$500,000 Guranteed Tournament at Full Tilt

$500,000 Monthly Guarantee Full Tilt Poker is upping the ante in their Guarantee tournaments. Now you can play in Full Full Tilt's $500,000 Monthly Guarantee tournament for your share of a guaranteed half-million dollar prize pool. If you finish in one of the top three places, you'll walk away with at least $50,000. And, if you win the entire event, you'll take home no less than $112,500! If you'd like play for your share of a huge prize pool, join the first $500K Monthly Guarantee tournament at 6PM ET on Sunday, September 17th. Satellites for this $500 + $35 tournament start at just $4 + $.40 or 300 Full Tilt Poker Points and are running now. What's more, if you continue to play in the satellite tournaments after winning a seat in Full Tilt's $500K Guarantee tournament, they will credit your account with $535 if you win again. With at least $500,000 up for grabs in Full Tilt's $500K Monthly Guarantee tournament, there are now half-a-million more reasons to play at Full Tilt Poker. Play Online Poker

Introducing The Modern Grinder Store

The Modern Grinder is proud to announce The Modern Grinder Store where you can find all things poker. Inside you'll find books, DVD's, card and chip sets even Texas Hold'em boxers! Our store is powered by Amazon.com so you can be assured of safe and secure transactions and excellent customer service. Check it out at The Modern Grinder Store

Hand Selection

Most players play too many hands. While it's true any two cards can win, some starting hands will come out on top more frequently than others (For example AA will win about 30% of the time while A5 will win about 9%). If you are playing for enjoyment fine...play what ever hand suits your fancy. If however, you to aspire to make a living playing poker you must develop the discipline to throw away most of your starting hands. Personally I play 20% or less of my starting hands. We've all suffered bad beats from someone playing an awful starting hand, which is how it should be. If you are making good decisions about when to enter the pot all of your beats should be bad beats. Not long ago I did an experiment in which I entered an online $20/$2 No-Limit Hold'em tournament with about 800 entrants when registration closed. I wanted to see how far you could get in a tournament by only playing from the blinds and otherwise folding everything but AA, KK, QQ, AKs and JJ. I ended up playing about 4% of the hands dealt to me and fold hand after hand for what seem like forever. The bottom line is I made almost two hundred bucks that night and have enjoyed being profitably bored ever since. Look for a starting hand chart and an Hold'em odd calculator soon.

The Modern Grinder Poker Glossary

I've been busy the last few days getting the Poker Glossary written for those of you that have requested it. It is filled with almost 300 definitions of words and phrases unique to poker. I'm am also working on a Texas Hold'em odds calculator, and a list of chat terms unique to online poker. If you have any suggestions or notice any errors or omissions please email me at glossary@moderngrinder.com or post a comment. Click here to go to the Poker glossary page now.

Hollywood Poker $50,000 Free Roll Sunday, Sept 3

The $5,000,000 Ongame Poker Classic is the talk of the town for so many reasons, a guaranteed prize pool of $5 million, at least $1 million for the final winner and the recently added $50,000 Freeroll that happens this Sunday, September 3rd. To get a ticket to the $50,000 Freeroll, you must qualify for the ONPC Online Final before midnight EST on September 2nd. Plus, they have added more qualifiers to help you make it there. Click on the link below, then go to the tounament tab for more information.

Cheaters never prosper

"You must maintain a reputation for honor in the gambling business. Your word must be your bond." Doyle Brunson's Super System. There are countless examples in poker literature that point to honesty, integrity, honor and other virtues be vital to being a successful professional poker player. Unfortunately, when most people think of professional card players they often think of evil low lives who would cheat or steal from their own grandmothers. I'm not denying that a dishonest element exists and that certain types of anti-social deviants are attracted to what they think is easy money. They exist in small numbers. The vast majority of those who make a living playing poker have an unusually high level of integrity and honor. That's why I get so annoyed when I see advertisement for online poker cheats. I've spent many thousands of hours playing and studying the game not to mention the thousands of dollars I've lost to get to level I'm at today. Win or lose I do it fairly and honestly (within the rules of poker...). Of course I seek an advantage that is the nature of any honest competition. Here are a couple of examples of what I've found. Poker "bots" these are programs that basically play for you with little or no intervention from the user. They basically calculate pot odds and decide for you whether you should bet, call, raise or fold. The idea being that a computer program will make fewer mistakes. Some of these websites go so far as to suggest that you can let their program play multiple tables for you making you hundreds of dollars an hour while you sleep. For a moment let's leave integrity out of the discussion what happens if something goes wrong you could lose your entire bank roll while you sleep! Frankly if you use one of these programs I hope you do. Another, product out there claims to allow you to see your opponents cards. I am trying very hard to use G rate language but the very idea is B.S. There is no grey area here, this is stealing and shouldn't be tolerated online or in the real world. This is one area where I think a return to old school Vegas is in order. Eventually players and card rooms alike will fix these problems and put these products and the people that use them out of business. The sooner the better. To this end I urge you to contact the card room you play at and ask them what they are doing about these and other methods of cheating. Learn to play professional online Texas Hold'em the right way at Hold'em Careers!