FP is $679 on the dell.com site.

[J.A.Sucker]

Who's from Salvador?!? I guess it's not me, so this is probably the correct choice.

[illunious]

Sorry, didn't mean to sound like a jackass in posting that.

The Dell 2001FP is a great choice. You will need to get a desktop with a dual-output video card. I think you will find these two threads very helpful:

link (http://archiveserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=655894&page=&view=&sb=5&o =&vc=1)

link2 (http://archiveserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=691338&page=&view=&sb=5&o =&vc=1)

[Blarg]

You can get two CRT 19-inch monitors for a fraction of the cost of LCD's. The main thing is that you need a screen resolution 1600x1200, so you can fit four poker tables on it without overlapping. You can get that on probably any 19-inch CRT being made today, no problem. You can also get it for around a hundred bucks a monitor if you look for sales here and there, and not much more otherwise. Compare that to over $600 on even fantastic sales on the Dell LCD's.

You may like looking at the LCD's more, but you will pay a great deal more, and you won't play any better poker as a result. The highest quality LCD's are sometimes brighter than CRT's, but they often have some problems in color rendition, especially in rendering blacks well. Additionally, they sometimes fade over time and sometimes come with bad pixels -- you may find a dot on your screen that is frozen at red or blue, or always black or white. And you may not be able to return it, as this kind of problem is common to LCD's and manufacturers usually treat this defect as something that is actually normal. If you do get a screen fault, it may be barely noticeable, or it may not. You're rolling the dice if you buy one without seeing it with your own eyes first. These screen faults may also develop over time even in a set that starts out perfectly normally.

Since you sound a bit intimidated by computers and want to get everything in one place, Dell is a decent place to go. But wait until they get a good sale going. They sometimes have deals that last a day or even less. Scan gottadeal.com or edealinfo.com. It's worth it -- people here were just going ape a week ago about a deal Dell had with two of those 20-inch LCD monitors plus a Dell 8400 computer for $1579 with free shipping. Considering that Dell sells their monitors for over $800 retail and usually it's hard to get them for less than $650 on even the best sale, that's essentially two monitors and then a modern computer for 200 bucks extra. They normaly sell that computer at $800-ish and up. So anyway, watch for the web-based sales, and you should be able to slash hundreds of dollars off the prices.

Even a deal like that $750 off one a week or so ago makes you wind up spending hundreds more than you would for just getting CRT's and a computer anywhere else. Plugging in a CRT or LCD is, well, about as hard as plugging a piece of toast into the toaster. If you can't manage it, you should probably be institutionalized. There's really no need at all to get the monitors and computer in one place, unless you're set on the Dell LCD's and can get a good deal on their computer as part of a package. Otherwise, your search for comfort is going to wind up costing you a lot of money, none of which is necessary to have a perfectly wonderful poker set-up.

You could get a perfectly reasonable computer and two CRT's for about a thousand bucks, maybe even a good bit less. Compare that to a rare $750 off web coupon still lowering the price on a package of two Dell LCD's plus a computer to still almost $1600. If you get a coupon like that again, and if the extra hundreds don't matter, fine. But don't let yourself feel pressured into spending far more money than you need to spend unless you simply don't mind spending it at all.

[Ray Zee]

sucker, think about this for a minute. remember how you hate to ante. with 8 games at a time the ante will drive you into an asylum in no time. plus your best feature in a live game is your dumb smile. it gets you lots of action on your nut hands. online they cant see that. diablo is just jealous and wants to see you go nuts. dont give him his wish.

and the dell monitors are great. made by sony i think.

[illunious]

[ QUOTE ]
plus your best feature in a live game is your dumb smile. it gets you lots of action on your nut hands.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ray, give online a chance. It's fun /images/graemlins/cool.gif

[Ray Zee]

i know that if you want to make money online is where it is at. but you turn yourself into a factory worker rather than a dancer.

[illunious]

[ QUOTE ]
i know that if you want to make money online is where it is at. but you turn yourself into a factory worker rather than a dancer.

[/ QUOTE ]

400 hands per hour vs. 30.
Office vs. Casino.

In 1 year, I think the online/office player will dance circles around the B&M player.

[wacki]

Dell? WTF? Can we say 3rd party? Nobody goes to Tomshardware or Anandtech? Dell has never made it to the readers or the editors choice awards. Nobody mentions Samsung? What about Mitsubishi?

Why is everyone going with Dell?

[GuyOnTilt]

Why is everyone going with Dell?

'Cause they're cheaper than the Samsungs. I think the SyncMaster is worth the extra couple bucks though. Over an inch bigger, better color, better view angle. Slightly higher latency is the only downside, but 9ms is only going to be noticeable for a serious gamer, which I'm not.

GoT

[Nikla]

I'd go with the NEC 2080UX+.

[astroglide]

tomshardware is a piece of advertiser-owned [censored]. trust them for announcements and tech articles, but not for reviews. anandtech was the first to review the 2001fp, and treated it quite favorably. it is cheap, large, 24bit, and 16ms.

[edtost]

if you're comfortable with how the 4 tables you're playing currently look on your laptop screen, you could buy 1 2001fp and have it run as a second monitor plugged into your laptop, with your laptop screen as the primary monitor. setting this up should be fairly trivial, though you may need a vga to dvi converter if the dell only takes digital input.

[mikeyvegas]

[ QUOTE ]
Why is everyone going with Dell?

[/ QUOTE ]

Because the monitors are REAL nice. I have a dual setup(20.1 lcd) at work and it's fantastic. As far as the systems go, they're good enough for those who don't feel like building their own windows system.

[wacki]

astroglide, what tech sites do you read?

[ericd]

For the best price/value Dell is clearly the best. Unless you have a specialized need (number crunching, professional graphics design ...), buying anything else is a waste of money. This is especially true if the most taxing thing you use a computer for is poker.

[astroglide]

storagereview, anandtech (with a grain of salt), xbit (but not the storage stuff), firingsquad (gaming only), bink.nu, arstechnica, that sort of stuff

[wacki]

Are you a sys admin? Just curious, what do you do for a living?

[astroglide]

i'm the network admin for a software company that makes clustering software for windows/linux/freebsd

[snakehead]

I bought a new dell a few months ago. just click around on their website until you find something that looks good. just about anything new will do what you want.

I got a p4 with 3.0 processor, which is very fast. if you want to spend more money, you will get a faster processor. but just for poker, it isn't necessary. I did up grade to 1 gb of ram, but I'm not sure if that is necessary either. I just thought it might be good for multi tabling or working on more than one site. (side note: I have had problems trying to play on party and any other site, like paradise or stars. it hangs up the computer.)

I use the standard video card, and I purchased the option for a second monitor hookup, which was very cheap. if you are into video games, you might want to upgrade the card as well.

I like dell because I ordered online and had it in my home in a few days. if you aren't sure what you want, just call them and discuss your needs. they'll help you pick. I paid about $1100 just for the computer, without the monitors.

[Zeno]

[ QUOTE ]
but you turn yourself into a factory worker rather than a dancer.

[/ QUOTE ]


Amongst all this high tech talk, Mr. Zee comes up with a real gem. Anyone paying attention?

-Zeno

[J.A.Sucker]

Thanks, snakehead. I'll check it out.

[J.A.Sucker]

Hi Ray,

I agree with everything you say. Factory work, indeed. However, if the choice is factory work for the money that it pays vs. nothing, then, there's not so much of a choice. I haven't been able to play as much live poker as I want recently, so I gotta make due. If you can figure out a way to get my dumb smile across to the other players on the nudie-net games, let me know. Also, do you know of a good mental institution, because the antes are driving me crazy! /images/graemlins/grin.gif

One more thing. I posted a very interesting tournament hand in the mult-table forum. I'd appreciate your thoughts.