$25,000 Free Roll at Doyle's Room

THE BIG $25,000 MONTHLY FREEROLL – QUALIFIERS RUNNING DAILY WIN FREE MONEY in the $25,000 Freeroll on Monday, September 25th (22:30 GMT). 100,000 Action Points is the buy-in. You can win your way into the Freeroll by winning one of the daily feeder tournaments. Feeders are running daily at 01:00, 15:15, 17:30, 22:30 GMT. The buy-in is 2,000 APs with 4 seats guaranteed - plus one additional seat awarded for every 50 players registered. Register now! Doyle's Room is limiting the entry into the Big Freeroll to the first 500 players. Click here for more details!

10 Traits of a Successful Poker Professional

A lot of people would like to quit their jobs and play poker for a living but are wondering what it takes to be a successful poker pro. Here are ten essential traits. Discipline – It takes discipline to put in the hours necessary to become skilled in poker. It also takes discipline to fold hand after hand when the cards aren’t going your way and to not spend your bankroll or play in games that are above what your bankroll will support. Patience – It can take hundreds of hours of play for your luck to even out. That's great when luck is on your side but when luck isn’t on your side it’s hard not to jump in the pot or gamble a little with your money. Certain plays also require patience to execute properly (More on this in a future post). Integrity – It may surprise you how often honor and integrity come up in poker literature. Doyle Brusnon and T.J. Cloutier are good examples of poker writers who talk about honor and integrity. The bottom line is that although poker’s unique charm comes from the deceptiveness built into the game whether or not people perceive you as a person of integrity will go a long way into determining your success as a player and in life. If people like and trust you, you’ll get into games that otherwise would be closed to you. Also keep in mind that professional poker player doesn’t look very good on a credit application so how you conduct your financial affairs will determine how well you will be able to leverage those winnings. Study and Practice – Study and practice aren’t technically a trait but the willingness to do so is and is essential to growing your skills and developing your instincts. The bottom line is a couple hours a week won’t be enough for you to grow. Luck can get you only so far in a tournament and can make you a little money in ring games but ignorance can cost you everything you have. Attention to Detail – Serious poker pros take detailed notes on other players and keep records of EVERY session of play. They write down there mistakes, how they felt, insights into their opponents behavior at the table and anything else that might give them an edge in the future. They review their notes and test new ideas and strategies often. At the poker table they aren’t watching TV or flirting with the cocktail waitress (or chatting on myspace if playing online). They are paying attention to everything that is relevant to game and nothing else. Courage – Do you have the courage to go all in when the situation calls for it? Imagine this you are in a no limit Texas Hold’em tournament and you are short staked. You flopped top pair but there is a possible flush on the board and you don’t have a piece of it. The blinds are going up and you know the right thing to do is to move all-in but do you have the courage do it? Faith – I’m not necessarily talking about belief in a higher power here but rather faith in yourself. If you don’t believe in yourself you will lose. I guaranteed it. So don’t bother sitting down to play. Self Honesty – What I mean by self honestly is that you don’t lie to yourself about the bad decisions you make. Most people are too quick to blame bad luck when they lose and credit their superior skill when they win. If you do this you will never grow or improve as a poker player or as a person. Determination – You will have rough times and loosing streaks no matter how good you are. You may even loose your entire bankroll and have to get a real job again. But if playing poker for a living is your dream then you will preserver and do whatever takes to get to where you want to be whether that’s winning a World Series of Poker Bracelet or making a six figure income playing poker online. Love for the Game – If you don’t love the game then nothing else matters, but then you wouldn’t be reading this page now then would you. Much of the above list is obvious but some of it may have surprised you. Never the less practice developing these traits will improve your game and your earning potential. If you don't have all these skills and traits in abundence don't give up you can develope them with a little dedication and practice. I would love to hear from you and learn what you consider to be essential poker skill or traits. Play Online Poker

Multi-Table Play

Many poker writers cite multi-table play as one of the advantages of online poker. After all if you are a winning player you should be able to win more by playing more than one table at a time. Right? Well, maybe. Most poker professionals feel that earnings one big bet an hour, i.e. on a $6/$12 table you would earn $12 an hour is doing well. Of course we would all like to do better but statistically it is unlikely unless you are unusually lucky. The idea with multi-table play is that if you can earn $12 per hour playing one table then you should make $24 playing two tables and $36 playing three tables and so on. It's an nice idea but the reality is that you will make more mistakes and miss key opportunities by having your attention split between multiple tables. Putting your opponents on a hand will be almost impossible.. Another problem is that at any given time it unlikely to find more than one really good table. Chances are only one table will be worth sitting at anyway. In my opinion is that if your bank roll can support playing at two $6/$12 tables then you'd probably be better off playing at a $10/$20 or even a $15/$30 table and giving it your full attention. You will gain the advantage of being able to pay close attention to the betting pattern of your opponents, take notes and profit from opportunities you otherwise might have missed. There are a minority of players that do well playing multiple tables if so I suggest you try both ways keeping careful records and see what works for you.

The Modern Grinder is Growing and Needs Your Help

Our website is growing by leaps and bounds and I just wanted to takes some time to thank those who supports us. We've talked in previous posts about thing you can look forward to in the future from The Modern Grinder. The Online Texas Hold'em apprenticeship program were we will be offering free poker lessons to a select few. We will be launching a poker forum and newsletter in late spring. All of these things will we hope ad value to our loyal readers. We would also like to hear from you and let us know what you'd like to see. Remember our main goal is to help you be a better poker and more profitable poker player and for you to have fun doing it. So if you have any ideas or would like to contribute send us an email to interest@moderngrinder.com.

Pot Odds Primer

You hear the term pot odds quite a bit when discussing poker strategy and indeed it is a critical factor in your decision making. But what are pot odds? Pot odds is amount of money in the pot compared to the amount you must put in the pot to continue playing. For example, there is $100 in the pot. The bet is $10, so the pot now contains $110. It costs you $10 to call, so your pot odds are 11:1. Call if your chance of having the best hand is at least 1 out of 12. Pot odds also apply to draws. Let's suppose you have a draw to the nut flush with one card left to come. In this case, you are about a 4:1 underdog to make your flush. If it costs you $5 to call the bet, then there must be about $20 in the pot (including the most recent bet) to make your call correct. Knowing how to calculate pot odds will help you make some of those tough decisions and keep your bank roll nice and fat. Play Online Poker

Betting as a Second Language

I watch a lot of people when they first start playing struggle with betting and raising. Most newbies are either calling stations or timidly fold all but the very best hands out of frustration. Betting is a form of communication, a second language. When somebody bets she is trying to tell you something. "Hey, I have a good hand" for example. When somebody raises they are in effect saying "Yeah, but my hand is better!" Think of it as the poker equivalent of a gorilla pounding his chest. A check is the equivalent of putting your tail between your legs. The trick in poker and what makes it so interesting is some will intentionally try to deceive you. Does that reraise really mean he has the best hand or is he lying? Does that check really mean he is holding rags? What about a check raise, what does that mean? Your decisions at the poker table are going to come down to pot odds, your hand, your outs and what you think your opponents are trying to tell you by how they bet. Then you have to ask yourself are they lying? I invite you to study betting as a second language.

Luck or Skill Part II

Many of the people in my life know that I'm a serious poker player and that I've made some money Texas Hold'em playing online yet they still like to challenge me from time to time. Tonight I had dinner at a friends house and the subject of Texas Hold'em and The World Poker Tour came up. A fellow dinner guest mentioned that he'd like to learn the game, so we ended up playing poker. The cards were on my side that night my first hand was pocket fives and I flopped a set. In the second hand I had quad 7's by the turn. In the third hand my top pair was enough to take down the pot. The same pattern repeated itself all night. The bottom line is that I was getting lucky against calling stations. You don't need much skill to rake in the chips in a game like that. The only "trick" I used was making bets and raises just big enough to keep people calling. Suddenly everyone was asking me how I was doing it. They know about my website but rarely ask for poker advice. As if I could teach them how to get lucky! The real tragedy in all this was that because we were teaching someone to play we weren't playing for real money! I have to go cry myself to sleep now.