One of the biggest advantages online poker has over live poker is that you are able to play at numerous tables at a time. Most online poker rooms allow you to open up more than one table window and play poker at each table simultaneously.

Multi-tabling has become increasingly popular among regular online poker players, with some going as high as double-digit active tables, which seems crazy in my mind. However, the majority of players will stick to multi-tabling around 2 to 4 tables at once.

So what are the advantages of playing at multiple tables?

Obviously No. 1 is to increase a player’s win rate per hour. If you are a consistent winner, just think how much more you could potentially win per hour by playing 2 tables at once instead of 1. Or 4. Or 6. It seems simple, right? You can double, triple, quadruple your money in one sitting. But you have to be aware of the basic tenet of playing more and more tables: Your play is mathematically certain at some point to deteriorate for every extra table at which you sit.

Think about it, the more tables you play, the more your attention is now going to be divided. It will become more difficult to pick up reads on players because you will normally be too busy making plays on other tables to monitor the opponents.

The biggest problem with multi-tabling is finding the optimum number of tables to give you the biggest win rate per hour. If you play one table at a time, obviously you are likely to win a smaller amount than if you multi-table, but if you play at too many tables at a time, your win rate per hour on each of the tables could decrease to the point where you win less than if you were playing at one table at a time. Generally the middle ground here is to stay between 2-4 tables.

The best strategy for multi-tabling is to play standard, safe poker. Bet your strong hands, fold your weak ones. You aren’t going to have the time while playing multiple tables to be able to make any tricky or advanced plays. If you even bother trying to get too in depth, all of your other tables will suffer. The best advice I’ve heard is to think of your opponents as robots and play a generic style against them. Sure, you may not rake in the huge pots in this format, but if you play better than the majority of your opponents every time you sit down at the table, then you will be a winner in the long run.