Playing more than one table is a good way of avoiding the frustration that can arise when the game is slow or you encounter a long series of unplayable starting hands. By playing two or more tables, you are actually less likely to fall into the trap of playing too many starting hands, since there is enough activity to keep you occupied, and you can avoid getting sucked into playing marginal hands just to combat the tedium of having to fold hand after hand. However, it is important to recognise that if you are only a break-even player when you play at a single table, then you should avoid playing simultaneous tables, since you will most likely become a losing player.

If you do choose to play more than one table, then you should first ensure that the tables are not lined up precisely one on top of the other on your screen, but instead overlap in some way, otherwise you may find yourself accidentally raising on one table when you meant to fold and vice-versa (UltimateBet actually provides an excellent MiniView™ feature, which allows players to play multiple tables with no overlapping whatsoever). You may in fact wish to experiment with adjusting your screen resolution in order to fit two tables at once on your desktop (in Windows go to ‘Control Panel’, then to ‘Display’, then to ‘Settings’ and adjust your screen resolution as required; l024×768 is probably adequate for most players, depending on the size of your monitor). Some regular multi-table players (myself included!) have even set up their computers with two monitors and a dual monitor graphics card. With this set-up it is easier to focus on multiple games, perhaps even playing four or more tables at once.

Many players dislike playing simultaneously on two tables for the very simple reason that they find it difficult to keep track of the action, and struggle to cope with the constant barrage of betting decisions. One clear disadvantage of playing on more than one table is that you will miss out on witnessing many of the hands in which you are not participating. You may therefore struggle to pick up on the tendencies of your opponents, perhaps failing to spot that one player is a habitual bluffer, or that another has purchased three re-buys and is completely on tilt. If you play in games in which the players are of more or less equal ability, then playing in two games may not have much of a negative effect on your hourly expectation, but if there are one or two players who are of sub-par standard, then playing two tables hampers your chances of identifying those players and picking on their weaknesses. You should also bear in mind that it is much more difficult to make proper, reliable notes on your opponents for future use when you are playing two tables at once.

Furthermore, when playing multiple tables, some of your actions will also inevitably be rushed ‘reflex’ decisions rather than rationally thought through, which could prove very dangerous unless you have an excellent fundamental understanding of the game in which you are playing. Multi-table players are also almost certainly much more susceptible to allowing their blinds to be stolen or being bluffed, either because they are more likely to use the advance-action boxes and tip their hand, or because they are perhaps focusing on a key hand elsewhere and don’t have the time or inclination to work out whether an opponent might be running a bluff. Conversely, if someone whom you know is playing multiple tables at once puts a strong play on you, the chances are that they really do have the goods!

If you are prone to going on tilt, you should probably avoid playing multiple tables - the action is so fast and furious that it is especially hard to keep a rein on your emotions after a couple of bad beats. Playing two stud games at once can also be very problematic - many players struggle to remember the folded upcards on one table, let alone two at once! And trying to cope with several short-handed games at once would also be living a little too close to the edge for most players. Finally, it is rather inadvisable to play a hi/lo game and a hi game at the same time - it is all too easy to mix up the tables and raise with the nut low in the hi game!

Next time you find yourself playing two tables, ask yourself - ‘Which is the weaker game and would I be better off dropping the other table and just focusing on that one?’ Or to look at it another way, ‘If I’m playing one table myself would I prefer that my opponents were all focusing on that table or each playing two or three tables at once?’ When you are working the lobby looking for a game, you may wish to pay particular attention to any tables that include several players who are trying to play multiple games at once - they may prove to be good opponents. And if you do decide to play two tables, it is well worth considering dropping down in limit to minimise your risk, for example a $2/$4 player might choose to play two $1/$2 tables, or a $5/$10 player, two $3/$6 tables.

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Games won - This is not really a particularly useful statistic, since the purpose of playing poker is not to win as many hands as possible but to win money! Many players with a high ‘games won’ percentage will lose money overall, but will win a high number of hands purely due to the fact that they contest more pots to the river than they should. Furthermore, when you win a split pot it is counted in the statistics as a full win, which slightly inflates the games won percentage.

Showdowns won - This statistic provides a more practical indication of your play, since it reveals how often you display the winning hand at the river. If your long-run ’showdowns won’ percentage is considerably below 45% (for full 10-player hold’em ring games) then you may be seeing too many hands through to the river and may wish to re-evaluate your play accordingly. For tight players a long-run ’showdowns won’ percentage of 55%-60% should be perfectly achievable. However, the ’showdowns won’ figure should be used with some caution - if you would have folded to a bet on the end but it was checked down instead, then this goes down as a showdown lost.

Flops seen - This is the most useful statistic. There are no hard and fast rules on what percentage of flops you should be seeing, since in any single session your percentage will be largely dependent on how aggressively your opponents are playing. Indeed, a handful of extra free or cheap plays from the blinds can totally distort your overall percentage. The best way to gauge how loosely you are playing at any point in time, is to compare your own ‘flops seen’ percentage with that of the table as a whole - if you are above average then you may possibly be seeing too many flops.
As for the long run, if your ‘flops seen’ percentage (for full hold’em 10-player ring games) is consistently higher than 30%, then you may wish to consider whether you are playing too loosely - many experts would argue that it should be as low as 18-25% in the long run. (Incidentally, PokerStars breaks the ‘flops seen’ figure down into ’small blind’, ‘big blind’ and ‘other positions’, which is quite informative if you wish to analyse whether you are contesting too few or too many hands from the blinds.)

Win % if flop seen (or fourth street for stud) - This statistic is very closely correlated to the preceding one. A long-run figure of less than 20% may indicate that you are perhaps seeing too many flops with sub-standard hands.

Your actions - These percentages should give you an indication of how passively or aggressively you are playing, and will vary greatly from player to player depending on individual styles of play. As a rough guide, if your call percentage is significantly larger than the sum of your bet, raise and reraise percentages combined, then you may wish to consider whether you are playing too passively.

Where you fold - Again, these figures will depend greatly on your style of play, but they may provide you with an indication of whether you are folding too much or too little.

Naturally, these statistics only become meaningful with a representative sample size. With only 50 or fewer hands they offer only a very brief snapshot of play, and should not be considered at all reliable, but as you play more and more hands they will provide a much more useful indication of your play. Paradise Poker does offer the facility to run on these statistics from one session to the next (rather than resetting them from zero at the beginning of each new session), and by the time you have accumulated statistics on 1,000 or more games, they should offer quite a good reflection of your playing style.

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Programs like Poker Tracker collect and combine your hand histories into a database, and then allow you to run a wide range of database queries. It will tell you what percentage of flops you are seeing, how you fare with each pair of hold’em pocket cards, how often you raise before the flop or give up your blinds uncontested etc. and also provides you with the same information for each of your opponents! Indeed, you can even create a ‘Game Time’ table, which provides the key information on all of your opponents, viewable at a glance.

If you are fortunate enough to have a coach, then hand histories are an extremely helpful basis for analysis and discussion; and you could always write up and post any of your particularly interesting hand histories on a poker newsgroup or forum to invite comments and suggestions. Just remember to provide as much information as possible both about the hand, and the dynamics of the table at that particular time, so that the exact situation you were in can be recreated as accurately as possible. And it would probably be as well to prepare yourself for some blunt criticism from the ‘experts’!

Whether you plan to ask for feedback on your hands or not, it is still important to review the hand histories of the key hands that you played in each session. Did you play well or could you have saved or gained some extra bets? Did your opponents make mistakes or did they pull off any clever plays that you might be able to use yourself at a later date? Once you have reviewed and annotated your key hands, you might like to consider placing them in a file to which you can refer back at a later date. Having amassed a number of these hands, you may then be able to identify recurring positive or negative features of your play, which will enable you to improve your future results.
What were they calling with?
One unique feature of hand histories at some (but not all) sites is that they reveal the pocket cards of players who called at the showdown, even if they failed to win the pot. At a brick and mortar cardroom, the caller on the end is almost always allowed to muck losing hands without showing their cards, but at PokerStars, for example, this valuable information is available instantly.

Consider the following scenario: Playing at your favourite site, you have a good hand, so you bet and get called all the way to the river. You show down your good hand, it holds up, and your opponent mucks. For once, you haven’t been suffered a bad beat on the end -wonder of wonders!

A little while later, the same thing happens. You get called down and again you win (winning two showdowns in a row - it really is your lucky day!) and your opponent mucks. When the euphoria of winning two showdowns in a row subsides, you start to wonder if your opponent may be a calling station and not the type of player against whom you might, for example, want to try and run a bluff.

But how can you be sure? Maybe he also had a good hand, was making legitimate calls and just got a little unlucky with a lower kicker. Well, check the hand history. Even if your opponent mucks at the showdown, his hand is normally revealed if he has called on the river. You can therefore find out what he was doing in the hand and get a handle on what kind of a player he is. Note that this also applies even if you are not involved in the showdown yourself - you can still see what the other players involved in the showdown were going to war with. This difference between online and offline play can provide valuable in sights into your opponents’ play and you should not shy away from taking advantage of it.

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Telling by Time
It is often argued that the amount of time that an opponent spends on a decision can indicate whether or not he is holding a good hand; hesitation before betting often being used to feign weakness and rapid bets made to try and muscle the pot, or, as Mike Caro puts it, ‘weak means strong’ and ’strong means weak’.
On the flop, a very quick call often suggest a drawing hand (typically a flush draw), whereas a quick raise often represents top pair with a decent kicker (or an overpair). A very slow call will often mean a mediocre hand (one which the player was seriously considering folding). It is always very unpleasant when someone first checks slowly and then check-raises immediately after you have bet, thereby representing a very strong hand, which is most likely what they are holding.

In general, if the first player makes a very fast bet after everyone has checked on the previous round then this may indicate a bluff to try and pick up this ‘orphan’ pot, whereas if that player pauses unduly before carrying out a bet (or everyone checks and the last player pauses before betting) then this may suggest that he has a very strong hand and is trying to induce calls through his apparent hesitation (which is sometimes known as the ’stall-bluff).

Players who take a long time over all of their decisions are usually either very new to the game, suffering from a poor Internet connection or playing multiple tables (or otherwise distracted). If you are familiar with the player and identify distraction as the cause, then they are a prime candidate for a well-timed bluff.

Here is a summary of these timing tells:
Pre-flop:
Instant ‘auto-raise’: High pair or big ace
Lots of instant folds: Tight player

Post-flop:
Quick raise: Probable good made hand
Slow check: Probable weak hand except:
Slow check followed by quick check-raise: Probable very big hand
Instant check: Likely very weak hand
Quick bet: May be trying to act strong
Slow bet (or raise): May be trying to act weak
Quick call: Likely drawing hand
Slow call: Marginal hand

Of course, these online tells cannot be applied across the board for all opponents (and they can easily be reversed by sophisticated opponents in any case). Some players will pause to calculate whether they have a reasonable chance of getting away with a bluff, whereas others will act slowly to pretend that they have a hand, in the hope of discouraging you from betting into them on the next round, and thereby gaining a free card. Slow action may also be completely neutral- it may simply be that your opponent was thinking about a decision at another table or was otherwise distracted, or indeed that either you or your opponent is experiencing a lag in their Internet connection (although usually connection problems are ongoing, so you may be able to ascertain whether the delay is likely to be connection-related or not).

A tell is only meaningful if it involves a deviation from your opponent’s normal behaviour. If you do spot a tell on your opponent, then it is important to make a note of it, in case you run into a similar situation with him in the future.

In principle, you should spend as much time on each decision as you need, varying the time you spend on your decisions if you feel you are becoming too predictable or alternatively seeking to take exactly the same amount of time before each action, regardless of whether you are betting a big hand or a marginal one. Indeed, if you stop to think too often you may take some of the fun element out of the game for the other players, encouraging them either to go elsewhere to gamble or to concentrate harder on their own decisions! Some of the best online games are those in which everyone else is enjoying themselves, chatting to one another, playing quickly and not paying a great deal of attention to the real action on the table.

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Of course, it can be just as damaging to play for too long. Once the weaker players have left the game, you become too tired to play a winning game, or perhaps you sense that you are starting to go on tilt after a few bad beats, it is important to stop right then, before your bankroll starts to suffer. One thing is for sure, even if you have booked a loss for this particular session, you will have a chance to repair the damage - there will certainly be another suitable online game running somewhere or other the next time you log on to your computer.

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Whatever site you choose to play at, if you take the trouble to take notes while you play, you will quickly be able to identify whether there are any players whom you would particularly like to play against, choosing one table over another in order to target the weaker players and avoid the stronger ones. Sometimes it is even worth stepping up or dropping down in limit if you spot one or two of your favourite opponents playing in a higher or lower game than you would normally play. Often a game can be good even if it features just a single player who is almost guaranteed to lose all of his money.

But what if you don’t know anything about any of the players, how do you then decide to play at one table rather than another? In that case you may choose to sit out and watch a few games to see which might be most suitable. If you are playing regularly at the higher limits of a particular site, games in which you don’t recognise anyone can actually be potential goldmines, absent all the regular pros and perhaps instead filled with inexperienced players.

Many players, however, like to get stuck into the action as soon as possible. Instead of actually watching the games, they make their game selection according to the lobby information on the average number of players per flop (or fourth street for stud) and average pot size, if such information is provided by the site. Broadly speaking, games can be classified as follows:

High flop seen percentage and high average pot size: loose-aggressive

High flop seen percentage and low average pot size: loose-passive

Low flop seen percentage and high average pot size: tight-aggressive

Low flop seen percentage and low average pot size: tight-passive

Depending upon your style of play, one type of game may be more attractive than another. Some aggressive players often prefer tight-passive games, where they can use their forcefulness to steal more pots both before and after the flop, whereas many other players prefer loose games with normal-sized pots, where they do not have to pay too much to see the flop, but figure to be able to outplay their opponents from the flop onwards. Bear in mind, however, that it is very hard to beat a tight-aggressive game.

In general (using $3/$6 and $5/$10 online games as an example; micro-limit games will usually be somewhat looser), any game with more than 30% of players seeing the flop is certainly not prohibitively tight, and a figure of 40% or more indicates a very good game. An average pot size of around six big bets is fairly typical, and a pot of eight big bets or more is certainly on the large side.

However, you should exercise some caution with such selection methods, since with so many players coming and going online, the complexion of a game can change very rapidly with the arrival or departure of one or two loose players, either once you are involved in the game itself, or even just while you are sitting on the waiting list!

For example, it is not uncommon for tables with high flop seen percentages to attract long waiting lists as the vultures sense blood and start to circle, ready for the kill; by the time you reach the top of the waiting list they may have already devoured their prey and the game may no longer be good. Furthermore, it is possible that the current averages are not really a good reflection of the game as a whole - the inherent short-term fluctuations of a game of poker are such that the last 20 or so hands may not necessarily be a particularly reliable sample.

If you do decide to use the average players/flop or average pot statistics in game selection, it is important to check back to the lobby at periodic intervals to ensure that the game still meets your criteria.

Another factor that you may like to consider when making your table selection is the stack sizes of all the players. Whereas in a brick and mortar cardroom buy-ins can vary hugely from one player to the next, online they tend to be much more standardised. For example, if the maximum buy-in in a pot-limit game is $100 and there are three or more players with stacks of over $300 then you may be up against some quality players (or at least some players on a hot streak) who have been busting out their opponents, whereas if everyone has $50 or less then there is probably less to fear.

In a fairly recent (2002) article at casino.com, Andrew Glazer suggested that a similar concept may also apply to low-limit games. If there are several players with substantially larger stacks than the cardroom’s ‘recommended’ buy-in for that limit, this may indicate that they are better than average players. Whilst this is obviously less reliable for limit than for pot-limit games (since in limit games some players like to buy-in for more than the recommended amount anyhow) it may still help to lead you away from the tougher games. However, Glazer’s theory is probably more reliable when you are considering a table in which only one or two players are playing with even the recommended buy-in and the rest are short-stacked, either because they have already incurred losses (either through bad play or bad luck) to recently departed winners, or because they are inadequately bankrolled and were forced to opt for a short buy-in from the outset. In these circumstances, you can be fairly certain that at least the game is not full of sharks!

Finally, it is worth mentioning one final game selection ’shortcut’ you could just look for a player whom you know focuses carefully on game selection and join the game in which they are already playing!

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- Online you always have clear information on everyone’s stack sizes, the pot size and the size of any side pots.
Whereas in live play it is easy to lose track of the exact size of the pot and perhaps not be able to see how many chips a player has left, this information is provided in clear fashion in the online game.

- Online games are much faster than live-action ones.
A computer can collect, shuffle and deal cards far faster than a human can, and there are no delays caused by the need to wait to change decks or dealers (or take a table charge), while there is also no reliance on a human dealer to work out who has won a pot or manage the chip division in a split pot. In addition, players generally act much faster online, since no-one has to count out their chips to place into the pot, and players can use ‘fold in turn’ and other advance-action boxes to speed up the game. Since there are no visual tells available, the game is also not slowed down by players looking around the table for clues on other player’s hands. Consequently, the faster sites are able to deal at least two to three times as many hands per hour as their brick and mortar counterparts, and even more for short-handed games.

- You don’t need to keep a ‘poker face’ online.
Unlike in a brick and mortar game, there is no necessity to conceal your emotions when you play online. You can jump up and down cheering when you hit a flop without giving away the strength of your hand, since the other players will be none the wiser. Conversely, you can shout and scream at your computer when someone draws out on you on the river, and no-one else will have any idea that you might be ’steaming’.

- Online shuffling results in a more random card distribution than can typically be achieved by a dealer.
Properly programmed computer shuffling software enables a fair and random shuffle without the appearance of clumps of the same cards, as can occasionally arise in live games. Furthermore, there is no risk that the dealer might rig the shuffle, accidentally flash a card or misdeal altogether, or of other players being able to mark the cards.

- Most online cardrooms provide the facility to review hand histories, and also offer note-taking facilities and statistics.
Once a hand has been played and mucked in a brick and mortar cardroom, there is rarely any accurate record of what occurred. However, online hand histories enable players to go back and review the hand, analysing both their own play and that of their opponents with a view to finding ways in which to improve their game. Many dedicated online players also choose to take advantage of the note-taking facilities and statistics functions that most online cardrooms provide.

- An online cardroom can review the record of every hand for possible cheating.
The hand history facility also allows cardrooms to go back and look at hands after they have been played, either to check for any possible collusion or to resolve any other issues that may have arisen. Once a hand has been irretrievably mucked in a live-action game, on the other hand, it is often impossible to reconstruct what occurred with perfect accuracy.

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- Online poker is less intimidating than a live-action game. The Internet is not only a relatively safe and secure place to learn poker, but also a much less intimidating environment for most people than a live-action cardroom. In particular, many women seem to prefer to learn the game online, where they can avoid the possibility of being subject to the scrutiny of unsympathetic male players, and can focus on the game rather than on having to fend off unwanted male advances. Indeed Ladbrokes has reported that female players now represent 20% of the online poker population.

- There is no dress code.You can play in your pyjamas or shorts. Unlike at UK casinos, for example, ’smart casual dress’ is not a requirement of entry to an online game.

- You can play with a coach/friend alongside you.
Although poker is generally required to be ‘one player to a hand’, this is impossible to enforce online. Many people receive their first introduction to poker while they are sitting alongside an online player, receiving instructions and a practical demonstration of how to play.

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However, events move quickly in the online world, and by July eBay had announced that once its planned $1.4 billion acquisition of PayPal had gone through, it would no longer allow Internet gambling transactions due to an ‘uncertain regulatory environment surrounding online gaming.’ Then in August, following an investigation by the New York State Attorney General into Paypal’s service to online gambling merchants, PayPal agreed to pay a $200,000 penalty to the State of New York, and at the same time cease processing such payments from its New York members almost immediately. Although this action was taken in voluntary cooperation with the Attorney General, with no admission of having violated the law, it was by now inevitable that PayPal would soon cease allowing online gambling-related transactions altogether, which they did in November 2002.

With the demise of PayPal as a means of funding their accounts, many players have now switched to the Canadian-based NETeller as an alternative payment processor. Like PayPal, NETeller does not charge its customers for transfers to and from cardrooms (although it does charge for credit card deposits). Transfers from your NETeller account to a cardroom are instant, but it can take 48 hours or more to move money in the opposite direction, and transfers from your bank or credit card to NETeller can also take several days. In general, NETeller is an ideal place to store some of your bankroll, to either use as a top-up if your funds run low at a particular site, or to use for reload bonuses when they become available.
Although most online poker sites do now offer the facility to fund an account via NETeller, the overall range of merchants who accept NETeller is still quite limited compared to PayPal, so it is less convenient as a payment method for non-gambling-related transactions. Naturally, this relatively high reliance on gambling means that NETeller would be particularly vulnerable to any future regulatory intervention.

One possible solution to the problem of payment processing is the concept of a central online poker bank. Such a bank would allow players a completely portable bankroll, allowing them to immediately buy-in and cash-out whenever and wherever they wished to play. From the cardrooms’ point of view, a central bank might also be an attractive option, since they would stand to make substantial savings on their transaction processing fees.

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