Multitabling....necessary?
 

I've been trying to play short-handed exclusively the past month, and it's going pretty well thanks to a pretty good run of cards. However, any time I try to add more than one table, things go down hill fast. I end up losing at both tables because the action's pretty fast, and the decisions are more marginal than in full ring games.

Now I can two and three table full ring pretty well. In fact, it gets boring not doing so some days.

My question is, how necessary is multitabling short handed? If I'm not comfortable with it, and lose money doing it, is it something I should push through? Should I continue to play one table for a while and hope I get more comfortable later?

Am I a clumsy, short-attention-span-having fish who is destined to one table for the rest of my days?

In a single question, did most of you single table until you were comfortable, or did you make yourself play more than one table?

Re: Multitabling....necessary?
 

If you are a losing player, you should single-table, you will lose your money slower. If you are just barely a winner, you also should, since multitabling will probably make you a loser. Once you are a decent winner, multi tabling becomes crucial if you are interested in making more money.

Re: Multitabling....necessary?
 

why would it be necessary? play one table and add as you get comfortable.

FWIW against non-challenging players I can play about eight tables of full ring or five tables of SH. so your ratio sounds about right.


edit: also consider your sample size. I will have 1k stretches where nary a difficult decision is presented, and sometimes I'll have ten really really tough hands in a row.

Re: Multitabling....necessary?
 

I'm probably worrying for the sake of worrying, it just seems like everybody except me is playing at LEAST 2 tables.

I guess just like full ring, short handed will eventually get easier to me, and I'll slowly be able to add.

Re: Multitabling....necessary?
 

[ QUOTE ]
I guess just like full ring, short handed will eventually get easier to me, and I'll slowly be able to add.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yup. As you get better, more decisions become automatic, and you will be spend more of your time focusing on the harder decisions. Multi-tabling also requires practice though, so maybe you should occasionally drop down in limits, and increase your table count if you want to increase your multi-tabling abilities quicker.

Re: Multitabling....necessary?
 

[ QUOTE ]
In a single question, did most of you single table until you were comfortable, or did you make yourself play more than one table?

[/ QUOTE ]

The answer to your question lies in what your priorities are for playing poker. Are you trying to make lots of money? Learn to multi-table. Are you playing for fun? Do whatever makes you happy.

I single table most of the time because it makes the game more interesting. I'm not an action junkie who gets bored if I don't have a decision to make every 3-5 seconds.

The only time I multitable is to clear a bonus.

Re: Multitabling....necessary?
 

seriously, I started playing one table (short and long), added a table, added 2 tables, added 4 tables.

I know play between 2 and 12 tables of shorthand at once.

The action is fast but at 1/2 the decisions are often very easy, especially with PokerAceHUD.

True

Re: Multitabling....necessary?
 

My priorities in poker are not to make a lot of money, but to ease my way up to $5/$10 within the year. Obviously, the quicker the better, but I'm in no real hurry.

I'm at $1/$2 now, with some fairly lucky forays into $2/$4. A couple more bonuses and another month of decent cards, and I should be fully rolled for 2/4.

Anyway, thanks for the answers. Guess I'm trying to do too much too soon.

Re: Multitabling....necessary?
 

Just wanted to add that this community is fantastic, and I truly appreciate all the help I've already received. Hopefully I'll be able to help out as well as I've been helped at some point.

Re: Multitabling....necessary?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Just wanted to add that this community is fantastic, and I truly appreciate all the help I've already received. Hopefully I'll be able to help out as well as I've been helped at some point.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sounds like you have a good attitude. The more you put in, the more you will get out. You will easily be able to reach your goals of 5/10 in no time if you put in the effort.

Re: Multitabling....necessary?
 

FWIW, I don't play many hands (maybe 15-20K since March of full and SH tables) so I don't multi-table more than 2 tables at a time. I like a table of SH and a full ring running, one is slower more methodical while I can focus on the SH table more.
Sometimes I only have an hour or so to play, and I don't want to drop 75BB with too many tables open and not be able to put the time in to get it back.

Re: Multitabling....necessary?
 

If your goal is to move up and becoming a better poker player (vs making money) then you should only play one table(probably 2 at most). This allows you to develop better reads and play better in marginal situations. These skills become increasingly important as you move up as opponents make fewer mistakes. Don't alter your play/goals just to "fit in" here. Any change you make should be based on a new understanding of the game.

Re: Multitabling....necessary?
 

I've very slowly worked myself up to being comfortable with 2-tabling only. I wouldn't have any problem single tabling if that's all I felt comfortable with.

Consider guys like Chip Reese. How much money has he made in his life single tabling? If you're adequately bankrolled, and a winner, then what's the hurry? You'll end up where you need to be soon enough.

Re: Multitabling....necessary?
 

There is definitely a tradeoff.

Advantages of multi-tabling:
- See more hands. The more you see the more decisions that become second nature. There's a huge difference between playing 5k hands of shorthanded and 10-20k hands. You'll also be exposed to more new situations by the sheer volume of hands you are playing.
- Make more money. Assuming you're more than a marginal winner it can be more profitable to play more tables.
- Less boredom. There's only so much you can do when you get 86, 34, Q2, etc for your first 20 hands at the table. Boredom can lead to mistakes when you finally get a decent hand.

Advantages of single-tabling:
- Better reads. No question. You can take more advantage of your opponents. Better notes, more opportunities to work on reads.
- More focused play. You can really think through every angle when difficult decisions come around.
- Less chance of getting overwhelmed/timing out. Especially when switching from full to shorthanded, you will face a ton of situations you have rarely been in before where you will need time to think (especially if you play full ring somewhere where most pots are 3+ to the flop).

Personally, I started off single-tabling for a long time but now 2 is the absolute lowest I will go and 3-4 is preferred. I only play 1 table when I'm at a new limit or about to log out.

Re: Multitabling....necessary?
 

To the 4 tablers of 6max:

Do you're reads suck? I mean, after 15 minutes play i expect to have atleast 3-4notes made(1each for 4guys or 4on one guy). It takes time to write these shorthanded and check the logs for muckedhands or what happened preflop if i forget.

Can you seriously do this? I can already see windows flashing and annoying beeps going off then the horrid "IM BACK" button appearing having posted your blinds [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img].

Just wondered... I figure you're notes must suck expect for the very experienced players.

Re: Multitabling....necessary?
 

[ QUOTE ]
To the 4 tablers of 6max:

Do you're reads suck? I mean, after 15 minutes play i expect to have atleast 3-4notes made(1each for 4guys or 4on one guy). It takes time to write these shorthanded and check the logs for muckedhands or what happened preflop if i forget.

Can you seriously do this? I can already see windows flashing and annoying beeps going off then the horrid "IM BACK" button appearing having posted your blinds [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img].

Just wondered... I figure you're notes must suck expect for the very experienced players.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't play at any site where I have to manually check mucked cards. PokerAce handles this for Party and Stars just fine.

My notes are not extensive, but honestly there are so many routine decisions to make that it's not really a challenge to focus on the 1 or rarely 2 difficult ones at a time and I do spend a lot of time watching the other players. Usually the aggressive players are involved in a lot of hands so you get plenty of chances to see how they play (and the passive ones you can rely more on stats). I'll often be thinking about a tough decision while I'm clicking on the 3 other tables and then come back to the tough decision.

FWIW I used to have a really hard time with more than 2, but I can handle 4 high speed stars tables without any issues unless I get involved in chat of course...

Re: Multitabling....necessary?
 

Hi Ineedaride-

When I start out at a new limit, I always start with one table and force myself to stick to one table for at least 20 hours of play. The last time I broke this rule, I dumped 150 BB at 5/10 by 3-tabling on a friend's computer without a HUD.

Stay with one table until you're really comfortable with it. After each session, do a quick review in pokertracker's replay program and pull up a notepad file, jotting down every time you feel you made a mistake. Once you've been doing this a while, your mistakes should decline. When you feel you're making only a few mistakes, add a second table. Repeat process.

I know a lot of people will disagree with me here, but by the time you're thinking of adding a third table, you should probably be thinking of stepping up to a new limit, if your bankroll can afford it.

Re: Multitabling....necessary?
 

Yeah i dont mean checking mucked hands really, more so if you forget a flop action or miss it whilst chatting on AIM(like i admitedly used to but now stopped) or just because you got AA on another table.

I assume you leave tables when shorthanded then as HU/3way play is alot tougher?

I've only logged few thousands at 6max so its all kind of new to me.

Have played at prima i found 2tabling there a nightmare due to so many tricky lags i come across. However on Party i find it easier as your against so many crap players the drop is winrate by 2-4tabling seems to be made up for by the poor play of you're opponents.

I'm trying to not get bored with one table as i feel i need to speed up my note taking ability and general 6max play.

However bordem is starting to set in after about 3000 hands.

Re: Multitabling....necessary?
 

[ QUOTE ]
To the 4 tablers of 6max:

Do you're reads suck? I mean, after 15 minutes play i expect to have atleast 3-4notes made(1each for 4guys or 4on one guy). It takes time to write these shorthanded and check the logs for muckedhands or what happened preflop if i forget.

Can you seriously do this? I can already see windows flashing and annoying beeps going off then the horrid "IM BACK" button appearing having posted your blinds [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img].

Just wondered... I figure you're notes must suck expect for the very experienced players.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hi Pokher-

Have you tried turning off the sounds? I find the beeping on the tables puts me more on tilt than losing hands or anything else, so I went into windows and disabled all my alert sounds. That way I can still have winamp running without being tilted by my 15 second alert at party.

I've only missed one key hand like this; I had aces after a particularly brutal run of 5/10, I was shortstacked with 2.1 bb in front of me, and I was tilting, I , ahem, threw a bottle on my desk across the room and it smashed into the side of the wall as my opponent raised me on the turn, I put in my last big bet (so I thought) got out of my chair to pick up the bottle and clean up the mess, and came back to my computer to realize, the horror: I still had .1 BB left. I reached for the mouse just as the timer hit 0. Goodbye aces! Goodbye 5BB pot!

Yeah. But other than that, I like turning off alerts :-)

Re: Multitabling....necessary?
 

[ QUOTE ]

- Less boredom. There's only so much you can do when you get 86, 34, Q2, etc for your first 20 hands at the table. Boredom can lead to mistakes when you finally get a decent hand.


[/ QUOTE ]

I think this is a big problem of mine, i 2-table 90% of the time, because i want to play 5/10 or 10/20 instead of 3/6 or whatever, because i can beat those limits with a decent winrate when i'm trying. The thing is, so often i'm bored to death playing, i don't have that great reads, i misclick etc. Instead i chat, read about sports, 2+2 etc when i'm playing.

Re: Multitabling....necessary?
 

Multitabling isn't necessary; you just have to weigh the costs and benefits of single-tabling vs. multi-tabling and pick which one suits you best.

Mutitabling (good):
+Less psychological trauma when you go on bad runs (10k hands 4-tabling is a week at most...that can last much longer single-tabling). In my experience, multi-tabling is a good way to get less emotionally involved with hands.
+More money (duh)
+You will get way more experience with difficult decisions multi-tabling than with single-tabling. You may not always make the correct ones, but you will encounter them more frequently and, I think, this is a great way to learn faster as long as you make an effort to study these hands after the session.

Multitabling (bad)
-single-tabling will make your reads better
-everything that people have said already in this thread

My personal advice is to single-table, go over your sessions, and post on 2+2 until you feel comfortable enough with your game (that could be 100 hands, that could be after 10 thousand hands) and the majority of your decisions become automatic (and hopefully correct). When you feel ready to start multi-tabling, start two-tabling while increasing in limit (up to 5/10). When you feel like you've reached a limit that is appropriate for your skill level, start adding more tables. This will reduce boredom enough so you won't go insane, but also allow you to work on your reads until your decisions become better and automatic.

Also, PAHUD numbers are a surprisingly good substitute for solid reads.

Cheers,
Zach

Re: Multitabling....necessary?
 

[ QUOTE ]
To the 4 tablers of 6max:

Do you're reads suck? I mean, after 15 minutes play i expect to have atleast 3-4notes made(1each for 4guys or 4on one guy). It takes time to write these shorthanded and check the logs for muckedhands or what happened preflop if i forget.

Can you seriously do this? I can already see windows flashing and annoying beeps going off then the horrid "IM BACK" button appearing having posted your blinds [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img].

Just wondered... I figure you're notes must suck expect for the very experienced players.

[/ QUOTE ]

I 4-table 5/10 and the only time I really make notes is on tricky TAG or if a fish or LAG does something surprising (i.e. if a fish wakes up on the turn consistently with a hand, but never raises the flop; if a fish likes to donk flushdraws, etc.). I would say PAHUD predicts with about 80-90% accuracy how a bad player will act in a certain hand on every street.

Re: Multitabling....necessary?
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
To the 4 tablers of 6max:

Do you're reads suck? I mean, after 15 minutes play i expect to have atleast 3-4notes made(1each for 4guys or 4on one guy). It takes time to write these shorthanded and check the logs for muckedhands or what happened preflop if i forget.

Can you seriously do this? I can already see windows flashing and annoying beeps going off then the horrid "IM BACK" button appearing having posted your blinds [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img].

Just wondered... I figure you're notes must suck expect for the very experienced players.

[/ QUOTE ]

I 4-table 5/10 and the only time I really make notes is on tricky TAG or if a fish or LAG does something surprising (i.e. if a fish wakes up on the turn consistently with a hand, but never raises the flop; if a fish likes to donk flushdraws, etc.). I would say PAHUD predicts with about 80-90% accuracy how a bad player will act in a certain hand on every street.

[/ QUOTE ]

yeah I'd say I average about 1 note per 100 hands at a 6max table.. I really don't need a 'lmpd Q6o MP clldwn isoraise bttm pr' note on a 60/3/.2 guy

Re: Multitabling....necessary?
 

I two-table, and I get plenty of notes in, and mine aren't even shorthanded. I'm currently trying to step it up to 3-tables.

Also, I don't take many preflop notes, unless it's something that doesn't typically corellate with the stats. For example, last night a 35/10/~1.0 guy opened in the CO with 33 and popped me on the turn on a non-paint, non-flush, non-paired board. Generally, my preflop notes end up on guys with low PFR stats, because generally I see a lot of interesting hands from low PFR guys who open or 3-bet.

Re: Multitabling....necessary?
 

playing 4 tables allows you to have 100 bb downswings in about an hour instead of playing 1 or 2 where the downswing will take considerably longer. this is good for me because i would rather die trainwreck style than die senile-man-unable-to-use-his-penis-for-more-than-impersonating-spaghetti-in-his-deathbed style.

Re: Multitabling....necessary?
 

The problem for me is that I don't yet have a monitor that handles more than 1280x1024, and multitabling with overlap is a Very Bad Thing.

That said, I still play two 6-max tables at a time, and to clear my Party bonus I added one full ring to the mix.

Re: Multitabling....necessary?
 

i haven't read any other posts.

some great great players only play 1-2 tables. for hte most part these players are "perfectionists" and want to make sure they are playign every hand as well as possible. fwiw players who do this usually reach a high level of play well before their bankroll is big enough to support them, while a lot of players who 8 table their respective limits get the bankroll for higher limits wellbef ore they have enough skill to play there.

so no its nothing to worry about if you play well and focus on making sure you rae comfortable with all of your decisions. and if 1 table gets boring or you feel really comfortable with it, try adding anotehr and see how that goes.

stealthcow-

Re: Multitabling....necessary?
 

[ QUOTE ]
I'm probably worrying for the sake of worrying, it just seems like everybody except me is playing at LEAST 2 tables.

I guess just like full ring, short handed will eventually get easier to me, and I'll slowly be able to add.

[/ QUOTE ]

I felt the same way for a long time when I first started playing 6-max late in the summer. I had read all of the posts saying that if you want to move up to 3/6 or above you HAVE to learn how to play in shorthanded situations. So, I bit the bullet and forced myself to play nothing but 6-max. For a long time I just couldn't adjust. I would go on one or two day winning streaks, and then give it all back in a 2 hour session. It was miserable, but I kept reading posts and applying what I learned, and eventually it started to click.

What worked for me, (and sometimes I still do this if I'm not feeling totally focused yet) is to start each session with only one table. Play for 2 or 3 orbits until you feel comfortable with basic reads of your opponents, and then add one more table. It seems like once your brain has settled into one table then adding another doesn't seem as hectic as adding two or more at once. At my current stage I am starting my sessions with 2 tables and adding a third after 20 minutes or so. It's working pretty well so far.

A few weeks ago, I thought I would sit down and play some 10-max for old times sake. Man, I can't believe how slow and boring it seems now. Trust me, 4 or 5 months of exclusive shorthanded play will make a convert out of you. The only 10-handed games I play now are in NL tournaments.

Good luck.

Edit: For the condensed version, see Trix's post below [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: Multitabling....necessary?
 

Just play one till you get bored with the speed, then try adding another.

Re: Multitabling....necessary?
 

[ QUOTE ]
The problem for me is that I don't yet have a monitor that handles more than 1280x1024, and multitabling with overlap is a Very Bad Thing.

That said, I still play two 6-max tables at a time, and to clear my Party bonus I added one full ring to the mix.

[/ QUOTE ]

Try party beta. It will get rid of that over lap. Of course, it will also randomly crash. So enjoy.