Its popularity is no doubt its biggest draw. Party Poker players can always expect good action no matter what the time of day. Like many other gaming sites, it did lose many of its players in the U.S. online poker crackdown, but thanks to expert marketing and consistent improvements, the numbers are on the rebound.

The large pool of paying members translates to a more generous range of bonuses. Any given time, you’re likely to come across a nice little promotion or at least a risk-free, guilt-free game. It’s one of those sites where it pays to keep checking for new offers. One of the most popular perks is access to exclusive online and live tournaments, including the famous Party Poker Million, which takes place annually on a luxurious cruise ship.

More players doesn’t always mean more competition, though. In “veteran” circles, Party Poker has a reputation for being casual and loose, living up to its name. It’s perfect for those who want to play for fun, rather than grinders who have the game down to a science. Of course, you will find tougher competition when you get into the higher-limit games.

Another, perhaps less popular advantage is that Party Poker goes great lengths to ensure responsible gambling. In other words, it helps you keep your game on track, whether by setting deposit limits or offering tools to manage your time spent on the game. The site policies are written according to the Social Responsibility Code of Conduct, and are overseen by GamCare, a group committed to preventing problem gaming.

Finally, there’s the issue of security, where the site also ranks fairly well. Despite its large population, Party Poker has an impressive track record with no major breaches in its database or financial records. And in any case, the customer support system is also fairly reliable. There’s also no issue on financial management (or mismanagement); being listed on the London Stock Exchange, the company’s checkbooks and security policies are open to the public.

Foxwoods Resort Casino (Connecticut)

New England is hardly a hotspot for live poker, but the more discerning would appreciate the sheer size of this casino: more than 5,500 slot machines and poker games running 24 hours a day. It’s not the most central of locations, but just being in one of the world’s largest casinos makes it worth the trip for most. To see some big names in action, come over in April for the New England Poker Classic.

Commerce Casino (Los Angeles)

Dedicated poker fans might recognize this as the home of the LA Poker Classic, as well as a slew of other annual tournaments. Besides being the “world’s largest poker casino,” as its website announces, it draws people in with its location in what’s arguably North America’s most popular destination. Poker players are hosted in over 240 cardrooms, and visitors are well accommodated in the nearby Crowne Plaza Hotel.

Trump Taj Mahal (Atlantic City)

Its clientele is as majestic as its name: the Trump Taj Mahal is a popular haunt for celebrities. But don’t let this intimidate you. Players of all kinds are welcomed, from newbies (there’s a beginner’s course on offer every day) to those who prefer less popular poker varieties. There’s always enough room for large groups, which is great if you’re traveling with friends.

Peppermill Hotel Casino (Reno)

If you don’t want to stray too far off the beaten path, the Peppermill Casino is your best bet. Although it tends to get lost in the glitz of its neighbors, it has more than enough to offer poker enthusiasts: 90,000 square feet of play area, a pool deck, and close to 2,000 luxurious rooms. It’s little wonder that it was awarded a Four Diamond rating by AAA, making it the first hotel-casino in Reno to get the honor.

Harrah’s New Orleans Casino (New Orleans)

Culture and games come together in Harrah’s, one of the many casinos to burgeon in the state after casinos were legalized in Louisiana. The game room is simple but elegant, and there are numerous tables open any given day. It helps that it’s part of a popular Vegas chain, meaning players get the same standard of service and comfort as in the city of lights.

One of the first questions to come up is whether you should report your earnings as a hobby player or a professional. The main difference is that reporting your poker earnings as a business allows you to write off all the expenses you incur while playing, including transportation, meals, and even entertainment, on top of the capital you put in. Reporting it as a hobby only allows you to write off your losses.

Although there are obvious advantages to treating your poker playing as a business, it’s not as arbitrary at that. To be considered a “professional” player, you need to rely on your poker playing to pay a considerable part of your bills, and spend the equivalent of a full-time or part-time job playing the game. In other words, you can’t lie about it—if it’s really just a hobby for you, then that’s how you should report it. The full guidelines on what constitutes a professional player can be found on Section 1.183-2 of the Federal Tax regulations.

If you’re filing your taxes as a hobby player, you report it on your 1040 form on the front page as “Other income.” The IRS officially considers this hobby income. In this case, you don’t pay self-employment tax as a businessman would, but you pay federal income tax according to your tax bracket. Any losses can be offset on Schedule A, but the bad news is that they have to be itemized; otherwise the deduction won’t apply.

If you expect to have poker income to declare in the next tax season, make things easier by keeping a game log. This can be an Excel spreadsheet or a physical logbook, although the former may be more practical if you play online. Although you won’t really need to provide any proof unless the IRS comes for an audit, it never hurts to stay on top of your numbers. At the very least, it spares you a lot of digging and worrying before the tax deadline.

Movies often portray poker players as tough cigar chewing men sitting in smokey bars or backrooms. Poker has evolved into professional game played by people from all walks of life. Women make some of the best poker players and there are more entering the game everyday. This has been boosted by some high profile players such as Jennifer Tilly the actress known for her rolls in Hill street blues, Liar Liar and Bullets over broadway.

Jennifer is also a professional poker player and as of 2010 has now won more than $660 000

If your freeroll tournaments prize is entry into a series of tournaments, this is called a satellite tournament. Chris Moneymaker was the first person to qualify for the World Series of Poker by winning $39 Pokerstars satellite tournament. He then went on to win the WSOP  tournament  and the 2.5 million USD, and also became the first person to win by qualifying through an online poker site. From playing alone online to winning the most prestigious poker tournament, Moneymaker proved it can be done.

So before you get started, it is important to familiarise yourself with the 3 basic elements of poker.

• Hole Cards
• Community Cards
• Betting Size

Hole Cards are the cards you start with in your hand. For example in texas holdem, one of the most popular versions of the game, you start with 2 hole cards. 7 Card Stud you start surprisingly enough with 7 and Omaha poker has 4.

Community cards are the cards that are then dealt after the Hole cards and are shared by everyone else in the game. This effectively means you will have some of the same cards in your hand as pthers on the table.

Betting is one of the most important elements of the game. Betting on the most part should reflect the strength of your hand. If you have nothing, or at least a very low chance of winning based on your initial hole cards, then the best strategy is to fold. After all it is a game of minimising your risk so that you only risk your stake when you have a real chance of success.

Betting can also be used a weapon against your opponents. If you can see that your opponents are betting timidly, this may indicate they have a weak hand. It is then possible to intimidate them by betting strongly forcing them to fold in fear.

This is where the real game of poker begins. Learning to see if your opponent is telling the truth by watching their betting or are simply trying to bluff their way to victory is the real skill of poker lies.

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.