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Sunday, 14 October 2012

Online Poker: How to start off on the right foot

Tru Grinderz Online Poker Community - Sign Up Bonuses, Poker Strategy, Online Poker Promotions!


This article is written to help beginners start playing poker on the right foot. Online poker has seen massive growth since the turn of the millennium. So what’s made a game that used to be seen as a misty, almost seedy underground affair evolve into one of the most common online pass time?

Well Pokers’ huge growth in popularity can be put down to two main factors. Firstly the development of Televised tournaments and cash games where viewers can see the players whole cards. Prior to this watching televised Poker had little in the way of connecting with the viewers. All of the action would have seen insignificant without being able to see the cards in play.

Late Night Poker and the World Poker Tour lead the way by introducing card cams in the table, which showed the viewers what cards where being played. All of a sudden seeing someone going all in on a total bluff makes the action seem more appealing. It has also lead to televised Poker becoming a great way to get an insight into top player’s strategy. Now hundreds of Poker Tournaments and High Stakes cash games are aired in this format and as a result this has helped grow popularity and ultimately recruit millions of new players.

The second and more significant growth in Online Poker is what we call the ‘Money Maker Effect’. Prior to 2003, the online Poker industry was healthy but relatively small. The problem was that it was only people who knew about Poker who tended to play it There was still mass marketing of the game, but it lacked a way of connecting with the hundreds of millions of potential players. A somewhat geeky accountant from Atlanta Georgia was about to change everything and give the Poker Market the ultimate Dream Unique Selling Point that it had been lacking.

Chris Moneymaker qualified for the World Series of Poker Main Event 2003 from a satellite buyin of just $39 on PokerStars. The Main Event buyin has always been set at $10,000, MoneyMaker getting into the tournament meant that he was basically on a freeroll as his seat had only cost him $39. Needless to say after several gruelling days of faultless play Moneymaker became world champion and won the first prize of $2.5 million. Moneymaker and the story of an online poker player’s rag to riches success became headline news overnight. Ever since online Poker’s acquisition of players has grown exponentially, with the dream of winning millions from next to nothing.


How to get a piece of the action:

Playing online Poker is simple, but the growth has lead to a huge range of options in terms of the hundreds of sites available today. With the market being so crowded, a beginner would be forgiven for not knowing where to start. Tru Grinderz is here to help you make that choice easier, by providing beginners with the best Poker Sign Up Bonus deals and site reviews, as well as an in depth welcome pack that gives beginners in depth strategy and advice on how to play Online Poker.

Here are links to reviews of what Tru Grinderz view as the best Poker Sites and sign up bonus deals available today. All of the reviewed Poker Sites have exclusive sign up deals for Tru Grinderz players. By clicking on either the promotional banners or the links within the reviews you will be entitled to our exclusive sign up bonuses. Make sure that you note any Promotional or Bonus Codes down and enter it when requested in order to get your bonus on your first deposit:




Here are the links to download the Tru Grinderz welcome pack documents:

Tru Grinderz Beginner's Starting Hand Chart - A chart that gives beginners a clear stratefy on what hands to play from early, middle and late position

Tru Grinderz Guide to Starting to Play Poker - An in depth overview of the mechanics of Texas Holdem, Bankroll management, Game Selection and other key srategic areas

Tru Grinderz Tournament Chip Calculator - Tru Grinderz provide an excellent excel formatted chip target calculator to allow you to assess what the average stack will be throughout the key stages of a tournament..

Sunday, 23 September 2012

US Friendly Online Poker - A look at the best US Friendly Poker Sites

www.tru-grinderz.com - If you like this post, or feel that your friends may find it useful, please support Tru Grinderz by using the social media widgets. Spread the word by using the Google+, Twitter or FaceBook buttons at the bottom of this post......enjoy!


Since black Friday, the action just hasn’t been the same for the rest of the world. The action has declined, it’s alright for us Europeans on PokerStars and the other majors, we can still grind away. But late nights just don’t seem the same without the Americans. I for one would much rather be subject to their ridiculous banter, insanely aggressive plays and all round Americanisms .

It seems wrong to me that we still spend far too much time playing a game that they created in their absence. Poker owes its early growth to the Texan road gamblers such as Slim and Brunson taking No limit to Vegas. Beyond that, Binion’s development of the WSOP at the horseshoe that took an obscure previously illegal game into the limelight. Moneymaker qualifying for the main event from peanuts and winning sparked the online explosion of poker. Harrah’s and the Rio developing the WSOP Main Event fields to a size to rival most online tournaments is mind blowing. All of the mentioned landmarks of poker are all down to Americans, yet they can’t play on any of the major sites.

 Well Tru Grinderz now offers US Poker Player Friendly Sign up bonuses, as of yesterday we are able to offer the US Friendly Poker sign up deals. The pick of the bunch for us would have to be Lock Poker, who are not only offering a miassive 200% sign up bonus (up to $4,000) but also give Tru Grinderz players 36% rakeback, it doesn't get any better than that. Have a look at the US friendly Poker deals we now offer:


Lock Poker - 200% Sign Up Bonus (up to $4,000 + 36% rakeback. Bonus Code THEFUTURE)
Lock Poker Review         Download Now



Aced Poker- 150% Sign Up Bonus (up to $750, Bonus Code: TRUGRINDERZ)
VIP Cash Reward Scheme - Equivalent to 45% Rakeback
Aced Poker Review         Download Now


Carbon Poker – 100% Sign Up Bonus (up to $600, Bonus Code: TRUGRINDERZ)
VIP Cash Reward Scheme - Equivalent to 45% Rakeback
Carbon Poker Review      Download Now



PDC Poker – 100% Sign Up Bonus (up to $600, Bonus Code: TRUGRINDERZ
VIP Cash Reward Scheme - Equivalent to 45% Rakeback
PDC Poker Review           Download Now  



Find out more about our US Friendly Poker Deals




Our Sign Up Bonuses are open to everyone, but Sign Up to Tru Grinderz today and gain access to exclusive member promotions, member only content on Poker Strategy, freeroll Leagues and private Tru Grinder Tournaments.









Friday, 21 September 2012

Tru Grinderz - Guide to the best Online Poker Tournaments this weekedn!

www.tru-grinderz.com





Here is Tru Grinderz pick of the best tournament action across the major poker sites this weekend. We have covered PokerStars and Party Poker for the non US Players, and Lock Poker as it's the leading US friendly poker site


Without doubt the weekends biggest action across all sites comes on Sunday as the 2012 WCOOP (World Championship of Online Poker) climaxes with the final events.

The pick of the events for us mere mortals has to be the WCOOP Event 63 at 16:30 (UK Time). The buyin for this is set at $215 and the prize pool gaurantees $1 million, with 1st place estimated at $180,000. The buyin is standard for the higher stake online tournments, but there are plenty of opportunities to satelite into this from a couple of dollars. The most realistic route being step sit ‘n’ go qualifiers (see our previous WCOOPBlog post).

For the real high stakes action there is the WCOOP main event. This has a minimum prize pool of $5 million, howver, the buyin is set at $5,200. If you really want to play it Tru Grinderz advises the step sit ‘n’ go route again. Don’t get obsessed about qualifying for this, it really is one for the pro bankrolls. $215 would get you into a satellite where you would have to finish in the top 3% of the field to qualify. My opinion is that yu may as well use that $215 to buy straight into the WCOOP event 63.


Download PokerStars Now! - Use Bonus Code STARS600 for a 100% sign up bonus (up to $600)



The man tournament of the weekend on Party Poker is the $200k gaurenteed on Sunday at 7:30 pm (uk time). The buyin is set for this at $215, with first prize usually coming in at above $60,000. This is usally quite a tight tournament due to Party Poker’s full ring tourneys being 10 handed.

There are also two WPT Main event satellites running on Party Poker this Sunday with the WPT Copenhagen starting at 8:30 pm (UK time) with a buyin of $315. There is also a WPT Vienna main event satellite starting at 9:20 pm with the buyin set at $215. These are great ways to qualify into massive World Poker Tour events for a fraction of the buyin.

Satlelite qualifiers for all of the above Party Poker tournaments are running all weekend!

Party Poker Review

Download Party Poker Now! - Use Bonus Code TRUGRIND to get a 100% sign up bonus (up to $500)





The highlights on Lock Poker this weekend come on Sunday. Firstly for the smaller stake players there os the $10k gauranteed $11 buyin at 9:06pm (UK time).This usually pays $2,000+ to the winner, that’s pretty good for an $11 stake

Starting at the same time is the $109 buyin  $110,000 gaurenteed Pro Elite Bounty. This is my personal favourite at the moment as the buyin is moderate, but you get $500 (5 x buyin) for any Lock Poker Pro that you eliminate.

The flagship tournament for Lock Poker, the $530 buyin $80k Superstack Pro Elite Bounty starts at 10:06. Again you get $500 for any Lock Poker pro that you KO!

Both Pro Elite Bounty tournaments have satelites running throughout the weekend on Lock Poker

Lock Poker Review

Download Lock Poker Now! - USE Bonus Code THEFUTURE to get a 200% Sing up bonus (Up to $4,000) & 36 % Rakeback


Thursday, 20 September 2012

Tru Grinderz Top 10 Online Poker Deals (US Friendly Sites Included)

Tru Grinderz Sing Up Deals

Tru Grinderz have selected what we view as the 10 best Poker Sign up deals on offer today. Whether you are looking for your first poker site to play on, or your looking to exploit new sign up deals you will struggle to find a selection of better value Poker Deals 

We have even included a range of US Friendly Poker sites that we feel offer the best value to US Players in light of the major poker rooms not accepting their custom. If you like what you see, or feel that your friends may like what's on offer, why not use the social media widgets at the bottom of this page to spread the word. You can share on Gogle+, Facebook or tweet about this page at the click of a button.


Tru Grinderz 10 essential Poker Deals:

PokerStars - 100% Sing Up Bonus up to $600 + VIP Rewards and Cash back (rakeback equivalent up to 50%) BONUS CODE: STARS600
Review       Download        Visit PokerStars




Party Poker - 100% Sign Up Bonus up to $500 + VIP Cashback (rakeback Equivalent 50%)
BONUS CODE TRUGRIND
Review      Download         Visit Party Poker





PKR - 125% Sign Up Bonus up to $500 - BONUS CODE - TRUGRIND150
Review       Download        Visit PKR





BetFair Poker - Chose Your own Bonus Up to $2,500 + 40% Value Back (cash for points)
Download       Visit BetFair Poker




Titan Poker 200% Sign Up Bonus Up to $2,000

Review        Download           Visit Titan Poker




William Hill Poker - 200% Sign Up Bonus Up to £1250
Review         Download               Visit William Hill Poker


William Hill Poker


US Friendly Sign Up Deals:
.

It seems wrong to me that we still spend far too much time playing a game that they created in the absenceof American Poker Players. Poker owes its early growth to the Texan road gamblers such as Slim and Brunson taking No limit to Vegas. Beyond that, Binion’s development of the WSOP at the horseshoe that took an obscure previously illegal game into the limelight. Moneymaker qualifying for the main event from peanuts and winning sparked the online explosion of poker. Harrah’s and the Rio developing the WSOP Main Event fields to a size to rival most online tournaments is mind blowing. All of the mentioned landmarks of poker are all down to Americans, yet they can’t play on any of the major sites.

 Well Tru Grinderz now offers US Poker Player Friendly Sign up bonuses, as of yesterday we are able to offer the following US Friendly Poker sign up deals, with more to follow shortly:



Lock Poker - 200% Sign Up Bonus up to $4,000 + 36% Rakeback
Bonus Code: THEFUTURE
Review      Download         Visit Lock Poker






Aced Poker- 150% Sign Up Bonus up to $750 VIP Cash Rewards Equivalent to 45% Rakeback
Bonus Code: TRUGRINDERZ
Review      Download         Visit Aced Poker



Carbon Poker – 100% Sign Up Bonus up to $600, 
VIP Cash Rewards Equivalent to 45% Rakeback
Bonus Code: TRUGRINDERZ
Review      Download        Visit Carbon Poker



PDC Poker – 100% Sign Up Bonus up to $600, VIP Cash Rewards Equivalent to 45% Rakeback
Bonus Code: TRUGRINDERZ
Review      Download         Visit PDC Poker



Find out more about our US Friendly Poker Deals




Our Sign Up Bonuses are open to everyone, but Sign Up to Tru Grinderz today and gain access to exclusive member promotions, member only content on Poker Strategy, freeroll Leagues and private Tru Grinder Tournaments.


Tru Grinderz Products:

Tru Grinderz reviews and recommends the latest poker products and offers members discounts. Read our PokerTraker 4 review and even try it for free for 30 days.









Join Tru Grinderz Today!

Wednesday, 19 September 2012

Poker Tracker 4 - The Ultimate Poker HUD Software (Review + 30 Day Free Trial)

http:www.tru-grinderz.com

Pokertracker 4 - The Ultimate Poker HUD Software


What is Poker Tracker 4?



PokerTracker4 is the fourth generation and latest in the PokerTracker software series. It is essentially software the builds a complex database of hand data and statistics from your downloaded hand history files. In essence PT 4 will record data from every Hold em and Omaha hand that you ever play on your computer, and displays live statistis through a HUD. This includes invaluable data on your opponents as well.

Tru Grinderz cannot express just how powerful and important PokerTracker is when it comes to not only evaluating and improoving your own game but also getting a crystal clear picture of your opponents. Much of our future advice on profiling opponents will rely to some extent on the data that poker tracker provides you.

PokerTracker not only gives you incredibly powerful analysis tools for reviewing your play post game, it also feeds key data and statistics to you live on the table through the use of a HUD (Heads Up Display). The scary thing for your opponents is, the more hands you play against them, the more accurate the data and information you have becomes.

Table Tracker

PokerTracker has a built in fucntion called TableTracker which uses the data that you have collected to find the best tables to play on. When you enter a search on a certain stake, TableTracker will search the selected poker rooms and display tables where the biggest losers in your database are sitting. It will allow you to even launch the table at the click of a button and be seated on the most profitable tables straight away.

Screenshots:

An image of what the PokerTracker interface looks like.


The PokerTracker HUD in action on a Pokerstars table. It is displaying VP (Volintarily put money into the pot), PR (Preflop Raise) and AFQ (Agression Frequency), These statistics update after every hand.




Try Poker Tracker4 for free - 30 day free trial:

If you want to try PokerTraker 4 out for yourself, simply click on any of this article's PokerTracker links and banners to download the full software. 

You will be able to fully use it for a 30 day trial period. Tru Grinderz is  certain that you wil be so impressed that you decide to buy the full licence.



Saturday, 15 September 2012

PokerStars - We Are Mobile - Behind The Scenes With Rafa Nadal






PokerStars take us behind the scenes on their lastet advert promoting their mobile client with Rafa Nadal. Interessting to to see how this is made.You would never have know the shot with over a thousand people was faked on a laptop! Hre's the finished article:


PokerStars is really leading the way in the online Poker scene at the moment. They are spending millions of pounds on adverts and marketing, they have just bought and are re-launching / rescuing Full Tilt, and they are currently hosting the World Championship of Online Poker. They are able to do this because plain and simple, they have the best product!

This latest push is to promote their updated mobile client. The mobile app is unbelievably good, and as if they didn't have enough already, proves to be another reason why PokerStars is by far the best Poker Site out there!

For an in depth review of PokerStars, visit www.tru-grinderz.com

Sign Up to PokerStars today, and get a 100% Sing Up Bonus worth up to $600 by using the Bonus Code: STARS600.





www.pokerstars.com

Friday, 14 September 2012

PokerStars - The World's Number 1 Poker Site

www.tru-grinderz.com  - If you like this post, or feel that your friends may find it useful, please support Tru Grinderz by using the social media widgets. Spread the word by using the Google+, Twitter or FaceBook buttons at the bottom of this post......enjoy!


PokerStars Logo



PokerStars really is the ultimate Poker Site. Whilst competitors like Ultimate Bet, Absolute Poker and Full Tilt all collapsed in the shit storm that was Black Friday last year, PokerStars siezed the moment to evolve as  a Uber Poker room. Their ability to pay back banned US customers bankrolls swiflty is why they are able to take the blow of loosing US Players on the chin without even flinching. In the race for non-US players from the collapsed FullTilt, UB and AP, Pokerstars out did their closest rival 3-1 in terms of capturing the homless players. It is clear that Stars has pulled a masterstroke in this period, and has seen their player base grow. They traffic is so large that there is on average 250,000 players at any time of day.

Beyond strategic superiority, PokerStars offers one of the cleanest and most reliable poker clients in the market. Their game selection is second to none, you can literally find a cash seat, sit 'n' go or multi table tournament at any time of day in any variant of the game. They exploit their traffic levels by hosting the biggest guaranteed prize pool tournaments. For instance their Sunday $11 event, 'The Sunday Storm' has a gaurnteed prize pool of $300k, for a buyin of $11. Their VIP reward scheme offers rake back equivalent of up to 50%, with regular point milestone cash rewards, and the ability to turn points into cash (1000 ffp = $10).

Tru Grinderz offer you even more value when it comes to signing up to PokerStars. Firstly you will get a 100% welcome bonus, PokerStars will match your first deposit up to $600. By singing up to to Tru Grinderz you will also gain access to the 'Grinder Zone', a private section on PokerStars reserved for Tru Grinderz members where Tru Grinderz will host private cash games and tournaments only for TG members. There will be regular cash prizes awarded to players that top the Tru Grinderz poker leagues, as well as prizes such as entry to Live events. 

TruGrinderz have been approved by the PokerStars UKIPT team (UK & Ireland Poker Tour) to offer entry into their our events as prizes for our Poker Leagues, we will be promoting this shortly.






Here is an Overview of PokerStars:



Website: www.pokerstars.com

Bonus Details: 100% welcome bonus (up to $600)

Promotional Code: TRU-GRINDERZ.COM (use this when you create an account.

Bonus Code: STARS600 (use this when you make your deposit)

Visit PokerStars.com

Download PokerStars For Free



Summary:

PokerStars is the world’s largest online poker room and has set the gold standard in the industry. They are licensed and regulated in the Isle of Man in the British Isles, and have an excellent reputation in the online gaming industry. New Players will enjoy non-stop poker action and a 100% up to $600 first deposit bonus. Tru Grinderz who are new to PokerStars will also have the added advantage of joining the 'Grinder Zone', a private club within the PokerStars client in the Home Game section. This gives you the opportunity to play other Tru Grinderz both in cash games and regular Private TG Tournaments.


Traffic:

PokerStars has by far the largest player taffic, with 300,000 players online at peak hours. PokerStars is so far ahead in terms of traffic the top 5 rival sites together don't even come close. This is reflected in the large amount of ring games, tournament runners and the speed that Sit 'n' Go's fill up. Simply put you can get a seat in any type of game, any time of the day.

Amongst other areas PokerStars excel at hosting a wide array of multi-table tournaments by exploiting their mindblowing traffic levels.  Their flagship Tournament is the world’s largest weekly tournament, The PokerStars Sunday Million. PokerStars have more guaranteed tournaments than any other poker room in the world. They offer the World Championship of Online Poker yearly and have a multitude of PokerStars’ Live Events, such as, the PokerStars.com European Poker Tour and the Asia Pacific Poker Tour.

Software:

PokerStars also excel with their software, it is fast, user friendly and looks easy on the eye. Multi-tabling is easy with resizable tables, quick action, and a lag free environment. PokerStars also has a mobile app for Iphone and android devices, so players can play poker wherever they are. PokerStars deliver the top level of customer service, 24/7 via e-mail or chat.

Bonuses & Rewards:

PokerStars offers first deposit bonus and a lucrative rewards program. New players will receive a great 100% deposit bonus up to $600 by using the Bonus Code STARS600. As soon as a player plays a raked hand or enters a real-money tournament they are automatically entered into the VIP program. Players will earn VIP Player Points (VPPs) and and Frequent Player Points, (FPPs) these points will determine a player’s VIP level and can be redeemed for cash, used for tournament buy-ins, or to purchase items from the VIP Store. This equivilent to rakeback of upto 50%

The bonus is stackable, in short this means that you can use the bonus code over 3 deposits to use up the $600. This is extremely useful as you may not be able to afford $600 initially.

How to sign up:

Click any of the PokerStars Links in this post or click one of the banners. This will take you straight to the PokerStars landing page. Download the PokerStars Client. Creating an account is equally as easy, you simply chose a user name, password and enter a valid e-mail address. Remember at this stage to enter the Promotional Code: TRU-GRINDERZ.COM. The image below shows you where to enter it on the account creation form:




Once signed up, we strongly recommend registering with Tru Grinderz as there will be regular freerolls, poker leagues and massive promotions. If you don't sign up we can't let you know about them!



Sign up to Tru Grinderz today!



Thursday, 13 September 2012

Tips to improve your general play at Texas Holdem - Betting EDGE & Position


www.tru-grinderz.com




Betting Edge

A key to success in poker is highlighting edges and exploiting them. The simplest and best way to do this is to use Betting edge. Out of the options you have in poker, checking, calling, folding and betting/raising, only betting or raising can either win you the pot or add value to favourable situations. Try to develop a preference to bet or raise over the other options. This is not to say that sometimes, usually on the river your best option may be to call or fold.

View betting edge as this, by betting or playing aggressively you are giving yourself a 2-1 edge in terms of chances to win a pot over someone whose preference is to call. By betting you can win the hand by inducing an opponent to fold, or if called you can win by having the best hand. The caller only has one way to beat you, in that he has to match your bet and have the best hand. You can now see that betting not only has the benefit of gaining all of the wins where your opponent elects to fold, but also adds value when he calls you and you have the best hand.

There are of course scenarios when you may not want to bet. Let’s say that you have made 2 pair on the river and there are 3 suited cards and the board could have made your opponent a possible straight. Your opponent checks to you, what should you do? This is a scenario where you may want to check behind. You actually have the fourth best type of hand as you could be beaten by a flush, a straight or three of a kind. By checking you remove the risk of being raised and potentially folding the winning hand. If a player had top pair top kicker he may have called you down to the river, he perhaps observed that there is a possible straight and potential flushes and may have chosen to check raise you to represent a stronger hand than he holds. If you bet and he raises you, there is no way your two pair is going anywhere other than the muck. You will end up folding the winning hand.

Position

In most forms of poker there is what we call positional advantage. The importance of position cannot be stressed highly enough to you. From reading the section on the mechanics of Holdem, you will know that there is a dealer button , a small blind and a big blind. The dealer button represents the best position to play from in a hand of poker. After the flop, or after the first round of betting the player on or closest to the dealer button acts last. This allows you to have the privilege of observing all of the other players decisions before you consider what to do. In short you should play the majority of your hands in late position.

Lets say that you are playing a pot against one person and you have position. He has raised preflop with say Ace Jack, you have called him with two random cards. The flop comes 10-7-5 rainbow (this means three different suits, making flushes very unlikely, he contiues to bet and you call him. The turn is  a 6, making the board 10-7-5-6, your opponent checks. Now without knowing what your cards are, or without needing to know, you have a great chance to use position and take this pot down. As a result of his check, you bet three quarters of the pot. It is now highly probable that he will fold. He has ace high, no pair no draw. The best he could hope to hit is an ace, the jack could complete a stright so it makes his river decision even harder. Any reasonable player has to give up.

In the example above you can see the power of position, he had a resonable hand preflop, continued on the flop, checked to you on the turn because he didn’t like the call on the flop. Had absolutley no reason to call or raise you once you took the lead by betting his check and he gave up and folded. Your cards didn’t matter, think of this expample as showing you how to play the man not your cards, in fact we could have beaten him blind here (I didn’t once consider what our cards were). This is called a float play, it is when you call someone in position with the intention of taking the pot away from them later on in the hand. Make this type of play a big part of your armoury.

Get into the habit of playing a tighter range of hands, or better starting hands from early position. Slightly wider range of hands from middle position and your full range of hands from late position. Reffer to the starting hands chart included in this welcome pack to give you a framework of what hands to play. The image below shows the different positional sectors on a 9 handed table.




Tru Grinderz Deal of the Day


Wednesday, 12 September 2012

A Beginners Guide To Poker Bankroll Management



A Beginners Guide To Poker Bankroll Management:

So you have signed up to Tru Grinderz, downloaded your poker client software, deposited for instance $100 as your first deposit and gained your welcome bonus equal to that amount with your chosen poker room (if you haven't here is a guide to the best signup deals. The first thing to note is that your bonus does not belong to you until you have earned it. The bonus will be released to you either gradually or in larger lump sums dependent on you earing what the sites call player points. To do so requires a moderate amount of real money play on the site.

Now as tempting as it is, DO NOT BUYIN TO A CASH GAME OR TOURNAMENT FOR $100, $50, $25 or EVEN $10. We cannot stress the importance of this enough to you. Even if you have moderate poker experience this is how many fish and even some proficient players go broke. You may have the session of a lifetime and triple your money, but more likely you will lose. You have $100 in your account, the sharks around your table that have been waiting for people like you to join their game. They will more than likely have $2000+ in theirs. If you beat them in a pot for $50, great you have increased your capital by 50%, but they probably have auto rebuy on, and will keep pushing you until you break. That’s just what they do!

In order to give yourself the best chance of success, you need to develop discipline and a business-like approach to playing online poker. Part of this is patience, not just to wait for the right spots to get your money into the pot in a cash game session, but the patience not to move up in stakes until you can afford it. If you follow these steps, you won’t have to deposit another penny into your poker account. Your money will grow, and you will have the satisfaction of being a winner. Notice I said satisfaction, this is something that is earned in poker. If you under roll yourself and start to win at higher stakes than you can't afford, you are putting yourself in a dangerous place. There is no room for ego if you are serious about becoming a winner at poker.

Apply what we show you here, and your progress in this game will follow a steady curve of improvement. I am going to suggest to you to follow the guidelines laid out below very strictly. It will have the added benefit of keeping you playing poker, earning more player points long run and ultimately unlocking your bonus. It may seem a little conservative at first but give it a go.

Limit
Buyin (based on maximum 100 Big Blinds)
Required Minimum Bankroll based on 20 buyins
$2 NL (SB $0.01 BB $0.02)
$2
$40
$5 NL (SB $0.02 BB $0.05)
$5
$100
$10 NL (SB $0.05 BB $0.1)
$10
$200
$25 NL (SB $0.1 BB $0.25)
$25
$500
$50 NL (SB $0.25 BB $0.50
$50
$1000

Now as you can see above, even if you were to play $10nl, or $10 buyin games, you are not leaving yourself much scope to either improve or tolerate a losing session. You could quite feasibly lose 5 buyins within a couple of hours of unlucky play wiping out half of your bankroll.

Tru Grinderz would recommend starting at $2NL even with $100 in the account. This gives you 50 buyins, you’re not going to play like Phil Ivey for some time so get used to it. The $2NL level will take a while to beat, but it will allow you to sharpen your skills. You will be playing a level that will be flooded with losers, other beginners and fish. We recommend that you leave a table as soon as your stack represents 3 buyins or more, and leave if you bust. If you follow this guideline, your wins at $2nl will earn you $4 profit whilst your losses will only cost you $2.

You are going to need to play tight and aggressive, and value bet every time you sniff that you have the best hand. As a beginner we advise that you start off only with 9 handed games, even at micro stakes the 6 handed games are too wild and loose for you until you feel that you can cope with higher aggression and the wider hand ranges required for 6-Max games. Get into the habit of playing over rolled. The minimum requirement is to have 20 buyins at any level, but the more you have the better. There is good reason for this, not only does it mean that each buyin poses less risk to your bankroll, it means that you can detach the worries of risking money and concentrate on playing good poker.

Before you move up to $5 NL aim to reach $150. This means that you are going to have to win equivalent to 25 $2 buyins at the starting level first. If you can achieve this you can move up a level with the added knowledge that you have truly beaten the level below. When moving up, take a shot and try a couple of sessions at the higher stake, but mix your play between your current level and the higher one. When you feel that you are not necessarily winning big, but not losing concentrate your play on this level. Most importantly, if you feel it slipping and get pushed back towards 20 buyins, move down before you risk your precious bankroll.

The world of poker should be visualised as a pyramid, imagine a great Egyptian pyramid with steps all the way up. The Bottom steps are where the majority of players fit in, these are like your micro levels that you will be playing, as you take each step closer to the top, there are less and less players that have the ability to sustain themselves at each increasing level. This is why at the nosebleed stakes, you only tend to get top pros buying in for upwards of $100,000 a game.

If you follow this approach to each level that you reach, you will progress at poker and start to earn some respectable money within even 3-6 months. The key is to keep treating your bankroll as a business. Like any business, the value will increase for consistent, good performance. There is an old saying “Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket”, well by playing only a small percentage of our capital we most certainly aren’t.

A summary of key points for bankroll management:

·         Try to buyin to games for 5% or less than your bankroll (have at least 20 buyins)
·         Leave the table if your stack becomes 3 buyins or larger ( Do risk your profit)
·         Leave the table if you bust out after your 1 buyin (avoid tilt and chasing your losses)
·         Try to Over roll yourself
·         Treat Your Bankroll as a business
·         Judge whether you are ready for the next level by taking test shots