Bankroll Guidelines For Online Poker – Viewing Your Bankroll As An “Investment”

April 6, 2009

Playing poker online for real money should be looked at as an investment, not a gamble. In reality, the sole goal we have at the poker table is to seek out and find the players who are in fact playing just to gamble, as those players are the easiest stacks to get. Smart players who learn to see poker bankrolls as a long term investment will win a lot more money than any single player looking for today’s big score.

In this article, we hope to go over some general bankroll guidelines to help your investment grow, after all you decided to deposit funds into a poker account with the goal of making money right? Some of my views on bankroll management are a bit more conservative than other advice you will find on this subject, but I don’t think there is any harm in attaching more buy-ins to the stakes you play at. In my eyes, this makes the inevitable up and down swings a lot easier to handle without feeling pressured.

Sit And Go Bankroll Advice

Common bankroll advice found online advocate having 20 buy-ins for the sit and go stakes levels you are playing at. While proven winners will see great success jumping up and down stakes based on performance, going through a 7 buy-in downswing can lead to a real pressure to win your next set of sit and go’s, at this point the “fear factor” comes into play, what if you have another downswing this set? If you are even the slightest bit prone to “going on tilt” it is easy to waste a few buyins on one bad set where you are not playing at your best.

Instead, I like to recommend that players keep 50 buy-ins to the level of sit and go entry fee you are currently playing (and beating). Going up or down even 10 buy-ins will not add any mental pressure, allowing you to just keep focus and keep “grinding”. In sit and go’s, volume leads to profits and a lot of players will just focus on winning x dollars an hour.

Going up or down in stakes should be a choice based on your win rate, volume, and most importantly “hourly rate”. Never play a set of sit and go’s with less than 50 buyins in your bankroll, and a few bad sessions will never have an impact in your bottom line. Remember, a poker bankroll is just like a conservative stock market investment approach. The key goal is steady growth, and avoiding large amounts of risk.

MTT Bankroll Advice

Just like sit and go’s, I prefer to see a 50 buy in minimum for any multi table tournament I buy into. If I know that this particular tournament represents only 2% of my bankroll, I can play “to win” without mental pressure from the size of the investment I made to enter. Risk is much higher in MTT tournaments, and you may not see steady growth without a big finish or two. Keeping a conservative approach to MTT bankroll requirements is just smart poker style, all too often I see players with a $500 bankroll decide to “take a shot” and enter a $109 major daily tournament – while once in awhile these players win some money it is more likely they are the ones at the cashier window reloading.

This approach to MTT bankroll guidelines will allow you the best mental focus when playing tournaments. For the sake of clarity I’d like to point out I see these guidelines applying to satelites, and multi-table sit and go’s like 45 mans as well.

Ring Game Bankroll Advice

Ring games I approach with about the same poker bankroll mentality as tournaments. Having 50 buy-ins for the games you are playing is sound strategy with a long term investment based mindset. I don’t mind being creative here though, as proper game selection can lead to significant profits in poker.

I always consider a buy-in at a cash game the “max amount” you can buy into the game for, and I advocate always keeping your stack as deep as possible. Where I accept the idea of “taking shots” and being a bit more creative is if you happen to find a game that looks good, with opponents you are certain are “worse players” than you, I wouldn’t mind seeing single shots at games with as little as 15 buy-ins.

Discipline

Being a disciplined player is key to the health of your bankroll, this article advocates an extremely conservative style and approach to some general guidelines on bankrolling your games. While arguments can certainly be reasonably made to move up levels with 15-20 buyins of any given type of game, I strongly believe that the mental aspects associated with having a 50 buy in bankroll will allow you to play a better game, and over the long term of your investment, make steady income.

The key however in any of this is a players discipline in being able to drop down stakes, if you decide to keep a 50 buy-in rule, don’t chase your bankroll if you drop down to 40 buy-ins simply move down a level and rebuild. This will be the key difference between players collecting cashout checks, and players habitually at the cashiers window are the reason we wait patiently for the next profitable oppurtunity to earn more income. If you happen to be looking for a new online poker site, we find that poker rooms accepting Ukash seem to bring in a lot more true “gamblers” as players from the UK simply turn cash into a voucher at any convenience store, even the one right next to the pub.

Written by admin · Filed Under Poker News