The best grinders make several thousand dollars every month, and many eventually become pros after building their bankrolls at low- to middle-limit games. Bankroll management is a vital skill: it allows you to build a cushion against variance, or the swings of good and bad luck that naturally come with the game. Even with the occasional bad hand, a grinder can avoid losing streaks by keeping an adequate bankroll for the level they are playing.

Choosing a poker site is also important to becoming a grinder poker player. The differences lie beyond basic gameplay, which is the same for most sites. They can differ in headline bonuses, promotions, and rakeback features, among other things. Proportions between low-stakes and high-stakes players can also vary, and this can affect your decision depending on your risk appetite. These two factors—the bonuses and the pool of players—must balance each other out in a poker site.

Grinders also do the math and make sure they’re earning above a certain amount per hour. One way to maximize this number is to play multiple tables. Some players don’t like spreading themselves too thin and reducing their earnings per table, but with good planning and skills, it can add up to a greater total. Multi-tabling requires some practice in concentration, so if you’re not used to it, start by adding a table or two at a time and working your way up to eight, ten, or even twelve tables.

Finally, serious players continuously analyze their games and get to know their strengths and limitations. Many players automate this process, at least partially, using poker software to analyze their hand histories and picking out spots for improvement. Some of these programs even look at your pushes and folds and map out your game behavior. This might be a bit much if you’re just starting out, but once you play larger volumes and multiple tables, it might be worth investing in.

Chips are still called jetons in some circles, especially in Europe (the term originates from French jeter, to throw). Today, jeton poker chips usually refer to European-style gaming sets made of high-quality materials, such as light wood, pearlized plastic, or even mother of pearl. Fancy packaging is also common; the pieces may come in a polished wood case and include high-grade playing cards. This explains why they tend to be more expensive, although like any other chip they have no intrinsic cash value. Poker “purists” may insist that jeton pieces must be made in Europe, although this isn’t always the case.

By contrast, casino chips tend to be compression molded—they are commonly referred to in the business as clay chips. This construction allows for easier printing and tagging, as well as easy maintenance. It also allows them to incorporate security features such as RFID tags, which isn’t common in jeton poker but pretty much standard in American establishments.

Because of regional variations in rules, jeton chips may also follow a different value scheme. Traditional poker chip sets include red, white, and blue chips, as well as the occasional high-value black ship. These range in value from $1 to $100. Larger sets can include yellow, pink, green, purple, brown, and light blue chips, whose values can go up to $5,000. In European casinos, high denominations—often starting at €1000—may be represented by plaques rather than jetons. Some places use pink chips for €2 and blue for €10, and other such specifics.

Jeton chips may also refer to individual poker pieces that are no longer in use, but are kept for their historic, symbolic, or cultural value. They may have come from defunct casinos or been created for specific occasions, such as anniversaries. Some are oversized to reflect their denomination—a chip can be worth $20,000 at some casinos. Poker aficionados can pay a premium for these pieces; some are so valuable that they are only sold at auctions, although these are rare.

The likes of Kevin MacPhee, Phil Galfond, and Olivier Busquet—elite players who have earned well over seven figures—were among the first to establish residency outside their native U.S. Several others have announced they are soon to follow, heading for Costa Rica, Malta, Panama, and neighboring Mexico and Canada.

The exodus is becoming so widespread that PocketFives, one of the sites that pioneered the online poker boom, has started offering a service to make moving easier for these “poker refugees.” Their goal is to help professional players get settled outside the U.S. and resume playing online. The site lost about 10% of its players after Black Friday.

The relocation service is currently limited to three countries (Canada, Costa Rica, and Panama), and each location has limitations. For example, one can only stay in Costa Rica as a tourist for 90 days, then leave the country for three days before renewing his visa. To make things easier, PocketFives helps clients get in touch with other poker players in the area, set up bank accounts and hire accountants, and generally plan and coordinate the move.

All this comes at a price, of course. The full relocation package costs $1,000 for a single person, $750 for those willing to live with roommates, and $1,500 for those moving their entire families.

Cal Spears, co-founder of the site, believes that at least a few hundred players have already made the move, and more are considering it. His time made sure to launch the service not long after the World Series of Poker tournament, which left a lot of pro players wondering what to do next. It’s a serious question for the grinders who treat online poker almost like a full-time job, and indeed earn most of their living from it.

Packing up and moving isn’t easy, even for the wealthiest of players. It’s definitely not a move for the casual or even semi-serious player. But the new rules make it hard for the considerable majority who have put in hours and worked to get where they are. Until things change, according to experts, setting up camp elsewhere may be their best bet.

The chips come in different colors, each of which is ascribed a certain dollar value. A basic poker set will contain five colors: white, red, blue, green, and black. White chips are the least valuable kind, at $1 per chip. Red chips are worth $5 each, blue chips are $10, and green chips are $25. Black chips are the most expensive of this set, valued at $100 each. Occasionally there will be variations in poker chips values; for example, green is sometimes played at $20 instead of $25. Of course, in a casual game there’s nothing stopping players from assigning their own values as necessary. However, some chips come with the values already inscribed, which can be confusing.

A full poker chip set can have up to 13 different colors, and the values can vary a bit more broadly. Besides the five basic ones, you might find yellow chips for $2, grey chips for $20 (or some other value, depending on the system), and orange chips for $50. “Premium” chips worth over $100 include pink chips, which are worth $250, purple chips for $500, burgundy chips for $1,000, light blue chips for $2,000, and brown chips for $5,000.

A three- to five-color poker chip set should be plenty for a casual poker tournament. If you have the five basic colors or less, experts recommend sticking with the standard values. These values are designed and distributed so that you can raise the blinds progressively as you go through the tournament. In small cash games where a $1 minimum is too high, you can work with cents instead of dollars, so that white chips are worth 1¢, red chips are worth 5¢, and so on. The figures remain the same, but the stakes are much more manageable.

Most veterans recommend a poker chip set of at least 500 for casual games of up to 10 people. This will start everyone off with about 40 chips, which is plenty to begin with. To move up, the general rule is to have 1000 chips on hand for every 20 people playing.

On April 15, a day the poker world has dubbed “Black Friday,” the U.S. Department of Justice formally accused the founders of Absolute Poker, Full Tilt Poker, and PokerStars with money laundering, bank fraud, and illegal gambling, and forced them to stop hosting games in American jurisdictions. The events dealt a heavy blow to the WSOP’s following and threatened to close this year’s tournament.

As it turns out, the effect was the opposite. Only two previous tournaments—2006 with 8,773 players and 2010 with 7,319—had a bigger turnout. This year’s prize pot? Just a little over $8.7 million.

The event’s biggest year so far, in 2006, took place not long before the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act was passed. The following year the WSOP was forced to remove the widely used third-party registration system, resulting in a 30% drop in registrations to 6,358. Little change was observed in the next two years, thanks to the recession. The numbers only broke the 7,000 mark in 2010, when 7,319 players joined in.

This year’s tournament drew only 400 or so fewer players, which is encouraging considering the bankrolls at Absolute Poker and Full Tilt remain inaccessible. Only PokerStars has so far refunded its American players, sparking ire both among the general playing public and a few high-profile players, such as Phil Ivey.

Experts pin the game’s remarkable resilience on the rising popularity of online poker, particularly across generations. The crackdowns themselves also helped fuel the popularity of the game, but that was more of a short-term spark. Over the years, online poker players have been getting younger, and some of the top earners are barely out of their teens.

The WSOP has proven that it can weather tough legislation, recessions, and all manner of controversy.  If online poker becomes legal, then the tournament has nowhere to go but up and bigger. Otherwise, it will depend largely on how determined its young market is—and while 2011 was a promising year, the real effects of Black Friday may not be clear until the 2012 event.

How does it work? Selling PokerStars chips is relatively simple because of the site’s large customer base, which includes both registered and unregistered users. Registering is highly recommended, however, as members’ confidential information (including location and account details) is protected under the site agreement.

Chips are usually sold in large batches, with prices ranging from around $7 to $17 per million. You may come across buyers who will try to buy at a discount, or some who offer genuinely good deals. There’s a bit of luck involved (the best offers can get sold in a matter of minutes), but if you’re patient enough to look around you’re sure to find a match.

As often happens in online communities, you can arrange a deal privately with someone you know personally, or have played with enough times to build trust. If you don’t know anyone on the site (or even if you do, just to be safe), start with small exchanges so you don’t risk losing all your chips to a scammer.

You can buy and sell your chips in any of a hundred sites, including PokerStars itself—a quick search will show you just how many options there are. But like anything else on the Internet, it’s never smart to spring for the first name that comes along. Look the site up, read reviews, and go over the rules to make sure you’re getting your money’s worth. Security is an important issue, and with all that real money getting traded on a daily basis, poker sites are a scammer’s favourite haunt. A security guarantee or logo on the page will tell you that it’s safe to trade.

A bit of research goes a long way. A site that requires registration is already several times more secure than one that’s free for all, as the administrators have a way of tracking down users. A reliable support platform is also a good sign. You can also look the site up on Alexa, which keeps a record and history of online businesses. The higher it ranks, the safer your money is.

That’s where folding card tables come in. Smaller, lighter, and much more affordable, they’re ideal for casual to semi-serious players who just want to have a place to themselves when friends come over to play, and the option to stash it away when needed. If you have weekly games with a group of friends, you can even bring the table along. That can’t be said about those thousand-dollar tables!

Construction is the main difference between traditional and folding card tables. The whole point of a folding unit is portability, so you’ll want to check for lightweight wood and storage options. A good table will fit under your bed or behind a cabinet when folded. Of course, there’s a trade-off in durability—pro tables can last well over a decade if properly cared for, while folding ones can be made of lighter wood or even plastic. And while pro tables can have room for drinks, poker chips, and other add-ons, you can’t expect as much from a folding one.

When choosing a folding poker table, consider the size of the games you usually play. You want something slightly larger than your average game size, so you’ll have some wiggle room without sacrificing storability. Large tables should have a support bar so they don’t dip and cause cards and chips to pool in the center. If you’re planning on bringing drinks and snacks along, go for a plastic or metal table—it’s easier to clean and doesn’t stain as easily as wood.

Finally, decide on the look you want. Style is a more important factor than you think when it comes to poker tables. For one thing, although square or rectangular tables take up less space, round ones are more advisable because all the players can face each other at once. Many are designed after the traditional green velvet style, which may or may not fit in with your décor. If that’s an issue, go for a more neutral wood table. It’ll look better in a living room or dining room, and if you keep it assembled, it can double as a breakfast nook or coffee table.

The largest selection of poker apps, interestingly, can be found on the BlackBerry platform. For basic gameplay, there’s Downtown Texas Hold’em, which can be set to different skill levels and played on practice (no stakes) and career modes. If you’re willing to splurge a little, try the $2.99 World Series of Poker Hold’em Legend, which allows single-player and multi-player modes. The World Poker Tour Hold’em app goes for the same price but gets good reviews for its graphics.

Zynga Poker is probably the fastest-growing app of its kind, partly because it caters to the two largest slices of the mobile market (iPhone and Android users) and also because of its wide range of free money games. It’s linked to your Facebook account, so you can use your existing Zynga account if you already have one. Others have complained that it doesn’t work as well on the Android OS, however.

A close competitor is Live Hold’en Poker Pro, which is fast gaining ground because of its smooth play and virtually nonexistent technical flaws. Appeak Poker is also worth a look—OnlinePoker.org says it may well be the best free app for the Android OS, even surpassing the brand-name Full Tilt Poker Rush app. The iPhone offers much fewer options, most likely because Apple is known to have strict policies against online gambling.

Outside of gameplay, other poker apps serve as tools to help improve your game. Avid players can use the PokerZig Tournament Finder to track down tournaments in their area, complete with schedules and details. For beginners and casual players, Poker Challenge is a great way to pit your abilities against virtual players with no real stakes. Poker Life Line offers a more in-depth look at your game, with a tracking feature that keeps tabs on your losses and allows you to spot patterns of weakness and strength.

Poker clearly isn’t falling behind on the “there’s an app for that” bandwagon. The use of apps has yet to be directly addressed in professional play, so it’s best to play safe and not use them when there’s real money on the line. Otherwise, it’s always good to have a little help in improving your game.

Ivey, a longtime supporter of Full Tilt Poker and one of its main endorsers, said he was “deeply disappointed” at the company’s refusal to give players back their money. The fact that many players are unable to join the tournaments because of the financial blow also embarrassed him, he added in an official statement published on his website.

According to Ivey, it was highly unfair that he and other star players can compete while others cannot, given that the point of online play was to give everyone a fair chance. He said he is doing everything he can to solve the issue as soon as possible.

Full Tilt Poker was shut down by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in April, along with two other poker sites, Absolute Poker and PokerStars, after a nationwide bust on online gambling. The events are jokingly referred to now as “Black Friday.”

Eleven people were charged of bribery, fraud, and money laundering, after having allegedly tricked banks into processing funds earned through illegal gambling. Their accounts were also frozen in the crackdown.

PokerStars later announced it has reimbursed its players after the government allowed it to reopen its domain name. Full Tilt Poker was given the same permit, but the site says it’s still working on the reimbursements.  A notice on the site says they “do not have a specific time frame,” but reassures players that their money is safe.

Ivey, however, is tired of waiting. He said enough damage had been wrought on his reputation by the site owners’ lack of activity and initiative. He filed a lawsuit online against Tiltware, Full Tilt Poker’s software company and marketing manager, on behalf of the players who remain unpaid and unable to play.

One thing that does seem to be going for Full Tilt is its TV series The Poker Lounge, which is expected to make a comeback after being cancelled in light of the April events. The series, which features both Internet players and real-life poker pros, stopped airing after organizers were unable to afford production. A joint statement from Full Tilt and its production arm Presentable recently announced that filming would pick up again soon.

Harder than you think, if you ask the pros. International travel is no walk in the park, and when you factor in the stakes of poker tours and the rigorous game schedules, the game may feel like more work than play. If you’re just beginning to travel for poker, here are some handy tips from Poker News.

Pack light: Try to plan it so that all your possessions can fit into a small suitcase (small enough to fit in the overhead bin) and a carry-on that you can shove under your seat. This will ease up the pressure of delayed flights and lost luggage.

Don’t go alone: Find a friend or fellow player to take the trip with you. Besides having someone to talk to on that 15-hour flight, you’ll also get considerable cuts on meals, hotel rooms, and cab fare.

Wire your money: Amounts exceeding $10,000 can be tricky at international borders, so don’t bring large wads of cash with you. Instead, have it wired to the casino. It’s safer and easier, and you’ll breeze by the customs counter.

Use your loyalty points: If you have a frequent flyer credit card, take advantage of your free miles. Call your issuer to see if there are other benefits—if you’re lucky, you may be able to get a free bump to first class or at least access the airport’s VIP lounge.

Change your money locally: Local currency exchanges often charge better rates than the ones in American airports. Banks and money changers usually give the best rates; some may even give you a lower rate if you exchange more than $1,000.

Get to know the city: Days or weeks before your flight, pick up a travel guide and learn as much as you can about the city, particularly its main arteries and landmarks. This will save you at least two hours on the road, as you’ll know exactly where to go.

Stay longer: Finally, don’t just stay for the duration of the tournament—make the trip worth it and give yourself time to see the sights. Don’t worry if you’re on a budget; most destinations have a load of free or cheap activities that are just as fun.