Multi tabling question

[jaco70]

Greetings. In reading many posts on this forum it has become clear that many of you play many tables at a time. My question is, do you not have more of an edge playing one table at a time? My experience tells me that paying attention will give you the edge. Paying attention to your other players, their tells, their betting patterns and habits, etc... I gotta imagine that multi tabling does not allow such attention.

So, those of you that are playing at numerous tables at a time - are you basically playing by the book...i.e. strictly using tight preflop play, odds, outs, statistics, etc...?

Sorry if this has been asked before. I'm new around here.

[thirddan]

basically, the hourly rate is much greater playing two tables at 1.7bb/100 than playing 1 table at 2bb/100...after some practice you can still get reads and play good poker at multiple tables, while obviously you get better reads while focusing on 1 table, you cannot make up for the number of hands that you are missing...

[nervous]

Many of us use PokerTracker combined with PlayerView or GameTime+ which will show each of the players statistics onscreen right next to their name. The most common statistics are like how many pots they enter, how much they raise preflop, how aggressive they are, etc.

Sure, beating 1 table at 3BB/100 is nice, but 8 tabling at 2.5BB/100 is nicer.

[Girchuck]

What you said is correct. Concentrating on one table and learning the habits and patterns of all the other players on that table will maximize your win rate on that table, and if you add another, your win rate on each table will surely drop.
Whether to add another table depends on your win rate on one table and your general ability to multitask.
If your win rate on one table is less than 2BB/100, by adding more tables you run the risk of becoming a losing player or at least the risk of reducing you per table win rate by too much, so that adding a table is not profitable.
On the other hand, with practice you will be almost as good on two tables as you were on one. In fact, if you had even more practice, you could add another table and be almost as good on 3 as you were on two. And another.
And when I say almost, I mean that you sacrifice a small fraction of a BB/100 in expectation, but you double the number of hands per hour, and then triple, and so on.
Not everybody on these forums has the talent for poker and the talent for making many correct decisions at once to play multiple tables. If you take me as an example, I still only play two tables, because adding a third showed significant increase in errors made over a trial period.

[LImitPlayer]

Yes, you do lose a little bit of an edge but the sheer number of extra hands more than make up for it.

Example: Player A and Player B are at the exact same skill level in poker.

Player A plays only 1 table at the 2-4 limits. His opponent reading ability is 100% and is outplaing his opponents constantly and he is never outplayed.He makes 4BB/100 hnads, and at 65 hands per hour he is making $10.40 per hour

Player B decides to hell with this 1 table crap, I'm going to play 8 tables at a time. His opponet reading ability is diminished a fair bit but is helped out by products like pokertracker. He is playing ABC poker and sometimes he is ouplaying his opponents and sometimes he is the one who is outplayed. His BB/100 drops to 2BB/100 hands. At 520 hands per hour he is making $41.60 per hour

Add rakeback into the equation and you can add another $1-2/hour for player A and about $13 per hour for player B

Player A is making $12/hour Player B is making $54/hour

[BoxLiquid]

For the folks using a rakeback program. Can anyone recommend me a website for rakeback on party poker? A million thanks for the help. [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]