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Marton Kovalovszki
Poker Room Tester and Writer
Marton Kovalovszki tests the poker rooms we review and writes poker reviews and bonus code pages for VIP-Grinders. He has played poker since 2006 and spent eight years as a full time online grinder before joining the team in 2024.
His formats were heads up SNGs and Spin & Go, where rake takes a large share of what a regular wins. That is why he reads a rakeback deal the way a player does, not the way a marketing page presents it.
What Marton Tests
Marton tests with real, funded accounts on the poker rooms we cover. On every room he works through the same steps:
- Sign up with our code, exactly as a reader would
- Deposit and check the deal is applied as advertised
- Play and check that rakeback or bonus money is credited as promised
- Withdraw and record how long the payout takes to arrive
Where a room falls short of its own promotions page, that is what our review says. He ran the testing behind our ACR Poker review, and the wider process is set out in how we test poker rooms and casinos.
He also works on player support, so he often hears first when a deal stops tracking or a payout runs late. Players reach him through the channels on our contact page.
Poker Background
Live Poker in Hungary
He started playing daily in 2006, mostly in Hungary’s unlicensed clubs and mid stakes private games. Cheating was common and nobody protected the players. When he went broke, he worked in the same clubs as a dealer and floorman.
Almost none of that poker was ever tracked. His Hendon Mob record (listed under Kovalovszky) shows five live cashes, including third in the 2012 national heads up championship in Budapest.
“You should have as much fun playing poker in a decent online poker room, as you would have live. But you also should feel much-much safer.“
Full Time Online, 2011 to 2019
In 2011 Marton moved online and played full time until 2019, mainly heads up SNGs up to $500 and Spin & Go up to $100. He played across five networks under these screen names:
| Network | Screen name |
|---|---|
| PokerStars | Mabohai |
| Ongame | IluvPWNKER_ |
| iPoker | Pokmalllac |
| 888 | Spiricoon |
| WPN | Jonas1977 |
SharkScope tracks 37,446 games under Mabohai on PokerStars alone. For the format itself, see our Spin & Go strategy guide.
Coaching
A few years into his career, Marton started paying for mental game coaching, and it helped turn his game into a winning one. It also led him to work with coaches and therapists in his private life, and to study the profession himself.
He then became the mental game coach at a Spin & Go and heads up stable:
- More than three years in the role
- Over 100 players mentored
- Players supported through moves from $10 to $50 and from $100 to $500
- Work on win rates and a more balanced life away from the tables
For the basics of that side of the game, see our guide to the poker mental game.
Away From the Tables
Marton is an economist who specialised in marketing communication. From 2020 he worked in sales for BNI, the business referral network, while mentoring solopreneurs and writing sales copy for small business landing pages.
In 2022 he became Marketing Director of BNI Hungary, a role he held until 2024, when he came back to poker with VIP-Grinders.
He also runs a marketing and networking consultancy in Hungary, where he advises small business owners as a fractional CMO, and writes a Hungarian newsletter about business networking. Both are his own commercial work and unconnected to VIP-Grinders.
Areas of expertise: Heads Up SNGs, Spin & Go, Poker Room Testing, Rakeback and Poker Bonus Codes, Live Poker, Poker Mental Game Coaching