/ Editor / 06 February 2008 / Leave a comment

MIKE McDonald has a warning for casual poker players.

Mike thinks you should think twice and then thrice about ditching school and playing poker full time.

Indeed, the 18-year-old holding a cheque for $1.4 million says best not to play poker all that much, nor take it all that seriously.

Says Mike: "If you approach it like a game of skill and you're constantly analysing your decisions and stuff like that you most likely will end up being successful, but 99 per cent of people who play this game just play."

Spoken like a true teenager who has just ridden his luck in a tournament. Let's face it, tourney play is a very different thing to playing cash games. Analyse if you must, but get dealt great cards, and possess rudimentary nous, you just keep winning.

Says Mike: "Realistically, there are a lot more failure stories than there are success."

We could listen to Mike all day going but to do would antagonise us to the point of madness. A teenager who wins a million dollars is as close to Disneyland as it gets without wearing the Mickey Mouse ears.

Better to look at another young winner.

Gavin Griffin has made poker history at the tender age of 25. The American has become the first player to win a World Series of Poker bracelet, a European Poker Tour event and a World Poker Tour event.

The latter success came at the recent Borgata Winter Open in New Jersey, a victory that also took his career tournament earnings to a whopping six million dollars.

To win one bracelet can be chance, two more can indicate more luck than your deserve but to win three is a sign of a star poker player. He is as rare as an American poker player bragging about his losses.

Teenagers getting into the game will try to emulate Mike. But the Poker Anorak recommends watching his next moves and see if he keeps winning.

And is his analytical skills get undone by a band beat, or a new teenage sensation...

Play online and hone your talent

Tags: Bracelets, Gavin Griffin, Mike McDonald, Teenagers