Manage Your Poker Bankroll

Managing your bankroll is something all UK poker players should not need reminding about, but it is remarkable the number of times that players just dip into a higher stake level to get back some of the funds they lost at a previous table. Ironically, the worst thing that can happen is not that you lose more money and go on tilt, but you actually win and believe that you have license to go and do it any time the “chips are down”.

The purpose of bankroll management is to avoid “variance”. Variance is when the value of your bankroll regularly fluctuates by large amounts, and although variance in the direction of up is acceptable when it has been achieved by a good performance in a multi table poker tournament, it is important that the tournament in which you performed so admirably had a buy-in consummate with the funds available in your bankroll.

As a guide to what level of the game you should be involved in, imagine a player deposits $200.00 in his online poker account. The unwritten rules of bankroll management suggest that he should be playing in sit ´n´ go and multi table poker tournaments with a twentieth of his bankroll – i.e. $10.00 + $1.00. If that player wanted to compete in cash ring games, he should look at tables with a big blind of one two hundredth of his bankroll – i.e. $0.50/$1.00 – and go to the tables with the maximum allowed on that table.

When our player performs well in his tournaments, clears sign up bonuses and is credited with rakeback, he will find that the balance of his account starts to grow and when it reaches $300.00 can start entering tournaments with a buy-in of $15.00 + $1.50. The same applies if he regularly wins on the cash ring games – although will probably have to wait until reaching $400.00 in his bankroll before stepping up a level due to the lack of games available at $0.75/$1.50!

A sequence of losing sessions will see your bankroll diminish, but provided you go down through the levels in relation to the funds in your bankroll – and do not try to win your stake back by a risky visit to the higher level tables – you will eventually settle in a level where your game starts to recover and you can gain more experience and establish a wider range of skills before building your way back up to (and beyond) the levels that you started at.

It is natural that sometimes you will enjoy winning sessions and other times you will suffer losses. However correctly managing your bankroll ensures that you will learn, improve and eventually enjoy a more pleasurable and lucrative poker experience, having developed good habits and banished all the temptation to gamble with your poker funds.

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