Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Multi-tabling
Multi-tabling is one of the best aspects of online poker. When you play four tables at once you are almost always making decisions and you are quite often involved in at least one hand. Poker goes from being a game of waiting, waiting, waiting to fast and fun (without having to sacrifice your calling standards). But one problem for me at least is that when I am playing 4 tables at one time I can't really keep track of all of the players on all of the tables, how they are playing and how I should play against them. I'll be lucky to identify one or two really fishy players and key off of them. Even then I have had times when I have gotten a raise from the number two seat and reraised because he is a loose aggressive player and I have a good enough hand (AJ) that is likely to be ahead. I play out the hand only to realize on the turn that the loose aggressive player in the two seat left a couple of rotations ago and this new guy is a shark. HAH!
So if you are going to multi-table, I would highly recommend some kind of tracking software. Poker tracker is the number one choice for a tracking database. You just set it up and while you are playing games and for most sites it finds the hand histories and sucks the results into a complete hand history database. You can go through the hands later at your leisure and analyze your results as well as the play of your opponents. It's like having the ultimate set of notes on everybody you play against. This is a great way to pick up leaks in your game and about the only way to figure out how everyone is playing at 4 tables getting 100 hands an hour.
But pokertracker's built in tools for tracking the play while at the tables are clunky at best. You really need to use a heads up display. The heads up displays actually project player's statistics on the table while you are playing. Gametime plus was one of the first heads up displays I ever used. PlayerView has a little bit nicer interface and it automatically recognizes tables you have open (you have to do this manually with Gametime plus). But it is a little bit pricey at $50. Currently I am trying out PokerAce and I like it a lot.
Combine pokertracker and a heads up display and you can have the fast and furious action that comes with multi-tabling while still retaining a significant edge over your opponents.
So if you are going to multi-table, I would highly recommend some kind of tracking software. Poker tracker is the number one choice for a tracking database. You just set it up and while you are playing games and for most sites it finds the hand histories and sucks the results into a complete hand history database. You can go through the hands later at your leisure and analyze your results as well as the play of your opponents. It's like having the ultimate set of notes on everybody you play against. This is a great way to pick up leaks in your game and about the only way to figure out how everyone is playing at 4 tables getting 100 hands an hour.
But pokertracker's built in tools for tracking the play while at the tables are clunky at best. You really need to use a heads up display. The heads up displays actually project player's statistics on the table while you are playing. Gametime plus was one of the first heads up displays I ever used. PlayerView has a little bit nicer interface and it automatically recognizes tables you have open (you have to do this manually with Gametime plus). But it is a little bit pricey at $50. Currently I am trying out PokerAce and I like it a lot.
Combine pokertracker and a heads up display and you can have the fast and furious action that comes with multi-tabling while still retaining a significant edge over your opponents.
