Multi tabling sharks may not kill this thing after all. (Long)

[Zetack]

Random thoughts...

I used to be worried about the effect all the 2+2 multitabler's would have on the game, particularly at my current 3/6 limit.

My thinking was this, when I first started hanging out at 2+2 not so many folks were seriously multi-tabling. Slowly you saw the goal becoming to multi table...then to four table. That use to be a big deal. Now the goal seems to be to get up to 6-8 tables or more. And more people are making that.

And once a player learns how to do that they certainly aren't going to forget. And over time (my thinking has gone) more players discover 2+2, learn how to play, learn how to multi-table and you start to get a schooling effect.

If good player only plays one or two tables there is a lot of capacity to absorb them. But there are only so many good tables around and if a player can be on eight of them, it doesn't take many players to kill all the good tables. And over time, even if only a small percentage of 2+2's become winning multitablers, well a small percentage over a long period of time equals a lot of tough multi-tablers.

So I've thought this was a major problem. Particularly because, in my view, the lifeblood of online poker is not the uberfish that we all love, its the mediocre player. You know the one who has some grasp of the game but is just a bit too loose PF, who raises just a bit too infreqently, who chases occaissionally, or make a loose call or two here and there. The kind of person who loses maybe .5 or .75 BB's per hundred over time.

This is the kind of guy who maybe drops a few hundred a month but keeps coming back forever.

The mediocre player is the one who is particularly hurt by having too many good players around. To the really bad player it makes no difference, they're losing all their money quickly anyway. The mediocre player benefits from having a lot of other mediocre or bad players around and really suffers from having a lot of good players around.

Anyway, my new hypothesis is that perhaps this problem won't be as bad as I've thought. For one thing at most low levels, eventually the muti-tablers are just passing through on their way up the limit level (but beware 15/30...the schooling may stop there).

Also my assumption has been that once there players are gonna keep being there. But now I'm thinking it's likely we will llose a lot of players or at least player hours over time. Witness what happened to Bison. Not that he's never playing again, but how often is he gonna put in a 30k hand month now? And I suspect many "pros" will move on eventually. Not all obviously but many. And for the semi-pro's or part timers sooner or later either the obsession will fade or life will catch up to them. The guy that plays 20 hours a week after his job right now, may evenutually have the wife who needs attention, the kids that need...well, everything...and find themselve maybe going through spurts of playing a lot and days and weeks of not playing at all, or drifting away from the game altogether.

So anyway, my new theory is that we may see enough of an exodus from the game over time to offset the new obsessive multi-tablers that we're gonna keep seeing.

Its a theory anyway. What do y'all think?

--Zetack