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single tabling better than multi-tabling?

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Xanadu

05-23-2006, 09:52 PM Post subject: single tabling better than multi-tabling?

#1 (permalink)

Full House

Join Date: May 2005

Location: st. paul, MO

Posts: 966

My recent experience has led me to believe that it may indeed be easier to make more money at a single table shorthanded than at 2 or 3 or 4. As I have gotten better at reading my opponents, I have noticed that I can absolutely crush 1 or 2 bad players at a single table, and although I can easily make a good rate at 2 or 3 tables just playing my normal style, I have a hard time making accurate reads at even 2 tables.

I've been playing the 5-max at paradise, usually 1-2, and usually the turbo tables (15 seconds or fold). The action goes quick, and it is common to have a full table playing over 120 hands an hour. I have come to firmly believe that poker tracker stats on players are insignificant compared to detailed knowledge of exactly how a player has been playing recently. Most of us know that it is necessary to change things up at a short handed table in order to get a better rate. But how can you change things up ideally even playing 2 tables at 120 hands an hour each? If you are playing a hand at both tables, that's 960 streets an hour, or less than 3.5 seconds/decision when you are playing a hand at both tables.

When I play one table, I notice my opponents changing their style, and I can easily stay one step ahead. Trying to do this at 2 tables is a serious brain drain, and I find myself unable to do much but notice the most obvious of trends. An hour or 2 of 2 or 3 tabling 5max is about all I can take, but it is easy and very enjoyable and profitable to play a single table for 3 or 4 hours at a time.

Time and again, I find myself at a table with position on a complete fish, and by closely watching his tendencies, I really believe it is possible to make 10BB/hr off of a single player. Put 2 bad players on the table and it just gets better.

I am very curious to hear the rest of your opinions on this. At 1/2 5max, I have run over 9BB/100 for nearly 20k hands. How much of a fluke can this be? After over a year of regular play (the 20k hands is just since I got poker tracker a few months ago), I don't seem to be running particularly good. I have regular variance runs of 20-30BB down in less than an hour of play. I have plenty of times where it seems all I can do is run into bad beats.

Let me know what you think.

-X

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elipsesjeff

05-23-2006, 10:07 PM

#2 (permalink)

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elipsesjeff is an unknown quantity at this point

if you can make 2 BB/100 playing one table or 1.1 bb/100 playing 2 tables, which one is better?

As long as you can put in the amount of time theoretically it doesnt matter how many tables you can play but hands per day.

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thenonsequitur

05-23-2006, 10:12 PM Post subject: Re: single tabling better than multi-tabling?

#3 (permalink)

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Join Date: Nov 2004

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To help deal with this problem, I usually start a session with one table. After 10 minutes I'll add a second table. Another 20 minutes and I'll add a third table. If I'm feeling good, I'll add a fourth table too. I've never tried more than 4 tables at once at 6-max. I doubt it would be helpful to me, and besides, 4 tables is the most I can fit on my monitor without overlap.

This relatively quick ramp-up starting at one helps me adjust to each and every player. As I add each new table, I concentrate more on the people at the new table than at the old (for a while, then I even out my attention again).

Whenever one of my tables breaks up or my money sources leave, I'll drop it, replace it with a new table, and then switch most of my concentration to the new table for a while.

Similarly, whenever a player leaves at any table and a new one enters, I try to spend some time conentrating on the new player.

Sure, with each additional simultaneous table, I have more trouble catching all the subtlties of the changing dynamic at each table. But having good initial reads on each players helps with this a lot.

The ramp-up like this also helps me ease into a poker mindset where poker decisions come faster, rather than jump right into trying to identify 24 players' individual styles while I'm still thinking about Seinfeld jokes.

As far as your 9BB/100. I don't think this is entirely a fluke (since you're crushing a game full of terrible players, you'd expect a big winrate), but I think it's still the result of a good run of 20K hands, and don't think it is sustainable. Yes, it's true that targeting weak players is the way to win, and certain players truly are goldmines (some players do lose 10BB/100 or more, and sitting to their left you'll be winning most of what they're losing). But I think a 9BB/100 winrate is too much to expect.

chardrian

05-23-2006, 10:19 PM

#4 (permalink)

I rarely,if ever, get pms

Join Date: Apr 2005

Posts: 4,524

Interesting post.

I just moved away from Dise to Party after recommendations here that Party has more fish and with PokerTracker I'll be fine.

Well I am doing fine, but I have to admit that at this point I am still unsure of exactly how to use those little HUD numbers to my best advantage and might be better off just ignoring them. You don't really need those numbers to tell you that you have a maniac or a fish at your table.

As far as one tabling goes - I can't do more than 2 tables at once but 1 table isn't enough. Even at Dise I was 2 tabling the 5 max tables and was having no problems getting reads and doing well.

Jeff is right that you need to do over twice as well in order to make 1 tabling the right move money wise.

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thenonsequitur

05-23-2006, 10:28 PM

#5 (permalink)

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While on the subject of multitabling shorthanded I'd like to point that I had a lot of trouble doing more than 2 tables at once when I had a small monitor where even 2 tables had significant overlap. Once I bought a monitor that could support 4 tables without overlap, it got significantly easier to multitable. I'm sure many of you have already got big monitors for multitabling, but I highly recommend to anyone that hasnt to buy one. It's very helpful to have no overlap even if you just play two tables. It's more like an investment that will pay itself off (it did for me). Just being able to see any part of the action at any time helps with reads a lot. Besides, flat panels have dropped drastically in price recently and it's much cheaper to get one now than it used to be.

Warpe

05-23-2006, 10:30 PM

#6 (permalink)

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I'm finding that I prefer playing full ring to multitable. Where I'm playing now appears to average about 60-ish hands per hour full ring, as compared to 85-ish at 6-max, so I get in roughly 120 hands per hour playing 2 tables, whereas playing 2 6-max tables gets a little too frantic for me. Multi-tabling is fairly new to me, but I don't think it's going to be hard to add a couple more because of the increased full ring downtime. Just a thought.

Xanadu

05-23-2006, 10:49 PM

#7 (permalink)

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Wow, I figured I'd spark some discussion, but not this much this quick. I do, of course, realize that 9BB/100 is probably not sustainable, but I would like to reiterate, I have had at least 8 or 9 bad runs of 20 or more BB down over 100 hands or less. I think I'll post a few hand histories once I get poker tracker running again (had a few bad worms and decided to reformat a couple weeks ago and have been working a lot) to demonstrate just how much precise reads can win. Nonsequitur, I haven't tried your method, but I think that it could help me make more from 2 tables than from 1. Makes a lot of sense. And you really only need to closely watch your 1 or 2 marks on each table.
I had a 2 hour session last week, with one super fish to my right the entire time for about 250 hands. He actually joined my table immediately on my right, and my estimate (no pt on it yet) would be he played about 90/40. He started with $40, lost it in 20 minutes, reloaded, lost it in 20 minutes, reloaded, got very lucky and built it to $130 in about 20 minutes (and while he was building it he took money from the other 3 players and handed it to me) then busted out and reloaded about an hour later (most going to me) and I had to leave because I was tired and needed to sleep. I'll have to check the pt stats when I get it reinstalled, but I wouldn't be surprised if I won 60BB in 2 hours from this guy. (see my response to Miffed's thread on 5max play for my strategy against him).

Hate

05-24-2006, 11:23 AM

#8 (permalink)

Flush

Join Date: Jul 2005

Posts: 322

20 BB down over 100 hands is nothing. I can have -20 BB in 5 hands(i think it happened yesterday, although it was more like 15).
ontopic, i play 4 tables, and i feel pretty comfortable with it, even though i have overlap, but still get good reads and if not for the cards, i'd be a winning player right now (first 20k hands were g00t...now i've been running bad for about 10k :/ )

Ltrain

05-24-2006, 04:08 PM

#9 (permalink)

Flush

Join Date: Aug 2005

Location: Miami, Florida

Posts: 514

I have mixed thoughts on this. I had an earlier post agreeing that when I concentrate on one table, my win rate is definitely higher, sometimes significantly if there are maniacs or stupid tricky players at the table. However, as EJ pointed out, at the smaller limits, the small amount you lose by adding a table can be made up by the fact the players are so bad, that basic strategy still gives you the edge. I think the factors to adding tables at least to me are the following:
If I am tired- less tables
If I am on a downswing- less tables
If I am on an upswing- add tables
If I am bored- add tables to help resist the temptation of playing too loose

What also helps me is if I am into a marginal hand, I will tighten up on the other tables so I can concentrate on the matter at hand.

"Don't judge a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes. Then you are a mile away, and have his shoes." - Anon.

pokerfanatic

05-24-2006, 05:50 PM

#10 (permalink)

4-of-a-Kind

Join Date: Aug 2004

Location: 6max limit tables

Posts: 1,968

Well I can't really say anything only time I one table is when I play live, or when I get a stake for a single buyin at a higher level that I don't normally play...

however IMO 1 tabling gets boring as hell, I personally need to stay in the game and sharp by playing 4 tables at once and keeping track of what's going on at all times... if I don't keep focus I’ll make some really dumb plays...

I have other reasons for 4 tabling over 1 or 2 tabling, besides win rates, but the win rate that comes from me doing it is good too...

Typically I’ll 3-6 table, depends on the stakes... 2/4 and less 6 tables 3/6 sometimes 6 but most time 4 or 5... My regular game of 5/10 I never get over 4, 2-4 is my standard at that level...

If you can 6 table SH and keep track of what is going on with out making mistakes then 4 tabling is easy as hell… obviously don’t try this at your normal level if you normally play 3/6 lets say do it at 0.5/1 or 1/2 for some practice till you get used to it, when you are not making many mistakes makes 4 tabling easy…

.obviously i don't suggest trying this w/o at least a 1600 x 1200 resolution on your monitor...

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