Playing Multiple tables

The easiest way to build a bigger bankroll

If you feel your knowledge about the present applying rules is good and play strictly as far as position, starting hands and odds are concerned the easiest way to achieve good results is by playing multiple tables. This might seem tricky at the start but it is easier than you think. The reason for this is that there are so many players at these low levels who put money into the pot that you most of the time do not have to waste energy on studying the other players. The odds are often very good and if you manage to get the hands you want there is mostly no risk that the other players stop bucketing money into the pot just because of that. There are plenty of calling stations at these levels.

So if you play strictly, according to the rules, you should reach a fairly steady winrate somewhere between 1 and 2 BB/hour per table. This of course does not mean that you play an hour with a certain guaranteed win, there will of course be great fluctuations where you sometimes win a lot and far too often lose some. That is unfortunately probably the normal situation most of the time but it might be good to know about it in order to endure and also to obstruct being affected by tilt (see statistics further below)

Bad periods can as said before go on for thousands of hands.

Some reminders regarding games when playing multiple tables:

• Never play at higher stakes than your bankroll can handle. If you play at a $0.5/$1 limit table you are supposed to have at least $500 in your bankroll (or you could afford losing $500). Poker is equal to fluctuations and your bankroll has to be big enough to survive bad streaks. Even if you are a good player you have to face the fact that you sometimes will lose big.
• Don't play at more tables than you can cope with.
• Try to avoid playing at auto pilot. Focus on the game!
• It is easy to find loose games at the lowest stakes. Find the loose games instead of sitting at a table with tight players where you are most probably wasting your time. 45-50% of the players in the flop is never hard to find. And if you have trouble finding it anyway: Play at Pacific Poker where you can find games where the players in the flop most often are up to 80-85% per hand dealt.
• Use your signup-bonus! And use all of it! You will clear the bonus easy when you play multiple tables.
• Play ABC poker. Fancy moves won't work at low limit tables, believe me. If you have a good hand - bet. If you have a bad hand - don't bluff!

1. The best choice when playing multiple tables is PartyPoker

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2. Find favourable games and sit in.

3. Use the low limit tables as filling stations

The great advantage with playing at many tables is that you do not have to sit for months before you have made enough money to try the somewhat bigger tables. Hopefully you can climb to a higher level fairly soon.

The multi-table playing method works fairly easy at $0.5/$1 tables and lower ones. What we are aiming at is to in a fairly simple and quick way build a bank roll at the lower levels and then play single-table at the higher levels where you need to check up on your opponents in a different way to achieve good results. If you then lose money at a higher level you can always go back to the lower level and make a "refill" of your bankroll before you have run out of it. Normally it is recommended to have a bankroll of 300-500 times BB in order to be able to play safely at the selected level.

4. Watch your bankroll grow over time. Play safely!

Some statistics of my own sessions, played on four tables without deposit bonus.

The program that has been used for this is PokerTracker - a perfect program for the ones who want to be in full control of their game.

Here you can easily see how certain combinations of hands have paid off.

• Net = How much you have won in total on this hand ($)
• Avg/hand = BB/hand that you have played.
• BB/Hand = Same as above.
• Blind = How many times you have had this hand in a blind position (Number of)
• CCPF = Cold call pre-flop = How many times you have called after somebody has made a raise before you (%).
• VP$IP = How many times the player has made a bet when he has had this hand (%).
• W$WSF = How many times the player has won money when he has seen the flop (%).
• PFR = How many times the player has raised pre-flop with this hand (%).
• RFI = How many times the player has raised when he as number one joined the betting round with this hand (%).
• LwPC = How many times the player has limped in (without making a raise) and thus joined in with this hand when a player has made a previous call (%).
• WtSD = How many times the player has joined until showdown when he has seen the flop with this hand (%).
• W$SD = How many times the player has won when the hand has been played until showdown (%).

Above: A good picture showing how well/badly I have played from different positions.

Above: An example showing what the end result of your playing sessions can look like when they have been "normal". (Played at 4 tables and without spending too much time to study your opponents.)

Above: Bad streak. This is what makes you break down and gamble away the rest of your bank roll with bad hands. It should be added that the list is longer than this but at the end there anyhow was a positive result. The profits are supposed to cover situations like these and that is the reason why you play tightly!

Above: Here the result of the different sessions that have been played is shown plus the average profit. In this case 3.01BB/hour at four tables and roughly 10,000 played hands. The average win after about 45 hours of playing at four tables: Roughly $12/hour.

NB! It should be added that the number 10,000 hands is too little to produce some accurate statistics of how to play and thus produce a trustworthy average win. The result 3BB/hour at four tables simultaneously is probably fairly misleading and a bit too optimistic.

I should think the true value is somewhere between 1 and 2.5 big bets per hour in the long run.

For the players who would like to know these hands have been filled to the brim with bad beats and bad streaks and the game has in other words been quite normal. The reason to why the BB/hour value increased was the stroke of luck at the end.

And once again - for the statistics addict: PokerTracker.com

Party Poker is found here >>>