by Russell HallThe following is an excerpt from the upcoming eBook, Poker, Inc.'s Guide to Poker as a Second Income. Many online players make a habit of playing two or more tables simultaneously, a habit my colleagues and I kindly refer to as double or triple fisting. Much like the double fisted drinker, the double fisted poker player can find himself in trouble if he or she is not careful. I regularly play two or three tables at a time because I find that my win rate per hour is greatly increased; however, I did not take on this habit until I had a great deal of experience playing one table only.
Ultimately, you will find that playing multiple tables will be necessary to maximize the bonus money available to you, but your first priority needs to be learning to play poker well and that is best done on one table. Once you decide to try double or triple fisting keep in mind the following advantages and disadvantages:
Advantages
- Winning players will effectively double their hourly win rate
- The amount of hands played significantly increases for meeting bonus requirements
- The increase in hands equals increase in experience
Disadvantages
- Losing players will effectively double their hourly loss rate
- Chances of misplaying a hand increase as you multi-task
- Ability to read opponent’s type of play is diminished due to divided attention
- Your spouse or significant other might kick you to the curb
The first bullets in each list are critical. If you are a winning player, you can boost your average hourly win rate by increasing the number of tables you play, but if you are a losing player, the number of chances for you to make mistakes increases and all you will be doing is throwing more money at your hungry opponents. If you are not certain whether you are a loser or winner, you better find out by keeping records on your single table play before you perpetuate any problems with your game. Poker Tracker is a fantastic source for you to use in evaluating your play and keeping vital financial statistics.
Once you do decide to play multiple tables, I would suggest that you find a site that makes playing multiple tables easier than others. Obviously, if you are attempting to earn a bonus at a site, you do not have a choice, but if you are playing to increase your winnings you can be selective about your poker site. Ultimate Bet, The Gaming Club Poker, and Poker Champs all use software that enables players to view multiple tables in their entirety on the screen at once. Nearly all other sites require that the tables be overlapped and if your not careful, this format can lead to some unfortunate occurrences. Let me illustrate with a story of what happened to me on one unforgettable evening early in my online career.
I was double fisting $2/$4 tables between two sites – Ultimate Bet (using full-view mode, not mini-view mode) and Interpoker. The play had been uneventful and as I was finishing a hand on Interpoker, my Ultimate Bet screen popped into view to show that I had been dealt K-J on the button. A decent hand in late position and I raised the one caller only to have both blinds and the caller match me. A rainbow flop of Q-T-8 got me to sit up and take notice as I now had an open-end nut straight draw with a nice pot possibly building. About this time, my Interpoker screen popped to the foreground to show a beautiful A-A in my hand. Alright! The pot was raised and re-raised by the time it reached me, so I capped the betting, and the button cold-called all the raises!! After the original raiser and re-raiser called, we had a pot of $35 pre-flop. Before seeing the flop, my Ultimate Bet screen flashes to the front and I see that one player has bet into the $16 pot so I raise him in hopes of building the pot while I still had several outs. To my surprise, the small blind check-raised us both, and the big blind folded leaving the bettor and myself to call, which we both did. That pot had reached $34 when my Interpoker screen flashed forward. Bingo!! I had hit a flop of As-Ks-9d to give me three aces. In addition, I just knew someone else had either three kings or two pairs of aces and kings based on the heavy pre-flop betting. This should turn out nicely indeed! Immediately, the first player to act bet out and after the next player called, I raised and was called by the button and the other two players. Pot is now at $51 with two rounds of betting to go when up comes my Ultimate Bet screen. A lovely ace had come on the turn in the last remaining suit, leaving no possibility of a flush on the hand and giving me the nuts. Unless the board paired on the river, there was no way I could be beat. The small blind bet and the other player folded. I raised, the small blind re-raised, and I capped the betting with a smile on my face. The Ultimate Bet pot was now at $66. Back to Interpoker and I see that a 9 of spades had come on the turn. What a great card for me!! If one of these "idiots" was chasing a flush, they just hit it as I got my full house aces full of nines, while I was still certain that someone else had kings full of nines. The first two players checked and I went ahead and fired a bet in only to be raised by the button. Ah-ha! He must have the kings. After all, he did cold-call three raises pre-flop and was attempting to bow up on me now. The other two players folded and I raised and the button capped it. This was going to be delicious! Little did I know that in a matter of seconds the taste in my mouth was going to be a bitter one.
Let’s recap where I stood at the turn on both of my tables. On Ultimate Bet, I held K-J with a rainbow board of Q-T-8-A and a pot of $66. Unless the board paired on the river, my ace-high straight could not be beaten. On Interpoker, I now had a full house holding AA with a board of As-Ks-9d-9s and a pot of $83. After an uneventful evening of poker playing I was just about to win two huge pots for this limit. As I was busy mentally patting myself on the back, my opponent over on Ultimate Bet must have been spending his own time thinking about what to do and his delay in action meant that my Interpoker screen was still in the foreground as the river card was dealt. The river card was a ten still leaving me with the best full house possible. I was not going to let this sucker off the hook, so I moved my cursor to fire a bet into this pot. Then disaster struck. Apparently with the overlap between the two tables, I had managed to line up the Interpoker “bet” button perfectly on top of the Ultimate Bet “fold and show” button. FOLD & SHOW!! I know this because that is the button I pushed as the Ultimate Bet screen flashed forward at the exact moment I was beginning to press the bet button on Interpoker. My Ultimate Bet opponent had milked his time clock before deciding to bet into me on the river when an inconsequential three of diamonds appeared. I not only accidentally folded the nut hand, but SHOWED it to the entire table. As I sat in stunned amazement of what had occurred, the buzzer was going off over on Interpoker as I began to run out of time to make my decision. As anger began to set in, I quickly decided someone had to pay for this injustice, and moved back to Interpoker and fired into the pot only to see my opponent raise me. YES!! I have you now!
One interesting feature of the Cryptologic software used by Interpoker and several other sites is that when players are heads-up on the river, there is no limit to the number of raises players can make, as long as they still have money to burn. This suited me just fine as I had a lot of money to make up now that the pot over on Ultimate Bet had just been stolen from me. I re-raised my opponent and he had the brashness to re-raise me, so I re-raised back and he did the same. This back-and-forth continued twice more before I noticed a little voice in the back of my mind shouting something I could not hear through the blood boiling in my head. Twice more, we raised and re-raised when I heard the voice screaming, “NINES!” A shiver went through me and I vocalized words I hope my children never hear as I merely called his seventh raise bringing the pot to a whopping $187 (the average pot on a $2/4 table is about $24). As the cards were shown I did not even need to look to know that my opponent held pocket nines to go along with the two on the board, and he raked in the huge pot as his four of a kind beat my full house.
I sat out the next several hands on both tables and eventually decided I had to quit for the day as I tried to make sense of what had happened. I had fallen prey to a couple of serious traps when playing multiple tables at once. First, having overlapping tables that would spring to the foreground every time it was my turn to play led to the accidentally selection of an action I did not want to make costing me at least a $70 pot on UltimateBet. Second, my divided attention between the two tables caused me to overlook possible hands of my opponents and throw far too much money into a pot that I could not win. I would have saved at least $32 on the river had I given more thought to what my opponent might be betting.
As I commiserated with my colleagues, they reminded me that the Interpoker player on the button had been foolish to cold-call three raises with pocket nines because he should have known he was a 4-1 underdog to at least one player and perhaps two. That is probably true, but I also know that low-limit players and particularly novice ones will make calls like that one. So in the end, I should not have been surprised by the result and instead should have given more thoughtful consideration to my opponent’s possible hands and acted accordingly without greed or rage getting in the way.
In conclusion, ensure that you are a consistent winning hold ‘em player before attempting to play multiple tables at once since the increased action will force you to make quick decisions and further magnify any leaks you have in your game. Secondly, whatever you do, make sure your overlapping tables don’t have their bet and fold buttons on top of each other!! |
