Poker is a game that’s familiar even to those who have never gambled before. Featuring in scenes from thousands of different TV shows, books, and movies over the years, it is synonymous with high rollers, high stakes, and do-or-die games.
While the sense of excitement and risk depicted in media is accurate, spending time at the table soon teaches us that it’s not only brilliant minds and maths geniuses who play – or even, who play with success. As seasoned gamblers know, almost anyone can try their hand at poker, and there are no set rules for whether or not you’ll find you have an affinity for the game.
In fact, much of what you’ll go on to achieve at the tables is dependent on the time you spend honing your strategy. Coming down to method and application as much as inherent skill and talent, it’s important to consider a few fundamentals in order to secure your successes, including how to approach the issue of tables.
How poker tables work
On the whole, standard poker tables have a minimum and a maximum number of players. While there is no absolute rule on this, most agree that the ideal group size at a regular table is nine players and a dealer, and many casinos act in line with this.
That being said, the theoretical maximum is limited only by the number of cards in a pack (52), meaning that anything up to 23 players is possible. The reason these sorts of numbers are not commonly seen, however, is because they draw the game out indefinitely and because it’s almost impossible to read this many opponents at once.
Aside from the volume of players you’ll take on, it’s also important to recognise and understand the differences between another type of table set-up: single or multi-table. While there are undoubtedly upsides to both, much of it comes down to personal preference: whether you want to focus all of your efforts on a single game, or whether you’d prefer to spread your net wider and play more than one table in the hopes of scoring more wins overall.
Single versus multi-table gaming
When you’re deciding between the two, you’ll find that many of the arguments for single versus multi-table gaming mirror the arguments for smaller and bigger tables, so you’ll require a certain degree of self-awareness to work out which of the two is better for you. But now that casinos like SkyCity Online Casino are offering a wider and increasingly sophisticated range of live casino offerings – where poker is regularly the highlight and comes in different variations, too – players options are expanding, too.
Many casinos will give you the option to play in whatever way best suits you, including stacking up multiple tables and playing on them all at once. But don’t immediately fall into thinking that greater volume equates to more money. While it can do, the golden rule is to stick with one table until you have sufficient experience and wins under your belt. It’s hard to convey how important this is, especially when the thought of multi-table gaming can be so attractive to ambitious players.
However, it’s vital to remember that your early forays into poker are inevitably going to be a learning curve, so you need to make sure any game you play has your full attention. This will allow you to more effectively hone your strategy, while also giving you greater opportunity to study how your opponents play and whether they have any vulnerabilities you can take advantage of. Once the wins start rolling in, you can change this tactic, gradually adding in as many tables as you feel able to concentrate on at once.
