Champion of Poker

When you decide to play more than one poker table, you have a variety of choices. You can tile, cascade or play with more than one monitor in what is known as a dual-monitor set-up to increase the size of the poker tables. Texas Holdem is not an easy game to multi-table, but if you practise the decisions become more second nature and you will be able to play more tables more often, getting used to the increased speed of the action. It is doable!

My monitor has a 22 inch screen. I can play up to nine tables before things start to get a little too small be comfortable. When you multi-table make sure that your pokertracker is set up to automatically import all the hands you have played into the database because you will get through a lot of hands quickly without the chance to replay or study any hands during your session. That type of review must be done later and having all hands available is very important.

When you first log in to the poker room you should join as many tables as you are comfortable with, searching for opponents you know you can beat and joining tables that have players holding healthy stacks. I would recommend you avoid short-stackers as much as possible as you want deep stack play situations so your poker skills have a chance to shine. Once you have loaded each table you should check the box that says “auto post blinds” and, when prompted, wait for the big blind. This not only means you do not post needless blinds but gives you time to get all of your tables set up before play begins.

Rather than re-sizing and positioning the tables as you go, you can click a button on most poker rooms to tile the tables for you. In less than a second, the tables are resized and positioned correctly as per your monitor’s capability. If you have two monitors, which I do not, they should tile accurately across both monitors and because of the extra screen space you have you will have larger tables. This helps you follow the action and you should take notes as much as you can. If you do have two monitors there are lots of poker forum posts to help you get them set up correctly.

Some players use cascaded tables in order to have each table pop up that requires a decision. This works well for some players and you should try both options to see what suits you best. I find the cascaded tables a little frantic and can get anxious playing that way. This does not help me make better decisions and I certainly perform far better when I am in a tiled table situation. Play a set of low-limit sit and go poker tournaments in order to test which method of table presentation works best for you.

At the end of your multi-table session, once you decide to stop playing you should wait until you are in the hand before the big blind and then leave the table. If you forget to close the table then play one more round. Whilst it is free to play a hand you should take advantage. Do not worry if you lose a big pot in this last round, as you are playing many hands each month the quality of your play is what matters and we all lose pots we wish we could have won or wished we had logged out before playing.

Consider your set-up for poker carefully. When you are risking your own money and looking to maximise what you can win from playing online poker no stone should be left unturned. Your seat, your screens and your approach to multi-tabling are all important considerations to make along with your poker strategy. Good luck, and see you on the bwin.com poker tables very soon.

By Malcolm Clarke