A Very Good Exercise

[W. Deranged]

Hi folks,

So my pokertracker if messed up and so I couldn't get real-time stats for what promised to be a wild 5/10 6-tabling session tonight. Figuring there was no way I could play reasonable poker readless on 6 tables at once, I figured I needed to cut down tables. So I decided I'd play two tables of 10/20 and really focus on the action.

I was amazed at how different it felt. I was watching betting patterns more closely, I was looking more carefully at results, I was noticing things like small stack size, early position posters, etc. I was forcing myself to think in terms of "what does this guy play this way" instead of "how often does he do this" and so on. I was making careful points every time I saw a turn bluff raise and so on. I managed to get good notes on almost every player at the table, and soon settled into a rhythm where I felt comfortable playing. Getting reads on new players became easy. I found I could get a handle on a new table in 10-15 minutes.

Now much of my experience is live so this sort of thing is natural to me in live games, but it's interesting to me how different it was online.

Anyway, here's what I recommend y'all who multitable do:

Play a session without Gametime or Pokerace or whatever. Play no more than 2 tables, and focus on making careful but efficient notes on your opponents. Try to get a read on everyone. Be able to explain how they play. Do this for a couple hours or so.

For interest, see how your instinctual/contextual reads compare to what pokertracker tells you about your opponents. Try to estimate some numbers on some interesting/representative players. Test yourself.

I think this will be very useful for those of you who aren't comfortable making numberless online reads. I personally plan to start doing this somewhat regularly as a kind of "training."

Post your results here.