A Grinder’s Rules of Thumb for Online Survival

The Poker Grind So, you’ve decided that you want to try to grind out a living playing online poker? Good luck to you in your quest! Be forewarned that it’s a difficult road, and a lot of players can be great at poker but still lack what it takes to be a successful, day-in/day-out grinder.

Nonetheless, here are a few tricks that successful grinders learn to accept:

Practice extreme bankroll management

Some poker how-to guides state that it’s acceptable to have as much as 10% of your online roll in play in any given tourney or cash-game table. That is way too high; the variance of the game itself will ensure that a grinder wannabe will go broke sooner rather than later. 2-3% per table is more acceptable, and 1-1.5% may work as well.

Mind your stakes

Don’t move up in stakes until you’re well bankrolled for the attempt, and if the move doesn’t work, then step back down until you’ve rebuilt your roll for another shot. Variance isn’t higher by itself at steeper buy-in levels, but the higher stakes by themselves assure that greater percentages of your roll are in play at any given time.

Know your daily profit

Your average days have to be profitable, not just your best ones. Just because you’ve won $200 on a handful of different days doesn’t mean you can grind out a successful living. In fact, if that’s your ceiling, you almost certainly can’t. It’s far too easy to focus on the good days and forget about the bad ones, but it’s the net daily profit that really counts. Oh, and track your wins and losses, too.

Rethink your ideas of your “best” game, adjust

So your best game is no-limit hold’em? Or pot-limit Omaha? Congrats, that holds for everyone else, too. In reality, your best game is the one in which you hold the greatest net advantage over your typical mix of opponents, whether that’s NLHE, razz, or badugi. If you’re the world’s greatest H.O.R.S.E. player, you might not always find the game you want, but you should be prepared to take advantage of your edge when the right games pop up.

Know the best times to play

Online poker is available 24/7, but within that dependable anytime there are still times when each player should focus his or her efforts. Many grinder pros do much of their playing Friday, Saturday and Sunday, when the casual players – “weekend warriors” are at their peak numbers. Others do better at certain times of day, since European players favor a slightly different mix of games and playing styles than their American or Australasian counterparts. Another tactic is to play when others are most likely on tilt from playing poker too long. Find your comfort zone, set your schedule, and stick with it.

Take breaks