Kamrann's Poker Experiment:
Online Multi-Tabling - (Dec 18th – Feb 7th)

Cash games: 102 hours, -$693 , -$7/hr
Online: NLHE $1/2 - $2/4; PLO $1/2
Live: PLHE £1/2 - £2/5

SNGs: 49 hours, 369 played, +$689, $14/hr
$50+5 - $100+9

MTTs: 78 hours, 51 played, +$13028, $167/hr
$10 - $500

Total: 229 hours, +$13024, $57/hr

As I mentioned in the last article, around the end of last year I was negotiating a possible backing deal for online play. I decided to give it a go and see how things turned out, figuring the only way to find out if it would be beneficial to me was to try it. So, since the start of this year I've been playing as a www.badbeat.com sponsored player. The deal is very simple, I put up 30% of the initial bankroll; they put up the other 70%, and take 30% of any profits I make. The size of the bankroll can be renegotiated if necessary, and there is also potential for being backed in major live tournaments if online results are good. Other than that though, I continue to play live poker with my own separate bankroll. It would be too complicated to keep track in these articles of my separate live and online bankrolls, as well as what proportion of my profits are my own, so I've decided that for the duration that I am playing under this deal, I will leave out expenses and bankroll states, and continue to update just my profit and loss at the tables.

So, my working online bankroll was set at $10000, a considerable improvement on what I had had available to me for the previous couple of months. As such I've been able to move up to playing predominantly $109 SNGs, $1-2 NL cash games and more substantial MTTs. The backing deal has also freed up some of my existing bankroll for use in live play, allowing me to resume playing in the bigger cash games and tournaments at my local cardroom. For the first time in months, things have started to go my way a little in tournaments, and I've had good results both online and live. I've finished 2nd twice in the weekly �100 freezeout at the cardroom, netting the equivalent of about $2500 each time. Online I hit a number of final tables, with a few cashes around the $1000 mark, plus my biggest online payout yet - $7000 for taking 1st in a 300 runner $100 tournament on PartyPoker. In contrast, my SNG and cash game results online have been worse than usual. After a good start at the $100 SNGs I hit a horrible run and ended up around break even, and I took a break from playing online cash a few weeks ago after a couple of losing sessions when I realized I was not playing with the patience and discipline required for that style of poker. However, I've always known that MTTs are both the most interesting form of poker to me, and my biggest strength, so with the bankroll support I now have I am in a position to be able to concentrate on them without having to worry so much that the huge swings involved could prevent me from paying my rent. Hopefully the results will continue to come.

Now onto something that has generated quite a bit of discussion on the forums recently - online multi-tabling. I have a fair amount of experience of doing this myself, so thought I'd write a bit about it and give my opinions. Let's get one thing straight first of all: it is fact that many people play 8 tables at once - I am one such person. Many play 10, some 16, a few even more. It is also the case that the vast majority of players who play this many tables do so profitably. People do many stupid things, but I doubt there are many people around stupid enough to continue to play 10 tables at once if they consistently lose money doing so. At this extreme, online poker becomes very monotonous and mechanical. You don't have time to think hard about decisions, to make in depth reads. In short, poker isn't much fun when played like this - the only logical reason to do it is for increased profits. Something else that really isn't up for debate is that the more tables you play, the less well you will play on each one. The only possible exception to this is that some players may feel that playing a single table is too slow and need an extra table or two in order to keep their concentration level up. In general though, it is clear that with more going on and less time to think about each decision, performance will be poorer on a per table basis.

So the real question is, to what extent can you keep adding tables and increase your hourly rate as you do so, before it becomes counter-productive and the loss of performance outweighs the benefit of higher throughput? This will of course depend on many things, in particular the player, the type of poker being played, the software and the computer setup. It's pointless to try to give an optimal number of tables given all these variables, so instead I'll just briefly discuss the pros and cons, and give my own recommendations.

Obviously, some players simply don't feel comfortable playing any more than one table. Others get bored unless they have a decision to make every five seconds. Most are in between, and will happily play 2 or 3 games at a time, but might not cope well with 6 or 8. The point is, at the end of the day only you can determine how badly your play is being affected by playing more tables, and where your own cut off point should be. The next most important thing to consider is the type of games you are playing. I would strongly discourage anyone from multi-tabling a mixture of games, for example playing 2 tables of Hold'em and 2 of Omaha hi-lo, or playing ring games and tournaments simultaneously. Your play will be affected much more severely in these cases, since you have to switch context continually - on one cash table you are folding all but the very best hands, whilst on another you are in the late stages of a tournament and need to be pushing allin with a wide range of hands to steal the blinds. I can guarantee you will make many more mistakes if you attempt to play vastly different games at the same time.

For serious multi-tabling, you should not only stick to one game type at a time, but also consider whether the game you want to play is suitable in itself. You want to play a simple, mechanical form of poker where you can play on autopilot without giving too much up, where there are very few tough decisions and getting one wrong isn't a total disaster. In my opinion the most suitable games to be played in bulk like this are low limit NL ring games (not short-handed), where you can make a steady profit simply by playing premium hands fast and small pairs for set value, and turbo/fast structure SNGs, where the game plan is a very straightforward "fold early, push late". Higher limit cash games require deeper thought in a lot of hands as well as a close watch on hands you are not involved in, and MTTs are even worse in this respect since you must adapt your game as you go in response to the increasing blinds.

Something else which clearly needs consideration is your computer setup. Having tables overlapping and constantly popping up in front of each other makes it much harder to keep track of all your games and mistakes are far more likely. If you plan on playing 4 tables regularly and can afford the expense, a high resolution (1600x1200 capable) monitor is well worth the investment, allowing 4 tables of just about every major online poker room to fit on-screen with no overlap. For any more than 4 tables you really need a dual monitor setup.

All of the above should be taken into account in determining how many tables is most efficient to play at a time, in terms of hourly rate. However, there are other considerations that go beyond simply maximizing your immediate profits. Enjoyment is one - as I said earlier, I find that the more tables I play, the less fun I have playing. Something else that is more often overlooked, is your ability to learn and improve as a player. When you multi-table you tend to play largely on autopilot, and if you're not giving consideration to each and every hand, you aren't going to learn much. I 8-tabled $50 SNGs for a long time. I made far larger profits than I would have if I'd played only one at a time, but it was also apparent that my game stagnated during that time. I didn't improve as a poker player, and I didn't pick up on things that would have enabled me to be successful at higher buyin SNGs. So in the end, the decision of how many tables to play comes down in large part to what your objectives are. My final advice would be this. If you are a recreational player, who wants to succeed, and most importantly wants to continue to learn and improve, I would suggest playing as few tables as you can whilst maintaining your interest - preferably one, no more than two or three. Only if you are playing for a living and do not have the bankroll to play higher levels, or you wish to build a bankroll as quickly as possible for whatever purpose, would I recommend multi-tabling on a large scale. Even then, take into account the considerations I discussed above, and revert to less tables as soon as your bankroll allows, so that you can spend time improving and enjoying your game.

Results to date: Oct 12th - Feb 7th

Cash games: 190 hours, +$1509, $8/hr
SNGs: 153 hours, 1378 played, +$3826, $25/hr
MTTs: 184 hours, 153 played, +$13121, $71/hr

Total: 527 hours, +$18456, $35/hr

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