What is a Bankroll? Why should i know what it is?
A bankroll is money that has been put aside for the sole purpose of playing poker. And maybe you shouldn’t know or care what it is. There are players out there pay for each game as it comes, and take their poker money out of the “fun money” they have put aside in their weekly budget. But if you’re interested in becoming more than a recreational player, you should take bankroll management fairly seriously.
There are many different types of games you can get into when playing poker, and with the rise and consistent growth of online poker rooms they are all available to anyone who wants to play them. I will go through general rules of thumb from major pros about how they manage their bankrolls specific to what type of game. Because of the swings that even a great player can and will experience during their poker career, you need to take losses into account when planning how much you need to play specific games. A person who is willing to replace their bankrolls often, or a gambler, will need fewer buy ins to start, and someone who is looking to become more of a pro will need a lot more to ensure that s/he will not go bust.
Sit and Go
A sit and go tournament is structured where you have 6-9 players around a table, and a prize pool that is distributed to the top 3 players (usually) at the end of the game. Chris Ferguson recommends using only 5% of your bankroll on a sit and go. That translates to roughly 20 buy ins. For a pro player, it is recommended 65 buy ins (or 20%), but to me this seems excessive. (In this example, if you wanted to play 5.50 sit an go you would need 357.5)
Limit Holdem
The general thought on limit holdem is that you need at least 300 big bets in your bankroll to protect against going broke. So, if you fire up your Full Tilt account and sit down at the .25/.50 limit table (where the turn and river bet are $1) you should have $300 in front of you. How often do you see that on most of the sites? In my opinion it’s very rare to see anyone at that level with that kind of money in front of them, but that could be a testament to the caliber of player (most are gamblers, and willing to reload often). If you take advantage of this, and stake your bankroll appropriately, you’ll see an upswing to your game, and be able to minimize your losses.
No Limit Holdem
Since you can go broke in one hand at no limit, you will need a larger bankroll to sit at these tables. No limit bankrolls are measured in buy-ins as opposed to big bets (As there are no big bets). A buy in is the maximum amount allowed on the table (and you should always buy in at the max to make sure to make the most of a big hand if/when you get it). A recreational player will use a smaller amount of buy ins, 15 or so, while a poker pro would want 20-30 buy ins before sitting down at a table. That means if you’re playing $25 dollar tables, even as a recreational player, you’re going to want at least 375 to make sure you’re not putting too much of your stack at risk.
I think a lot of players online these days do not play by these rules, and as i said under the Limit Holdem heading, if you are aware of this, take advantage. If you are playing within your means, and at an appropriate level, you are much more likely to felt a recreational player even if he takes your first buy-in.
Tomorrow i will talk about when to move up and down in limits based on what i have discussed today!
