When it comes to the obvious differences between online poker and casino poker, the ability to play multiple games simultaneously has to be one of the big pros to being part of an online poker room. It is even a bigger pro for those online players that don’t take advantage of this opportunity. There is something to be said for focusing on one game at a time, and taking advantage of your opponents who are multi-game players.
No matter how talented an online player is it is inevitable that dividing their attention between hands will diminish their play. An online player that makes £20 an hour playing one online game will simply not make £40 playing two. It’s a certainly that hands will often overlap, opportunities will be missed, and decisions will be rushed. This multi-game player may do well overall by taking part in two games, but they will do less well in any particular game they play in. This means, instead of facing a player who has an expectation of taking in £20 an hour at one game, you are facing a player that will take maybe £17. This £3 may not seem significant, but it does add up.
Good players can expect to receive more benefit from multi-game play than the bad ones. You can expect that your prospected earnings will drop as you add on games in your online poker rooms. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t play multiple online games. On the contrary, you should play in the number of games that yields the highest combined expectations. Obviously, playing two games at a £17 an hour win rate each is better than playing one game at a £20 an hour win rate. But multi-table play is not for everyone. If you notice that your expected earnings drop sharply as you add on multiple online games, or if you find it confusing to manage multiple games, stick to one table at a time.
Check back in later in the week to learn how to sharpen your multi-table skills.
