I was having a discussion the other day with fellow players about the possible longevity of online poker players due to the toughening effect of the online environment. In areas like limit hold’em then players were reaching game theoretically optimised solutions years ago and that filtered down to the lower levels in which players then become very strong even at levels like $2-$4 and $3-$6.
I think it has become more difficult to make money online these days multi-tabling. I think in years gone by then players could expand their earnings by playing against more fish simply by playing more tables. These days I think there needs to be a greater emphasis placed on quality rather than quantity. It is all about balance at the end of the day and if you are going to play 20 tables these days then I think that doing so is pretty difficult to achieve when your opponents are not making big mistakes against you.
In fact a player who is active on so many tables probably has all on just to keep the function of playing so many tables alive and has no time whatsoever for strategy deviations. Online poker is basically akin to blackjack in this area because it is the strategy deviations that really make the difference between a really good player and a mediocre player. So in my mind then the optimal way to play the game may be to drop back from multi-tabling again and really concentrate on feeling out a single table but at higher levels.
