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As a poker player, your bankroll is your lifeblood. Without
it you can’t play – it doesn’t get any simpler than that. Despite this simple
truth, many people don’t see bankroll management as a skill of the same
importance as being able to calculate pot odds or read your opponents. All the
skills you can wield in the game don’t mean anything, though, if you blow all
the money as soon as you win it. For a purely recreational player, learning to
protect your bankroll can be the difference between enjoying freerolling and
paying for your hobby. For a player who wants to move up in limits, it’s one
of the most important skills you can have.
The first thing to do is to establish a definition of what your bankroll is:
it’s money you can afford to lose. Don’t put any money into your poker
bankroll that you can’t comfortably part with if worst comes to worst. Paying
rent, putting food in your stomach, taking care of your health, and paying
your bills should always come before poker. If they don’t, you’ve got much
larger problems than an article like this could ever address and you probably
won’t be playing poker for very long.
Second, let your bankroll dictate what limit you’ll be playing. A standard
rule of thumb is that a good player should have 300 big bets (BB) at his
regular level of play, e.g. $3000 for a 5-10 hold’em game. That’s an amount
large enough to cover 95% of the swings you’ll experience. If you go on a
horrible run you might lose all 300 BB, but in most cases the downswings you
experience will just be normal fluctuations. (There’s a caveat here for multi-tablers:
you should have 300 BB for the average number of tables you play.) If you drop
under 300 BB total in your bankroll you’ll be endangering one of two things:
your ability to keep playing solid aggressive poker as you naturally become
more protective of your money, or your ability to play poker at all if you
continue to play an aggressive game and your bad run doesn’t end. It’s for
this reason that I like to have a cushion of 100-200 BB above what I actually
need for the limit I’m regularly playing – normal downswings aren’t going to
affect my ability to play my regular game.
Third, don’t be too proud to move down in limits if your bankroll’s in bad
shape. If your bankroll dips below 300 BB for the limit you’re playing after
you finish your session, you need to be absolutely certain that your next
session is at a limit your bankroll can support. Otherwise you’re leaving your
ability to play poker to chance. One of the benefits of poker, as compared to
other forms of gambling, is that you can minimize the effects of chance over
the long run through the application of skill – so why sacrifice that
advantage voluntarily? Chances are you can beat the next level down relatively
easily, so take the step down for a bit and rebuild your bankroll. As Marsellus Wallace told Butch Coolidge in Pulp Fiction, “Pride only hurts...it
never helps.” Don’t be too proud to keep your bankroll in good repair.
Last, don’t make a habit of using your bankroll for anything but poker. Many
people feel that their bankroll is money that can be tossed around, and that’s
fine if you don’t plan on playing your current game forever. If you don’t plan
on playing 2-4 hold’em for the rest of your life, though, you need to limit
your bankroll to poker. That means no –EV gambling (craps, blackjack,
roulette, slots, etc.) and no lavish dinners every time you have a solid
session. There’s nothing wrong with taking money out for a small reward for
yourself from time to time, but that only holds true as long as you make this
the exception rather than the rule. If it does become the rule, you should
probably have a lot more than 300 BB to play your regular game.
Managing your bankroll really boils down to discipline. There are many players
who could play higher limits than they do if they were simply to place a few
limits on themselves. If moving up is a goal of yours, you should take careful
stock of how you treat your bankroll. Managing it wisely is best insurance a
poker player can have.
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