Free Poker

The most important tool for any serious poker player is their bankroll. Successful poker players monitor and manage this money daily, as it is the lifeline of their poker careers.

The main reason why the majority of amateur poker players lose is because they do not understand the concept of proper bankroll management. Until a player realizes just how important this is they will go broke each and every time.

The first part of managing a bankroll is easy. What kind of player are you? Do you have dreams of quitting your day job to play high stakes poker online? Or do you simply enjoy playing an hour or two after work or maybe after the kids are put to bed? There is a huge difference when it comes to bankroll management. A professional relies on their winnings to pay the bills, and as such, needs a very large bankroll to weather the inevitable bad luck that comes with poker. Different poker games have a different level of risk, but there is variance in all games, if there weren’t then you’d never lose right?

A hobbyist poker player is much different. Where as a professional simply cannot lose their bankroll under any circumstance and must play a certain limit to make their required monthly salary, a hobbyist has no restrictions. A hobbyist isn’t using poker money to pay the bills (and shouldn’t be using bill money to play poker), so they can take many more chances and play in games that most professionals wouldn’t play with a limited bankroll for fear of a string of bad luck.

Since most players reading this article probably have at least some sort of dream of going pro, we’ll focus on a very conservative bankroll approach.

Tournament players

Tournament players need to have a minimum of 30-50 buy-ins for the stakes they play. For example: If you play $5 single table tournaments on Pokerstars, you will need a minimum of $150.00 to ensure that you wont lose your shirt. If you’re skill is less than average that number should be closer to $300.00 to pay for the learning curve. If you lose a substantial amount of your bankroll it is advisable to drop down to $3 or possibly $1 tournaments until your bankroll recovers.

Cash Game Players

If you prefer to play cash games online, the standard advice is that you have a minimum of 300 bets for fixed limit games and 50 full buy-ins for No-limit or Pot-limit games. For example: A $1/$2 fixed limit Hold’em player shouldn’t be playing with anything less than a $600 bankroll. A $0.25/$0.50 No-limit Hold’em player needs a minimum of 50 buy-ins ($50 at this level) or at least $2500. Although this may seem extreme, especially for No-limit, veteran, successful players can tell you horror stories about losing 30-40 buyins or 200 big bets within a few sessions of poker. This has nothing to do with bad play, its simply the variance of poker.