Poker Multi Tabling

I find multitable play to be very hard. I have a high resolution monitor so that I can fit four screens on my monitor without overlap. This helps with some current active window problems that I will explain later on. Concentrating on a particular game is very hard, because multiple hands are going hard. It’s very hard to get a good feel for each table and player that you are playing against. This can hurt your game and profitability because it can affect your decisions while playing. An important aspect of poker is getting a feel for the players at the table so that you can make profitable decisions. If you are playing at multiple tables, it becomes very hard to get a good feel because you are trying to keep up with all the tables and making sure you do not time out.

I would strongly suggest not to play multiple tables if you are just starting playing online. It takes some getting used to, and I think it hurts your profitability unless you get real comfortable with it.

Make sure that you do not have overlapping windows if you are going to play multi-tables. Most poker applications will bring a window current (active) when you have to act. So if you are trying to input something into one window and your turn comes up in another window, that window will become active and your typing will be inputted into that new active window. I had a problem with this. I tried to enter a pot bet in one window and my other table became active and I didn’t enter the bet because I typed in the bet with the keyboard. That data went to the new window and I clicked BET with the mouse on the first table and just bet the minimum bet. This could have been a problem for me, because I wanted to try to get some people to fold to my pot sized bet. I now opened myself up to all kinds of problems. The problem becomes worse if you have overlapping windows. If you have an overlap you will run into big problems. If you are going to act on you current active window (game) and your turn comes up on the other game, the window will be brought to the front and you will now click on that active game. This can cause major problems. Let’s say you were going to fold on your current hand but had a great hand in the other game. So you get ready to click the fold button on the bad hand, but your turn comes up in the other game and brings the window current and you click fold on your great hand because the overlap positioned both fold buttons in the same spot. I have heard of people folding a four of a kind by mistake with a huge pot.

My last time I played two tables at once I was dealt two hands pretty much at the same time. In the first game I had the 10 and 7 of clubs in the big blind. The other hand I was dealt KK. So I didn’t think this to be too much of a problem, because I would fold the 10/7 and play the KK. But no one raised the pot in the first game so I got to see the flop for free. So now I am playing two hands at once. This is very hard to do. Again, my windows do not overlap so I didn’t have that problem, but I still had a problem of having the wrong window active when I was trying to bet. Well I flopped a straight flush with my 10 7 of clubs. I had many problems trying to make the correct bet on both hands to maximize my winnings and had trouble making large bets because my active window kept changing as my turn came up in the next window. I did end up winning both hands, but I don’t think I made as much as I should have. I didn’t have a great read on the players I was playing, so betting the most I thought I could get away with was very hard. I stopped playing multi tables after those hands and just concentrated on one table after that.