A question that seems to come up often at the micros is "how many tables should I play?" The short answer is my rule of thumb ; If you're often in marginal spots and you're unsure of why and how you got there, you're playing too many tables. The long answer is that it depends on a lot of factors. I firmly believe that quality is more important than quantity in poker. All things being equal in terms of $/hour, focusing on quality will make your poker experience much more enjoyable and satisfying, not to mention much easier on your mental, emotional and psychological bankroll. If you go busto in mental & emotional energy, no amount of $ bankroll will save you.
With that being said, you want to play enough tables to keep up a good pace and get that hand/hour & $/hour up. The actual number of tables should be decided entirely on a case-by-case basis. For example, if you're a complete beginner, you'll of course start with 1 table while you learn the very basics of the game. As you get better, you may start adding one or two more. What's really important to remember with the number of tables is the principle of diminishing returns, as illustrated in this beautiful artist rendering :
In short, this means that at first, every table you add will almost multiply your winrate but you will soon reach a point where each subsequent table earns you less and less up to the point where you may even decrease your $/hour by adding more tables. Thus, what you want is to hit that sweet pot, right where the curve starts going horizontal. That exact spot will differ for various people. As an old-school gamer, i'm used to twitchy and rapid decision making so mutli-tabling came easier to me. Whatever your situation, don't bother yourself about what others are doing and focus on your strengths. In the end, there is no right or wrong number of tables to play.
The important thing to remember is that you need to learn to play properly before thinking about multi or mass-tabling. If you become really good, speed will come naturally and more tables will only increase your profitability. However, if you try to force the number of tables before you're ready, those extra tables will only yield a marginal profit and worse yet, they may even severely limit your growth as a poker player. So take your time and don't rush through this process. Remember that you can always add or remove tables as you wish so don't get stuck into a "i'm a X-tabler" mentality.
My Setup
My personal setup is 24-tables stacked. For me, 24 tables is that sweet spot where I feel challenged by the speed but never overwhelmed by the number of decisions. I have time to take notes and even if I take more time on a difficult decision, I can usually catch up quickly (TableNinja's auto-time bank really helps in those spots). It's also extremely rare that I misclick, something that started to happen a lot during my monster marathon sessions of 40+ tables when I finished Supernova.
I prefer to play stacked because I feel it helps reduce eye & mouse movement. It also allows me to ignore all-in results, especially when it's a very standard all-in that's clearly correct (IE getting it in with KK preflop, a set on flop, a huge combo draw, etc). A typical session starts with me firing up Hold'em Manager (http://www.holdemmanager.com/), TableNinja (http://tableninja.com/) and Pokerstars. I play 40-100bb tables of 100NL at the moment so I select the appropriate filters and start opening tables.
Note Taking
We have so many tools at our disposal in online poker that sometimes we forget to use many of them. It's funny how I went an entire year on Pokerstars without even realizing I could color code people right on the tables (I thought yellow was the only color available). Previously, I exclusively used HEM to take notes, which was fine for actual note-taking, but cumbersome to quickly recognize people. Now there's two kind of notes I use ; Pokerstars color & HEM detailed notes.
The HEM detailed notes are pretty straightforward. I click the little HEM note tag and I write whatever I deem necessary IE "donks 3x with set", "played set very passively" "will stack off with X in Y position" etc. Those notes are important when you have a close decision at the tables, but they really don't help that much with table selection. Not only do you not have time to read all those detailed notes everytime you open a new table, but even if you could the HEM HUD doesn't open until you played at least one hand at the table.
Now, that's a thing of the past with my newfound use of Pokerstars colors! It's amazing how smoother table selection is now with that simple feature. I have a pretty basic color code :
Red : Dangerous reg, avoid at all costs
Orange : Good reg, avoid if possible
Yellow : Meh reg, easily exploitable
Green : Fish, rub moneyz on titties
Purple : Rock, free blinds on the table
As soon as I have around 150-200 hands on someone, I color tag them. Sometimes i'll tag with less if I have a very strong read but below 150 hands there's always the chance that i'll have to adjust my color based on future reads, which is fine. This simple system improved my table selection tenfold.
Table Selection
The more tables we play, the easier it is to become complacent with table selection. We have our hands or VPP objective for the day, we just load up our tables and start grinding away. Unfortunately for us, in poker, complacency is a very dangerous thing. In terms of our game, this can cause bankroll-draining drifting (a very important concept i'll develop in a future blog). In terms of table selection, what could be a very profitable session can easily turn into a break-even, or even losing session!
Our edge in poker is usually fairly small, so every ounce of EV we let go can quickly become costly. Thus, why sit in a table full of dangerous regs when there's a perfectly good tables of meh regs and rocks to exploit. I play 40-100bb fast tables of 100NL exclusively and it's extremely rare that the tables are so reg-filled that there are simply no better tables to sit at.
This is why coloring made table-monitoring easy and painless. My personal table selection criteria are :
- The more green/yellow, the better
- No red reg two seats to my left, unless I have a very good reason to stay (massive fish at the table or otherwise very profitable table conditions)
- No red reg two seats to my right if possible (some of my red tags are aggressive shortstackers, some of whom I don't mind on my right. However, red regs usually steal widely and won't give up easily with position so why bother fighting them when I could have a passive villain instead)
- No solid orange regs to my left is possible. Sometimes i'll stick around with an orange reg to my left if the table is otherwise good and/or the reg isn't too threatening. I'd rather have a rock to my left, but if the reg doesn't tango with me too much and isn't otherwise a pain in the ass I don't mind sticking around until I find a much better table.
- The more purple to my left, the better. I always welcome free blind money.
- The more yellow to my right the better. Meh regs usually play poorly out of position and have big holes in their postflop game, so position allows me to constantly pounce on them and exploit their weakness.
All this is fairly straightforward but it ends up making a huge difference on your bottom line. As soon as a table becomes too orange/red, I close it next bb and start looking for a better one. Yes, it's a little more work and it might mean playing with a few less tables for a certain amount of time (although it's very rare that I have to play less than 24 tables for an extended period of time), but in the end, your bankroll will thank you. If you have any questions, leave them in the comments and i'll get back to you shortly. Good luck at the tables!
My personal setup is 24-tables stacked. For me, 24 tables is that sweet spot where I feel challenged by the speed but never overwhelmed by the number of decisions. I have time to take notes and even if I take more time on a difficult decision, I can usually catch up quickly (TableNinja's auto-time bank really helps in those spots). It's also extremely rare that I misclick, something that started to happen a lot during my monster marathon sessions of 40+ tables when I finished Supernova.
I prefer to play stacked because I feel it helps reduce eye & mouse movement. It also allows me to ignore all-in results, especially when it's a very standard all-in that's clearly correct (IE getting it in with KK preflop, a set on flop, a huge combo draw, etc). A typical session starts with me firing up Hold'em Manager (http://www.holdemmanager.com/), TableNinja (http://tableninja.com/) and Pokerstars. I play 40-100bb tables of 100NL at the moment so I select the appropriate filters and start opening tables.
Note Taking
We have so many tools at our disposal in online poker that sometimes we forget to use many of them. It's funny how I went an entire year on Pokerstars without even realizing I could color code people right on the tables (I thought yellow was the only color available). Previously, I exclusively used HEM to take notes, which was fine for actual note-taking, but cumbersome to quickly recognize people. Now there's two kind of notes I use ; Pokerstars color & HEM detailed notes.
The HEM detailed notes are pretty straightforward. I click the little HEM note tag and I write whatever I deem necessary IE "donks 3x with set", "played set very passively" "will stack off with X in Y position" etc. Those notes are important when you have a close decision at the tables, but they really don't help that much with table selection. Not only do you not have time to read all those detailed notes everytime you open a new table, but even if you could the HEM HUD doesn't open until you played at least one hand at the table.
Now, that's a thing of the past with my newfound use of Pokerstars colors! It's amazing how smoother table selection is now with that simple feature. I have a pretty basic color code :
Red : Dangerous reg, avoid at all costs
Orange : Good reg, avoid if possible
Yellow : Meh reg, easily exploitable
Green : Fish, rub moneyz on titties
Purple : Rock, free blinds on the table
As soon as I have around 150-200 hands on someone, I color tag them. Sometimes i'll tag with less if I have a very strong read but below 150 hands there's always the chance that i'll have to adjust my color based on future reads, which is fine. This simple system improved my table selection tenfold.
Table Selection
The more tables we play, the easier it is to become complacent with table selection. We have our hands or VPP objective for the day, we just load up our tables and start grinding away. Unfortunately for us, in poker, complacency is a very dangerous thing. In terms of our game, this can cause bankroll-draining drifting (a very important concept i'll develop in a future blog). In terms of table selection, what could be a very profitable session can easily turn into a break-even, or even losing session!
Our edge in poker is usually fairly small, so every ounce of EV we let go can quickly become costly. Thus, why sit in a table full of dangerous regs when there's a perfectly good tables of meh regs and rocks to exploit. I play 40-100bb fast tables of 100NL exclusively and it's extremely rare that the tables are so reg-filled that there are simply no better tables to sit at.
This is why coloring made table-monitoring easy and painless. My personal table selection criteria are :
- The more green/yellow, the better
- No red reg two seats to my left, unless I have a very good reason to stay (massive fish at the table or otherwise very profitable table conditions)
- No red reg two seats to my right if possible (some of my red tags are aggressive shortstackers, some of whom I don't mind on my right. However, red regs usually steal widely and won't give up easily with position so why bother fighting them when I could have a passive villain instead)
- No solid orange regs to my left is possible. Sometimes i'll stick around with an orange reg to my left if the table is otherwise good and/or the reg isn't too threatening. I'd rather have a rock to my left, but if the reg doesn't tango with me too much and isn't otherwise a pain in the ass I don't mind sticking around until I find a much better table.
- The more purple to my left, the better. I always welcome free blind money.
- The more yellow to my right the better. Meh regs usually play poorly out of position and have big holes in their postflop game, so position allows me to constantly pounce on them and exploit their weakness.
All this is fairly straightforward but it ends up making a huge difference on your bottom line. As soon as a table becomes too orange/red, I close it next bb and start looking for a better one. Yes, it's a little more work and it might mean playing with a few less tables for a certain amount of time (although it's very rare that I have to play less than 24 tables for an extended period of time), but in the end, your bankroll will thank you. If you have any questions, leave them in the comments and i'll get back to you shortly. Good luck at the tables!
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