Don’t Let Rakeback or MultiTabling Effect Your Growth as a Poker Player

As poker players we have a lot of different goals when we play poker. Some of us play strictly for the fun of it. These players’ goal when they sit down at a poker table is to have a good time and share some laughs with their friends. They may have a couple of beers and a cigar and be completely happy if they walk away losing a few bucks. That’s OK as long as that’s the reason you play poker. Some of us play for money. These players’ sole purpose for playing the game of poker is to turn a profit. In reality most of us are some sort of combination of the two.

If, like me, you play strictly for the money than there are a few things that you should always be focused on. Moving up to the next limit and continually getting better at poker. If you continue to improve your game, your bankroll should continue to grow. With your increased skill and a bloated bankroll you should have no problem steadily moving up from limit to limit until you reach the big games. For online players there are some traps. I often see promising low limit poker players get caught up with focusing on the wrong things and they never make it out of the micro limits. Remember that the big money is in the big games and that’s where you want to be.

An easy trap to fall into as an online player is what I refer to as “The MultiTable Trap”. This is when a low limit player continues to add more and more tables to his daily routine instead of focusing on moving up the ladder to the real prize. Low limit grinders may find that they can beat 1/2 limit holdem for 1 big bet or more per hundred hands. They start to think about playing 6 tables at once. How about 8, 10, or 12 tables at a time. Before long they have 4 monitors hooked up to their computer and they’re playing 16 tables at once. While this may be a decent income, I guarantee you’re not improving your poker. There is very little time to think when you play this many tables and zero time to learn anything. You are playing ABC poker against very poor opposition. Your bankroll will grow and you will have the money to move up in limits before too long assuming that you can maintain your winrate with that many tables. Unfortunately your skill level will not be ready and you will find yourself back in the kiddy pool trying to recoup your losses over and over.

Another related trap is the rakeback trap. While rakeback is great and should be taken advantage of by every serious online poker player, you should treat it as what it is; Something extra. Players often get caught up in earning as much rakeback as they can rather than trying to get better and move up. I often see players playing online who stop moving up when they get to 3/6 or 5/10 limit hold’em. These limits will allow you to make good money just in rakeback if you play enough tables, but, again the real money is in the big games.

So remember, if you want to make the real money it isn’t in playing sixteen tables tables at a time at the micro stakes. It’s in the bigger games. Rakeback and multitabling are great ways to increase your winrate. Just make sure that you don’t go overboard and stop improving your game.

The author is a successful limit cash game player. He plays poker and receives Rakeback at PKR Poker and Rakeback at BetSafe Poker.