About Grinderschool - Our Vision and Our Team

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GrinderSchool: About

Grinderschool is a novel idea in poker websites. We are a strategy site specifically designed with the low stakes player in mind. We realize the need for quality poker strategy, including videos and articles, for players on a budget.

Grinderschool provides in-depth strategy instruction for low stakes players, most notably through videos and direct access to our team of successful players for questions and advice. For a glimpse of what we offer, check out our free articles and videos.

It is worth noting that the majority of our forums will remain closed to outsiders. One of the reasons we have for implementing this restricted access is that we want serious students of the game to be able to carry on relevant conversation without the usual internet flaming and bashing that is so prevalent today on most poker forums. The small fee pays not only for the video content and close contact with instructors, but also to be able to avoid the distraction most sites seem to have.

Most advice on other sites is aimed at high stakes players. Many of those tactics do not necessarily apply well in low stakes games. Further, these sites can charge $100s in up front costs, followed by expensive monthly fees. To put it bluntly, a low stakes player is screwed! This has created a void for low stakes poker strategy. We seek to fill that void.

Grinderschool charges no up front costs. All you pay is the monthly subscription fee, which is much smaller than the fees charged by other sites. Further, if you are dissatisfied for any reason, contact admin@grinderschool.com and if we cannot make it right, we will refund you the remainder of your subscription.

If all of this appeals to you, then sign up today!

Meet the Team:

Current Instructors

	CodeRedRulez Jeff started his online poker career late in 2003 with low-limit SNGs and grinded his bankroll from $200 to $30,000 in less than 12 months. In the Summer of 2005, he quit his internship to play poker semi-professionally and eventually became a full-time pro when he graduated from the University of Illinois in December 2006. Outside of poker, Jeff's interests include outdoor wildlife recreation, cooking, playing the piano, watching TV and playing video games. Currently, Jeff lives with his fiancée Marlyn in Alexandria, Virginia and will be getting married June 27, 2010 in the U.S. Virgin Islands. When it comes to poker, Jeff has played nearly every game. He started in low-limit SNGs in 2003 and turned to Limit Hold'em in 2004. It took Jeff 30,000 hands to go from $0.25/$0.50 to $15/$30 over the course of 9 months with help of lucrative deposit bonuses and Small Stakes Hold'em. In September of 2006, he turned to No-Limit Hold'em 6-max and April 2007 No-Limit Multi-Table Tournaments. In 2008, CodeRed focused on both Full Ring Cash and Multi-Table Tournaments. Also that summer, he finished 9th in the Poker Star's One Million Guaranteed and 9th in a $550 Buy-in Deep Stack Extravaganza at the Venetian in Las Vegas. Then in 2009, Jeff played Heads-up No Limit Hold'em before finally returning back to Full Ring. When Jeff is not making videos, coaching or improving the Grinderschool Forum, he plays Full-Ring No-Limit Cash on Absolute, Full Tilt and Poker Stars. Jeff is available for private coaching and you can contact him by private message or Email.
	Colossos159 Steven "Colossos159" de Groeve started playing poker in 2007 and has never had to re-deposit after his first $100. He started playing micro-stakes Limit Hold'em which allowed him to learn a lot about the different aspects of poker without having a negative impact on his bankroll. After a few months, Steven moved to No Limit and found a niche in the 6-max cash games and played 25nl and lower for almost 3 years. Over that time period, he built up a significant bankroll for the levels he was playing at by reading and becoming a Grinderschool subscriber in late 2008. Steven attributes a lot of his success to the help of Grinderschool instructor Sugar Nut who gave him the confidence to move up in stakes and got rid of the fear of losing. Since that moment, he plays 100nl 6-max and takes some shots at the 200nl level. Currently, Steven is finishing his PhD in Biotechnology and only plays poker for part-time income. Like many Europeans he likes football (not the American kind), going out to clubs and playing on European sites. Colossos159 makes micro-stakes 6-max videos for Grinderschool as he feels the best advice he can give is to the players at those limits.
	DWBH Brian "DWBH" started playing poker in 2005 on Ultimate Bet first playing $10 SNGs and then eventually switching to Micro-Stakes Cash. He moved up fairly quickly as he built his bankroll by set mining and playing solid tight-aggressive poker. Towards the end of 2007 Brian started to get serious and focused on improving his game to be able to beat the mid-stakes 6-max games. By Summer 2008, Brian had moved up to 200nl and started taking shots at 400nl and plans to keep taking those until he's ready to make the jump full-time. He is disciplined and rarely gets out of line and uses these strengths to focus on great table selection and picks on the weaker regulars at the site he currently plays on. Currently, DWBH is averaging 3.5 ptbb/100 over a large sample and loves to help out other players improve their game. Brian is available for private coaching and you can contact him by private message or Email.
	Fjuanl John was first introduced to poker in 2004 when a group of friends pulled him into their low-stakes home game. Once these games sparked his interest in poker, there was no turning back. He quickly began absorbing any information he could find from numerous poker strategy websites, in an effort to improve his game and maximize his earnings. Though he only started with a $50 deposit on Bodog, John has been disciplined in always following proper bankroll management, which meant he fought his way up from the lowest level Sit 'N' Go tournaments available. SNGs often lead to a natural transition into multi-table tournament play, and this was the case for John. It started sporadically, but after winning a $2 tournament, MTTs became his passion. Again, he turned to any and all resources he could find, embracing advice from online poker legends such as David "Soupie" Ellis and Eric "Rizen" Lynch. John was learning quickly, and seeing steady improvement until the fateful day in late 2006 when the UIGEA legislation was passed. Fearing that good times were as good as gone, he withdrew all of his profits, and basically quit playing poker for a period of about nine months. Eventually, the call of the game John had come to love and the profits he knew he could enjoy became too strong. He started playing again in the summer of 2007. The withdrawal of Neteller from the US market left him with no easy way to deposit, so he played tournaments using the Frequent Player Points earned during his previous play. That earned some modest funds, which John again built into a real bankroll by grinding low stakes SNGs. Combining this with his previous SNG play, John maintained a 22% ROI over nearly 2,000 games. These winnings again provided an avenue to pursue MTT play. Since refocusing on MTTs in August 2008, John has won several MTTs. Notable wins include: $10+1 $30k Guaranteed on Poker Stars, the $24+2 $14k Guaranteed on Full Tilt, $12 FTP Daily Double B, $75k Guaranteed on Poker Stars and made numerous final tables. His cumulative ROI in MTT play is currently over 85% for nearly 3000 tournaments. With his history of repeatedly turning small deposits into a sizeable bankroll, John is uniquely qualified to teach Grinderschool members how to climb the ranks through tournament play. He looks forward to sharing his strategies and methods with you!
	Frank The Tank Mike "Frank The Tank" Vecchione started playing both NL SNGs and cash games in 2003 in a live game with friends. Not long after he tried out both casino and online poker and was able to build a bankroll fairly quickly at $10 SNGs but went bust due to poor bankroll management. After learning about proper bankroll management and other important poker fundamentals, he rebuilt his bankroll over 18 months to go from 25nl to 400nl 6-max. Meanwhile, Mike could never fully devote much time to poker as he was devoted to becoming a Professional Baseball player and was eventually signed by the LA Dodgers in Spring of 2009. Unfortunately, Mike tore his MCL and Patellar Tendons and was told he would never be to pursue pitching at a professional level again. Since then Mike has done a lot of travelling and changed games from 6-max to heads-up NLHE to get away from the short stackers; he is also having more fun because of it. He's currently playing 200nl HU on all the major sites and will be looking to get back to 400nl by the summer. Mike is available for private coaching and you can contact him by private message or Email.
	KillsAids KillsAids has been playing poker since late 2007 and in early 2008 became a micro-stakes subscriber here at Grinderschool. He started playing at $0.01/$0.02 No Limit Holdem and moved through the ranks and eventually upgraded his membership to a full stakes subscription. As he built his bankroll, José has improved enough to take winning shots at $2/$4 No Limit Holdem Full Ring. Today, you can find him playing between 100nl and 400nl on Poker Stars. KillsAids is very competitive in nature and enjoys learning and improving his skills in poker. He dedicates as much time to learning the game as he does to playing the game and is always interested in learning new insights. KillsAids is available for private coaching and you can contact him by private message or Email.
	JGB146 Jeffrey has been playing poker since 2004. In that time, he has been profitable in every format of No-Limit Texas Hold'em. When he started playing, he did so with a single $25 deposit, attempting to make more online than a friend made on vacation in Las Vegas. He succeeded and has never had to redeposit. Initially, Jeffrey played at the $0.05/$0.10 tables for a minimum buy-in. As his bankroll permitted, he continued moving up the ladder for minimum buy-ins until he was playing $1/$2 for a $40 buy-in with $1200 (after about 6 months). At this point, he shifted his focus to playing SNG (single table) tournaments. Focusing on playing well rather than on embracing volume, Jeffrey was able to maintain a 30% ROI over several hundred tournaments before shifting to multi-table tournament play in December of 2005. Through 2006, he appeared at final tables on Bodog, Paradise Poker, Party Poker, Poker Stars, Ultimate Bet, and in live play, with a cumulative ROI of 65%. As his schedule became tighter in 2007, Jeffrey found it easier to fit in cash-game sessions and once again refocused his efforts to playing 6-max cash games. He currently plays a mixture of $2/$4 and $3/$6, depending on where he can find the best games. Jeffrey played in three events in the 2008 World Series of Poker. With finishes of 280/2300, 153/2400, and 1300/2700, he cashed in one event and came very close to cashing in a second one. He looks forward to seeing what 2009 will bring!
	MrPadawan Benjamin "MrPadawan" Tajik began his poker career in October of 2008. Like so many others before him, Ben started with No Limit Hold 'em by depositing $200 at a time on Pokerstars to play 100 NL only to lose to "Bad Beats." After realizing there was more to this game, he began to watch free videos online and read articles at TwoPlusTwo. He studied every day for over a month and decided to really make a go at it and deposited $500 on Cake Poker one last time. Ben grinded day after day with moderate success only to find that tilt was his new enemey. This continued for a few months and the roll was then moved over to Full Tilt Poker. He took a break to work on tilt management and came back to add Pot Limit Omaha to his arsenal. MrPadawan has been making a part time income from poker for the past 10 months and has worked his way up from $0.10/$0.25 No Limit Hold'em to $0.50/$1.00 and $0.05/$0.10 Pot Limit Omaha up to $1/$2. Ben is available for private coaching and you can contact him by private message or Email.
	Nakamura Rob "Nakamura" Taylor was introduced to poker when he was invited to a casual home game while living and studying the UK. This is why he sounds like Cliff Richard when he should really sound like that oke from Blood Diamond (Rob was born and currently lives in Cape Town, South Africa). He joined Party poker, depositing $50, where he played cash games well beyond his bankroll. After going bust a few times a friend suggested playing SNG games. Rob found he had a natural affinity for SNG games, particularly $6.50 turbos on Stars. Around about this time he found the FTR forums, which helped his game immensely particularly with regards to ICM, of which he had heard nothing. He slowly ground his bankroll upwards, but used his much of his poker winnings to pay for rent and bills while studying. It is rumoured that he has only spent his poker winnings on two things for himself; a jacket and more recently Assassin's Creed II. He says that Assassin's Creed II is OK but the jacket is way cooler. He is currently halfway towards saving up for a 400cc death-trap and trying to plan girlfriends around it's purchase. Rob can currently be found playing on PokerStars, occasionally playing $20.80 Double or Nothings or $6.50/$16 SNG turbos, but more regularly 18-20 tabling the $10.40 DONs. He has played nearly 10 000 of these games on PokerStars. Rob has plenty of experience at the tables and hopes to be able to help you progress through both the DON and SNG ranks. He looks forward to sharing his strategies with you.
	Reasons14 Ben has been playing poker since the about 4th grade; starting with 5 card draw for pokemon cards. After playing every home game he could find, a few years later, he deposited online as soon as he could, only to find himself being crushed over and over. Because of poor bankroll management, Ben dropped about 500$ one 50$ deposit at a time. After he thought his last avaible dollar was soaked up, Ben somehow got ahold of 40$ more and made it a point to put in some intense study time and never go busto again. The Harrington On Holdem series was read everyday and the 1$ sngs were being beat. Finally. Now, the 16$ and 27$ sngs are Ben's main game and he hasn't had to look back since. He 15-20 tables mtt sngs that pretty much pay the bills while he is in college. Beyond that, Ben's dedication has propelled him to the top of the Sharkscope leaderboards, earning a silver star for his winnings at 18-man SNGs. Aside from poker, Ben is a music education major at a college in Texas where he further hones his teaching skills. Ben has a true desire for teaching and loves watching students learn. Ben is available for private coaching.
	Spenda Cullen has been playing poker for 4 years. He began taking the game seriously when he was living in Las Vegas. After initially looking at play as just a social activity, he learned very quickly that it was going to be harder than he thought. After joining FTR he started to become a substantial winner in the smaller-stakes limit games online and live. After building a large bankroll he was forced to cash out all but $150. That brings us to today. Playing the smaller-stakes No-Limit games, he had built that small bankroll up to comfortably play at $100nl by 2007. Nearing the end of 2008, this is still his primary game, as he spent 2008 playing professionally at the $100nl level - consistently beating the game for more than enough to make a living through the entire year. He is a great student of the game and considers himself able to do many things well. He prides himself on being a great hand-reader, like his favorite pro, Daniel Negreanu. Cullen has taken the same path all of you plan on taking in the near future and is more than willing to share his experiences. You can find Cullen playing on many poker sites. Cullen is available for private coaching.
	SugarNut Tarek is a novelty in successful poker players: he reached the point of success without ever depositing a dime! After a few false starts burning through play money and no-deposit bonuses, he embraced the best BR management possible with a free $15 on Party Poker. By studying Small Stakes Hold'em by David Sklansky, Tarek was able to beat the $0.05/$0.10 limit game to eventually reach a total of $350. At that point, limit games dried up as a result of the UIGEA and he was forced to consider other options. Undetered, Tarek moved to the lowest No-Limit games available, playing $5nl on his $350 bankroll. Through a combination of studying NL concepts to build his success, and a lucky break getting a share of a friend's tournament winnings, his bankroll grew to $1k. As he moved to $25nl, Tarek discovered numerous online resources that could help his game. Not the least of these was a new low-stakes training site: Grinderschool.com (circa 2007). Through studying the concepts at Grinderschool and working with Spenda, Tarek has progressed his game along with his bankroll. He is a proven winner up to the $100nl level. Further, his commitment to mastering strategy led him to be one of Grinderschool's most helpful members, tirelessly analyzing hands through posting concepts that were always spot-on. It was these posts and his high-quality volunteer videos which caught the eye of the Grinderschool staff, ultimately leading to a spot on the team as of late 2008. Tarek will never cease to be a student of the game, always searching for the optimal line and the best strategy. It is with great pleasure that he shares the concepts he has learned along the way with Grinderschool's members. Tarek is available for private coaching.

Former Instructors

	AAPoker Adil began playing poker in 2005. He started off playing low stakes cash games and grinding bonuses for extra income each month. During the summer of 2006 he ventured into tournament play and scored his first big cash, coming second in the $3 rebuy on Poker Stars. Since then he has exclusively played multi-table tournaments (MTTs). Adil was one of the most successful low stakes tournament poker players on the internet in 2007. From February to June, he was in the top position on the pocket fives leaderboard for players playing MTT's with buy in $30 or less, before moving to higher stakes. His low stakes accomplishments in 2007 include first place cashes in: $10, $15k gtd on Poker Stars $10, 1 rebuy, 1 addon twice on Poker Stars $3 rebuy on Poker Stars $27.50, $25k gtd on Poker Stars $26, $17.5k gtd on Full Tilt. Adil's success continued as he moved up in stakes. In 2008 he took home over $30,000 by winning Absolute Poker's largest tournament. He also won a satellite entry into the main event of the 2008 World Series of Poker. Both of these victories will be reviewed in detail as the subject of related video series. Adil looks forward to helping MTT novices learn to dominate the low stakes games. Before leaving Grinderschool, Adil released 41 videos over MTT play and various Heads-up games.
	Chardrian Adrian plays primarily on FullTilt and PokerStars but also play a bit on Ulitmate Bet. He is currently a full-time poker pro and is also a coach/pro at PokerPwnage. Prior to playing poker full-time he was an Assistant Attorney General for the State of Wisconsin. Adrian started playing professionally in 2007 and is a proven winner since then. He is a fairly low volume player with the following stats: 2007 - 703 tourneys/ 425% ROI 2008 - 1167 tourneys/ 80% ROI combined - 1870 tourneys/ 183% ROI Adrian's biggest cash to date was in the summer 2007 FTOPS Main Event where he placed 3rd for just over $150,000. Even if you take that score out, he still has an 80% ROI over the last two years. Before leaving Grinderschool, Adrian released 15 videos over MTT play.
	Gametight Sutton began playing poker with friends in college. They had a home game every Tuesday night. Overall, he would win some and lose some but to him it seemed like he was winning more often than the other players in the game. This left him with some extra cash in his pockets most of the time. After a few months of this, Sutton realized he could actually pay for his weekly groceries with the money he made from poker. So he decided he was going to get better. The first book Sutton read was the NL part of Supersystem. This book got him stoked on the game and began the process of looking at poker differently. Then he went on to Hellmuth's book, then Clouteir, Sklansky and basically whatever he could get his hands on. At this point Sutton was consistently winning in his small home game, intoxicated or not. But he decided he wanted to try out this new "online" poker thing he had heard about. He deposited $50 and ran it to a couple hundred and cashed out. Then he tried again and went busto. He entered a bit of a cycle - depositing $50 and running it up to a fair amount or busting. He probably did this 6 or 7 times. Finally he decided he didn't want to deposit any more so he put 100 dollars on PartyPoker and ran it up. This time, he didn't cash out, and he hasn't looked back since. Sutton currently plays No-Limit Hold'em cash games in both full-ring and 6-max formats under the screenname sucout. He has moved his way up the levels and is now found at the $1/$2 ($200nl) games. He has played over 500,000 hands and maintains a winrate of 2.75PTBB/100, for a total profit of over $32,000. Sutton is available for private coaching.
	Glitlr After going busto for his first $25 over 3 years ago, Matt was determined to make a difference. A friend transferred him $50 on Pokerroom and Matt began to take the game more seriously. He has never looked back. Since then he has turned his $50 into $30,000 playing low-stakes 9-man sngs. He has been playing for a living since early 2007, and he can currently be found 20 tabling the $16 turbos at Pokerstars. Most of his experience comes from the regular speed sngs with a $20+2 buy-in. He has played nearly 10,000 of these and has played 21,000 games overall on Pokerstars. Matt is very determined to help anyone who has the will, the desire, and the motivation to make a run at beating 9-man sngs. These games require a special and extremely unorthadox approach which many have never considered. These are most likely the reasons that more people cannot beat these games for a substantial amount of money. Matt is here to teach you these strategies and enable you to become a better player. With his help, people will be calling you names in the chat box in no time while their money is filling up your accounts. Before leaving Grinderschool, Matt released 15 videos over SNG play.
	Jyms Jim has played online poker since January of 2006. He started out playing the odd home game with friends. Before long, he decided to try playing online, since the home games were slow, sometimes forfeited or just not getting played while sitting around talking. Jim began his online play with a $50 deposit on Party Poker. After losing his initial deposit, he went on a search for information to improve his game. He found a wealth of information online, and set out to try his luck at a different format; he placed a $20 deposit on Poker Stars and proceeded to lose it all in the same day playing $5 SNGs. The next day was when he actually began to study the information he had found. His first milestone came from mastering the concept of BR management. The door had been opened. The breakthrough came after he established a set of concrete goals. He began discussing hands, PokerTracker stats, and general concepts with the best players he could find. He eventually turned a $321 BR and a prop bet with an FTR regular into a $1K bankroll in 20 days. For most of 2008, Jim played full time, while working constantly to expand his knowledge of the game. He made enough to cover living expenses, but eventually he took a job so that funds earned through poker could stay in his bankroll and allow him to move up in stakes. Before leaving Grinderschool, Jyms released 38 videos over low-stakes 6-max and full-ring cash games.
	Shrewdabom86 Andrew began his poker career playing Sit 'N' Go tournaments and small stakes multi-table tournaments on Pokerstars. After seeing enough success with these, he began to strive for more. He used SNGs as a way to make small earnings while playing massive numbers of games, which earned him large volumes of Frequent Player Points. Andrew volleyed these FPPs into seats in satellite tournaments, which he frequently won, at which point he could lock up the "free" winnings by withdrawing or selling the high-stakes entry. This process led Andrew to play nearly 12,000 SNGs with an ROI of 4% (small, but still respectable given the massive number of tables he played). Following his success in SNGs and satellites, Andrew turned his full attention to MTTs. Over 800 tournaments, he showed a 99% ROI with $12k in cumulative profits. This was a solid performance, cementing his knowledge of tournament poker and proving his success. More recently, Andrew has turned his attention to conquering new games. He built his way up in Pot-Limit Omaha Hi/Lo cash games, starting at the lowest stakes available on Full Tilt to the point that he now regularly plays in the $2/$4 games. In that stretch of 45,000 hands, Andrew has learned the ins and outs of the PLO H/L game very well, earning a cumulative win rate of 11.77 PTBB/100. He looks forward to sharing his knowledge of tournaments and cash games over both Hold'em and PLO H/L. Andrew is available for private coaching.