Bankroll Management

By Greg Walker

The following principle is key to becoming a successful poker player. Without the proper money management skills, the best players in the world would go broke. For all you skim-readers, here are the basic rules of bankroll management for Texas Hold'em.

20 buyins for NL Hold'em.
300 big blinds for Limit Hold'em.
40 buyins for SnG Tournaments.

What is bankroll management?

"Bankroll management" (sometimes abbreviated to BRM) is where you play at certain limits to avoid losing all of your bankroll due to bad runs of cards, which any poker player must expect from time to time.

This is called "playing within your bankroll". Subsequently, if you play at higher limits where there is too great a chance of losing all of your poker money, you are "playing out of your bankroll".

Why is bankroll management important?

The reason why you should choose your limits carefully in poker is due to the variance. Variance is a term used to describe the "ups and downs" of poker where you fluctuate from having bad runs of cards to good runs of cards, resulting in varying profits and losses.

If you play poker for long enough there are going to be periods of time where you will consistently lose money, not because you are playing badly, but because the cards are not falling your way. This means that if you do not have enough money in your bankroll to absorb these big downswings, it is likely that you will lose it all.

Every player, irrespective of ability, will experience variance in their game. Bankroll management is in place to deal with this variance and allow you to continue playing without going broke.

Therefore every time we sit down at the poker table, whether it be live or online, we want to give ourselves the best opportunity to win a maximum amount of profit whilst keeping the risk of going broke minimal. This is where the rules of bankroll management come into play.

So what limits should I be playing at?

Cash games.

Pot limit and no limit Hold'em.

If you are playing pot limit or no limit poker, the safe recommended size of your bankroll is 20 times the full buy-in of where you want to play. This means that if you want to have the best chance of making money at a $1/$2 game where the maximum buy-in is $200, you should have a bankroll of at least $4000.

Another way of applying bankroll management is by only putting a maximum 5% of your entire bankroll on the table at any one time, which works out the same as having 20 times the buy-in for the game.

Limit Hold'em.

If you like to play limit Holdem however, you should have 300 Big Bets as a minimum for the limit you wish to play at. Therefore to play $1/$2 limit Holdem, you should have a bankroll of at least $600.

Tournament games.

It is recommended that you have a bankroll that will give you 40 buy-ins to the level of tournaments that you wish to play at. Therefore if you want to play at the $10+$1 Sit n Go's you should have a bankroll of $440.

Bankroll management tables.

Try the online bankroll calculator or the downloadable fergulator tool for recommendations on where to play based on the exact size of your bankroll.

The guidelines noted above are very general rules that should give you the best opportunity to make money from playing Texas Holdem poker without going broke. However there are going to be some exceptions and alterations depending on how and where you play.

Bankroll management for pro players.

If you intend on taking poker up as your main source of income, the bankroll you would require will be substantially larger than 20 full buy-ins for cash, or 40 buy-ins for tournaments. This is because your living expenses will constantly be taken out of your bankroll and so it has to have the ability to withstand the variance along with the costs of everyday life.

Professional players will require a far bigger bankroll than the guidelines set out in this article.

If you are constantly dipping into your bankroll to pay for bills and groceries, you may find that occasionally you will not be properly rolled for the limits you are playing at. Furthermore, there may well be times of emergency when you will need to take a big chunk out of your roll, and so it's good to have a little extra money behind you just in case.

Bankroll management at short-handed tables.

If you play at shorthanded tables, you may notice that there is greater variance than at full ring games. The fact that you will be involved in a greater number of pots per orbit and playing against your opponent's weaknesses more than to your cards strengths will result in greater fluctuations in wins and losses over short periods of time. This means that you may consider slightly increasing your bankroll up a few buy-ins if you want to withstand the variance of these games.

Style of play and variance.

Your playing style can also determine what limits you should play in relation to the size of your bankroll. If you are a tight player then you should expect to receive a slightly reduced variance to that of a loose player, therefore you may be able to afford to reduce the amount of buy-ins in your bankroll.

This is because tight players will often only enter pots with strong hands and regularly go to showdowns with winnings hands, thus reducing the chances of seeing big losses. Consequently, if you are a loose player and play a large number of pots, you may want to increase the size of your bankroll to absorb the extra variance you may receive.

Loose players who play a large percentage of hands will experience more variance than tight players who play a low percentage of hands.

Absorbing losses and moving on.

Good bankroll management helps you deal with the psychological impact that losses can have on your game. If you have a bankroll of 10 full buy-ins for a cash game at the $200 NL game and lose 4 buy ins, your bankroll would deplete from $2000 to $1200. Thanks to your small initial bankroll this looks like a big loss and may cause you to tighten up your game and play "scared poker" because you are afraid to lose more money.

Now if you had 20 full buy-ins for the $1/$2 game, your bankroll would change from $4000 to $3200. Immediately you can see that visually this does not look as bad as the loss in the first instance. Therefore you will feel more comfortable that you have the ability to win back the lost money without feeling the need to change your game.

Moving levels and taking shots.

There will be times when you have bad runs of cards and good runs of cards. At certain times your bankroll will be too small or too big for the limits you are playing at.

• If your bankroll drops below 20 full buy-ins, then you should also drop down a level so that you are playing within your bankroll until you have built it back up enough to play at the next level.
• If you have more than 20 buy ins for the limit above, then it makes sense to move up to that limit if you feel you can beat it. Just be sure to drop back down to the lower limit if you experience significant losses.

At some points in your poker career you may fancy moving up a level just to test it out and to see how well you do. This is called "taking a shot". There is no harm in trying this as long as you stick to good bankroll management for most of the time you play poker.

Be careful not to get carried away by big wins at the higher level because your bankroll may still be too small to support continued play there. A useful tactic that you can use when taking shots is to not buy in for the full amount at the next level up. This way you will not be risking too much of your bankroll in any one game and you are essentially still playing within your bankroll if you do not put more than 5% of it on the table.

You may be interested to read about how quickly you can move up the stakes in poker.

Conclusion.

If you intend to make money from playing poker, it is essential that you exercise good bankroll management skills. If you do not then you are setting yourself up for frequent losses that you will find hard to prevent, no matter how good you may be at poker. Once again, the safe bankroll requirements to remember are:

NL Holdem Cash: 20 buy-ins
Limit Holdem Cash: 300 Big Bets
Tournaments: 40 buy-ins

It should be noted that bankroll management is not going to help you win money if you are a losing poker player.

Go back to the awesome Texas Hold'em Strategy.

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