Multi-Tabling vs. Improving Your Game

[Bodhi]

Serious question: How many tables can you play at once and still improve your poker game? If 4 tables makes for a nice hourly rate, but prevents me from improving as much as I could, what should I do? I think I've gotten to the point where my initial learning phase (past year: .5/1->1/2->2/4->a little 3/6) is only sufficient for the 'small stakes' games when I multi-table, and I'd like to improve enough to beat these games handily. Should I eliminate a table or two? The increased aggression from good players, and donk aggression from bad players, makes me believe that I need to pay attention to every hand regardless of whether I'm in it or not (whereas I'm looking at another table when 4-tabling).
Anyone have a suggestion about something I haven't considered?

[MrEngenic]

PAHUD and datamining makes all the difference.

[Bodhi]

Duh, I already have those.

[silkyslim]

i play 6 tables, and drop down to 4 to improve my game. It all depends on how many tables you actually multitable. When you drop 1-2 tables from this you find you have a LOT more time to make decisions.

[Guruman]

I play 2 tables max.

[crunchy1]

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The increased aggression from good players, and donk aggression from bad players, makes me believe that I need to pay attention to every hand regardless of whether I'm in it or not (whereas I'm looking at another table when 4-tabling).

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So why not make one of your 4 tables your "main" table and pay the most attention to that table out of the 4. Chances are you're already on auto-pilot when you're playing 4-tables and have plenty of other distractions that are already taking away from your game. Remove the other distractions and pick one table of the 4 to really focus on. Watch that game during all the hands - not just the ones you're involved in.

[SeaEagle]

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Serious question: How many tables can you play at once and still improve your poker game?

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I would guess this varies from player to player.

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If 4 tables makes for a nice hourly rate, but prevents me from improving as much as I could, what should I do?

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This is something I do, but I don't know if it works for other people: I multitable just because I get bored with only a table (or two), but I generally pick the most interesting table and really try to watch the hands on that table. Often the 'feature table' will be the one that's full of good players. Instead of moving tables when the fish leave like I usually do, sometimes I'll stick around and play a bit just to learn, especially if a couple of my opponents really impress me.

Another way that I'll do the 'feature table' thing is to play up a level on a single table. For about 3 months last year, I always played 3 tables at one level and 1 table at the next level up. I'm of the opinion that it really helped my game.

[SeaEagle]

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So why not make one of your 4 tables your "main" table and pay the most attention to that table out of the 4.

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Note to self: quit proofreading your posts or crunchy will continue to post your thoughts before you do.

[crunchy1]

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i play 6 tables, and drop down to 4 to improve my game. It all depends on how many tables you actually multitable. When you drop 1-2 tables from this you find you have a LOT more time to make decisions.

[/ QUOTE ]
And this really seems to be the key to multi-tabling - having the pre-acquired knowledge to navigate many, many different situations. I don't think you need to really drop tables to get this knowledge. You can get it reading books or discussing on 2+2. Granted you may play 1-2 tables less than normal to work on the time that it takes to make these decisions but - that's more improving your multi-tabling game rather than improving your poker game.

I think that poker is like any other activity. Sure, you can learn and improve while participating but, the best players do their learning away from the game and then put their hours of practice into action at gametime.

Dropping tables might improve your clicking skills or even decrease the time it takes your eyes to read the HUD and make your decision. But in terms of learning the what's and why's of the game - do it away from the table.

[crunchy1]

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So why not make one of your 4 tables your "main" table and pay the most attention to that table out of the 4.

[/ QUOTE ]Note to self: quit proofreading your posts or crunchy will continue to post your thoughts before you do.

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LOL [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

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I multitable just because I get bored with only a table (or two)

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I think that many poor players (poor in terms of being too loose) would greatly benefit from adding a table or two. It's really easy to start playing too many hands at one table just because you're bored. In fact, the last time I went to the B&M I had to really struggle with dumping some pretty junky starting hands that were looking good just because the game is so slow.