NOVEMBER 2, 2009 - 2:24:56 PM PST CALDWELL's MAILBAG by: John Caldwell

Hi, and welcome to Caldwell’s Mailbag, my little corner of the world here at WSOP.com. The point of this column is to give you some insight into the poker world, both the good and the bad (and maybe the occasionally the ugly).

So, hit me up with your questions. If I can’t answer it, I’ll get the answer from the person who can best answer the question. You can send your questions to mailbag@wsop.com, or hit me up on Twitter - @ScheckTwit. The more interesting your question, the more likely it is to get answered. With that, I present the first couple questions.

As long as you can be patient, there is a lot of free money to be had out there online. It’s hard for someone’s ego to be playing .01/.02 poker – but frankly even that kind of poker is twenty times more realistic than ‘play’ money poker. I always snicker when people tell me how much they are crushing ‘yahoo poker’ or whatever. Play money poker has one purpose – for people who have never played, or played very little and never played online to understand the basic mechanics and flow of the game. If you are past that stage, you must move on and play ‘real money’ poker, regardless of how small stakes you must play.

Even getting a few dollars together can be a start, but as previously mentioned, you have to have discipline. If you literally have two dollars online, you simply must play at the smallest stakes. Assuming you have some skill, you will build that two dollars up, and improve your skills and experience at the same time.

All sites have freeroll tournaments and other ways to get some cheddar into your account. If you take advantage of those, as well as the plethora of solid poker advice online, assuming you have skill and patience, you will build a bankroll. Skill always wins out in the long term in poker. The key is to have the patience, discipline and bankroll management to take it from two bucks to whatever your goal is.

‘Poker coaches’ can be useful to some people. Certainly, having someone whose opinion you respect to bounce things off is a tried and true way to poker success.

I rarely change my mind on things, but I have changed my mind on Jeff hiring Phil as his coach for the ‘November Nine’. At first, I thought it was a terrible idea. In my mind, the coach/player relationship in any game or sport should be about the player. We all know that whatever Phil does is always about Phil. So, why would Jeff risk the circus that Phil will inevitably bring to the November Nine, even if the reward is having the greatest No Limit Hold Em tournament player of all time in your corner?