Multitabling - When to, when to stop, when's it time to add another

[smcannon]

Right now I am playing low buy in SnG's at a Party. I play four tables at a time. My ITM rate is 33% and my ROI is embarrasingly -16%. Should I play fewer tables?

And if so, when is it time for me to decide to start playing moe tables. If I'm a marginal player on two tables, does that affect my play if I'm on more tables?

Thoughts on multitabling?

[Bonafone]

Well without knowing how many tournaments you have played, you probably aren't a winner playing 4 tables at a time. I would say drop down to 1 table. Being a winning 1-tabler is far better than playing 4 and losing money.

Just focus on a higher ITM, high 30's would be good. Once you feel comfortable add a second, then a third, and so on.

[Blarg]

Short answer -- yes. Until you're at least a long-term breakeven player, playing a bunch of tables is -EV.

It's imnpossible to say without knowing how many SNG's you've played if your numbers could possibly mean anything at all, but as a guess, you're probably lacking in heads up and bubble play. Probably too many thirds, which indicates heads up play play flaws most of all.

So what you'll want is not more ITM as much as more ROI. One first is worth more than two third places. If you can boost your ROI with better bubble and HU play, the ITM takes care of itself fairly easily. Even losing players can get ITM's in the mid to high 30's without much problem at all.

You really accomplish nothing playing more tables if you're not winning on them, and may even stunt your poker growth. And even huge winners tend to do better on fewer tables.

Personally, I play two tables almost exactly as well as one, and three not too much worse, and four definitely a bit worse than three. I think almost no matter how bad you are, you can two table and still learn. Maybe three-table, but that's more iffy. I'd suggest putting off four tables and above until you really start to feel like you are making progress in learning the game(even more so than progress in beating it).

[raptor517]

my guess is you have played under 200 sngs. therefore, you have an inadequate sample. for now, dont concentrate at all on your numbers. really focus on your game. try to learn about what you are doing good/bad/awful, and learn to make it turn into great/great/great. tough, i know, but wiht a bit of time and some marginal effort, you can get there. i recommend dropping to 2 tables or so until you get the hang of things. try posting some hands on 2+2 to get other's thoughts. read everything you find, and read responses. try to weed out the good from the bad. that alone should make you a winner. holla

[treeofwisdom7]

i can think of one reason a alright player should multi---
1) so you dont go on tilt as much

i play low buy ins just like you but now im doing alright.. dont play at party if you play the 5s.. if you buy in for more play at party. or just play at pokerstars..

at most try two tables and focus.. really you can win any low limit table with focus
GL

[smcannon]

I've played about 500 now. So while I'm still a newb I'm not a noob. If that makes any sense.

Playing 4 tables I can see how I was missing a lot. But I figured it was a numbers thing. The comments here put me at a different perspective. After playing another set of 4 I went to play another set of just 2. After that I decided to only play one at a time.

So that's what I'm going to do. I found I played better poker with that individual focus.

[Bluff Daddy]

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i can think of one reason a alright player should multi---
1) so you dont go on tilt as much

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busting out of 3/4 with the best hand puts me on tilt alot more than just 1 does


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at most try two tables and focus.. really you can win any low limit table with focus
GL

[/ QUOTE ]
arent you the guy thats been at the 5+1 for a year playing 2-4 hrs a day?

[KSKevin]

If youve played 500, you should have a very good idea of how you are playing. With a -16% ROI, you can be sure that you have some serious holes to plug, especially at the low buy ins. Not only this, but there is very little chance that you are a winning player just running poorly. Certainly you should only be playing one table at a time, but you might even stop playing for a while to do some reading and thinking. I dont want to sound rude, but you should be able to beat the 5s and 10s pretty easily after doing just a little reading.

You said you are going to just play one, which is good. And while your ROI should get better, it appears that you still have some serious flaws to correct.

[DasLeben]

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If youve played 500, you should have a very good idea of how you are playing.

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Not really. 500 still isn't at all statistically significant.

[KSKevin]

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Not really. 500 still isn't at all statistically significant.

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While it may be possible to have a -16%ROI over your first 500 tournaments and still be a winning player, that chance has to be quite small (less than 15%). The question is at what point you should realize that your negative ROI is not due to variance and stop playing SNGs until you have improved. 500 tournaments is more than enough to get a good idea of whether someone is a winning player. It would be foolish to continue to play with this ROI until you are 99% certain that you indeed have a negative ROI.