Do any other winning players...

[adsman]

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Constant improvement is important to all of us, but we also want to make a lot of money. I am wondering if I will improve faster if I single or double table instead of four tabling. Any thoughts on this?

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You're easily missing many opportunities to learn. I exclusively single-table, and I think it shows. (And I mean this constructively, and not in a bragging sort of way.)

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I agree. I do the same and I've noticed that my game is reaching new levels of thinking. I've been making some great marginal plays based on my opponents. I think that if you want the quick bucks now, then multitable. But if your goal is to sit down at the 200/400 table then you have to play one table at a time.

[Stuey]

How often do you think your actions at the table affect the result of the hand?

Good and bad players think they can change the result of the hand much more often than I believe is possible. What am I saying?

Example 1

You flop quads and you check someone has a high PP they bet you raise and win a big pot.

You flop quads and you bet someone has a high pp they raise you reraise and win a big pot.

Your response to the situation made little difference the conditions you had no control over determined the result.

But if you flop quads and bet only to see everyone fold you feel YOU played poorly. When in truth what happened was noone had a hand THEY liked.

So we don't have much control over the result of the hand. What should we do? Learn to reconize the few times our actions will result in either a large profit or a large loss. And be sure to ALWAYS act acordingly. All winning players know how to do this so it becomes boring fast.

So you are not challenged and start to over think every situation. When in truth you are playing very well. The conditions you can not see or control are changing and dictating your experience.

I however have no idea what I am talking about as I don't consider myself a winning player I am just running good. [img]/images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img] And no I don't flop bet the quads it was an example!

[Big Folder]

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Constant improvement is important to all of us, but we also want to make a lot of money. I am wondering if I will improve faster if I single or double table instead of four tabling. Any thoughts on this?

[/ QUOTE ]

You're easily missing many opportunities to learn. I exclusively single-table, and I think it shows. (And I mean this constructively, and not in a bragging sort of way.)

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I agree. I do the same and I've noticed that my game is reaching new levels of thinking. I've been making some great marginal plays based on my opponents. I think that if you want the quick bucks now, then multitable. But if your goal is to sit down at the 200/400 table then you have to play one table at a time.

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Do you guys think this will cause any problems when you want to go back to multi-tabling or will the lessons translate well? I used to 3-table and I did pretty well winrate wise but I just felt I wasn't improving and I was making robotic plays that cost me money when it was obvious that I was doing something wrong. I'm down to two tables and I've noticed that I'm picking up more stuff but I still don't feel like I'm nailing reads or plays like i should.

My goal is to make a grip while learning so I can move up because of knowledge and bankroll, but I'm guessing its probably best to 1table until my learning catches up eh?

[ApolloQuiet]

...for this post. I don't check out the ML forum all that much, but came across this post and looked back at my stats and realized that in the last 3 months I've had 2 seperate runs where over 10K or more hands I've broke even, or won a marginal (way under my avg BB/100 rate) amount.

Just remember that it does happen to everyone, it's part of the game. Always keep your eyes on the big picture and remember that this is a long term game, and even 10k hands, which feels like a lot of hands, is not indicative of you as a player .

[Isura]

1 table is too slow for most people. I find I learn the most when 2-tabling. I find with GT+ I can focus on taking good postflop notes on my opponents, instead of having to worry about things like preflop looseness that is taken care of by GT+. I find taking notes on 20 players not much harder than tracking 10 players.

[UncleSalty]

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I don't really consider myself a winning player yet, and I don't think any number of hands will convince me of it. The only thing that will convince me I'm a truly winning player is a when I'm consistently beating 3/6 and above. While I don't think I'm a horrible player, I'm no where near where I want to be. In reality, I'm probably not doing too badly considering I've only been playing a few months, but I'm a perfectionist and I absolutely despise losing. I just don't have the confidence to shrug off losing sessions, because I don't know how much is bad play and how much is just getting sucked out on.

I also think reading the "bragging" posts is detrimental. When I read of players who have upswings lasting thousands of hands, or tens of thousands of hands I get irritated because I've never had something like that. I'll hit a nice upswing that lasts a day or two, then it's back to really having to grind out my gains. Even when I'm running well, I'm not really running well. Then, seeing people taking the .50/1.00 tables for 4, 5, 6+ BB/100 delivers another blow. I only took the stars .25/.50 for about 2.50-2.75BB/100 and I start to wonder whether I'm just kidding myself.

It's a long road to success, but I've come far enough to know the fruits will be worth the effort, so I continue to grind it out, think hands through, and hope that everyday I play, I become a little better.

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This is well put, and a great thread over-all. For me it comes at an ideal point in my development where I feel that I've corrected several big holes in my game, but feel like it's just exposed a bunch more.

No strategic content here, but I would consider adding it to the FAQ just as a reassurance to n00bs who are hitting a downswing and want to know if it's normal.

BUMP

-Salty

[cat923]

After 37,000 hands my BB/100 is 4.12. I play NL $25-$100 and I thought that I was not doing very well. I do not play limit.

I guess that beauty in poker is in the eye of the beholder.

cat923

[tiltaholic]

hey-
just saw this today.
i laugh at your supposed streak. i am now down 10bb over 8500 hands. (-0.10 bb/100). i'm confident things will improve, however, when i actually have time to review my large sample of hands and think more about my game.

[bigmac366]

i'm now down about 50bb's total after 5.5K hands. i'm actually in the red with KK! the anytwo will do crew and the aceholes are killing me.