Poker Bankroll Management 101

If you want to make money playing poker, you might think that in-game skills are all you need. But the truth is, for long-term success and profitability, poker bankroll management is essential. With smart principles in place, you can handle the swings, pick the games that are correct for your stack, and adjust over time so that you’re always moving in the right direction. Good bankroll management tips will also help you take emotion out of the game, so that you can stay focused on making good plays no matter what the cards give you.

What is Poker Bankroll Management?

Bankroll management is a set of practices and policies that any serious poker player needs to adopt to ensure the long term health and sustainability of their casino account. These concepts tell you what stakes to play at, how much to sit with, and when to move up or down (or stop for the day). They tell you which tournaments you can enter directly, and which are better left to satellite entry.

When in place, bankroll management saves you from sitting with all your money and losing it on a single all in. There’s no quicker way to tilt than that, and wise players avoid that situation as their first priority, before they ever see any cards.

Setting a Bankroll Budget

To start with, your casino account should only have discretionary funds in it. Gamble only with “fun money.”

Once you’ve decided how much money to fund your account with, it’s time to do some budgeting. For poker players who love No Limit Texas Hold’Em (“NLHE”), you need to manage the risk that you could be put all in at any given moment. So your stack at the table is always potentially fully at risk in a hand. As a result, you don’t want to sit at a table with a large percentage of your total poker bankroll.

Why can’t you play poker with your whole bankroll?

Losing too much of your bankroll is too upsetting, and leads to chasing losses, bad plays, and tilt. This is one of the primary reasons for poker bankroll management in the first place. Losing 5% of your bankroll is not that big of a deal, and many people can handle it. Losing 60% could lead to a lot of anger, so players should never be in that situation. For this reason, pros advise players to never bring their whole stack to an NLHE table. Instead, something like 5% or 10% is the max most coaches would recommend. 1% or 2% is conservative and will let you play your best.

Remember: the less money you bring to the table, the more rational and skilled your plays will be. Emotion is minimized. So if you have $1,500 in your casino account, for example, sitting at a poker table with $50 or $100 is fine. If you only have $150, you might want to sit with $10.

Game Selection and Buy Ins

As you can probably tell, this principle has a big impact on what games you can play. If you only have $10 to sit with, you can’t sit at a $5/10 table. You only have 1 big blind (“BB”). A good rule many players follow is to have 50 or more BBs to sit. Thus, you want to have $500 to sit with at least at that $5/$10 table. For many players with modest stacks, this means that $.50/$1 tables are a good bet. You only need $50 or $100 to sit with. For our players looking to sit with $10, they might look for a $.05/$.10 game.

For tournaments, this means that you only want to buy into events that cost around a few percent of your stack. If you have $1,500, a $15 entry poker tournament is fine. If you lose, you’ve done negligible damage to your stack, and you can easily play tomorrow. The goal is the long term viability of your poker career. You want to build up gradually, cracking one game after the other in an evolving progression as you rise up through the stakes.

Adjusting Stakes

If you continually post winning sessions, you’re going to want to move up in stakes. Your bankroll naturally will enable this. A player with a $1,500 stack can play a $1/$2 game and sit with $75 pretty easily. When the bankroll has grown to $2,000, this player might take a shot at $2/$4 and sit with $200+. This is somewhat aggressive but isn’t the end of the world if the session goes badly.

After that, the player can move back down and build up once more. A stake level you are comfortable with is always there to be beaten with your experience advantage. You may need to take multiple shots at a given stake level before you finally figure out how to best play there. But rest assured, with enough time and study, you can beat even the tougher games at an online poker site.

Stay disciplined with your sessions, and don’t kid yourself. When things run badly, take a break. When you reach your next session, be humble and move down to preserve your bankroll. So long as you’re following the right percentages and budgets, you are never out of the game – you’re just adjusting your stake levels. It’s a very strong practice to ensure that you don’t get zeroed out no matter how cold the cards run and how many times your opponents get lucky on the river.

Tracking Performance

It’s a great idea to track things week to week or month to month. This will not only keep you honest and accountable but can show you how far you’ve come. If you start at the nickel and dime ante games and work over a year to become a solid $1/$2 player, your performance tracking will show it. You can do this on a spreadsheet or in a poker bankroll tracker app (these can also reveal “leaks” or weak habits in your game that are costing you money). If you’re a winning player, you may also need this information for tax purposes, depending on the laws of your home jurisdiction.

Emotional Discipline

As you’ve probably noticed, a lot of poker bankroll management is about keeping emotions under control. Big losses are just too hard to deal with, even for seasoned poker pros. Using smart money management principles will minimize this issue and prevent you from damaging your stack by chasing losses. Some do this by moving up when they have a bad session. This unfortunately runs the risk of burning through a player’s bankroll very rapidly when the player is tilting and playing bad hands to try to make up for earlier losses.

The best idea is simple: if you get stacked, take a break. Just close the casino app and walk away from the screen. Clear your head. Move on and do other things. The best practice is to stop until another day. This ensures that negative emotions won’t color your tactics and make you overly aggressive as you try to recover what you lost.

When you come back, take a fresh look at your bankroll, your budget, and what game is appropriate. Adjust as needed and keep playing smart. Protect your nest egg carefully, and it will reward you with many hours of poker enjoyment that can last years.

Tips for Long-Term Success in Poker Bankroll Management

• Don’t chase losses. Step away and save your stack.

• Don’t play above your skill level. Poker is a competitive game and players in high roller games play to win.

• Don’t treat poker as a get-rich-quick scheme. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

• DO protect your bankroll.

If you need more guidance on poker bankroll management, there are a plethora of educational resources to tap into, including one of the best in the game, Daniel Negreanu.