The Benefit of Playing Fewer Tables

One thing that people love about online poker as opposed to the live version is that you can play multiple cash game tables at once.  And with the ability to play more tables at once comes the ability to make more money during playing sessions.

But this isn’t necessarily a good thing for some players because playing multiple tables at the same time prevents a person from fully focusing on them all.  So it’s definitely worth asking yourself a few questions before choosing to play 10 tables at once.

Will playing more tables make me better?

The obvious goal of poker is to make money.  So if you can play 6 tables at once and make $10 an hour on each one versus making $20 an hour on two different tables then it would make sense to play 6 tables.  After all, you’re making $60 an hour after you average out the winnings from 6 tables.

However, there is such a thing as improvement in poker and those who improve over the course of a few years may find themselves making in excess of $100 an hour or much more.  Unfortunately, it’s hard to make this improvement and move up in limits if you are playing 6 tables at once.  You can’t pay as much attention to the game and you won’t always develop strong reading abilities when multi-tabling.  If your goal is to move up in limits then you are probably better off playing two or three tables.

What Table Amount is right for me?

The next obvious question is how many tables will be right for you.  When answering this question, make sure that you aren’t using someone else as your model for how many tables you should be playing.  Some people have become famous for playing 25 to 30 tables at once which is an insane amount; just stick to what’s right for you in the end.
If you’re losing money then you obviously need to drop some tables.  Even if you’re making money yet feel rushed and don’t have time to make proper decisions then you should cut down on the tables.  Start out small and move up gradually as you gain more multi-tabling experience.