Poker Bankroll Management

Poker Bankroll Management (BRM) – what is it?

Your bankroll is the amount of money that you have decided to allocate to playing poker. Bankroll management allows you to decide how you use it. It is a very important skill, but a lot of players ignore it.

When you set aside an amount that you have decided to play poker with, it will be easier. You will then know how much money you spend on poker and feel safer and more comfortable playing with it. Remember: Do not spend money on poker that you can't afford to lose!

What do you want from playing poker?

Try to decide what you want from poker. If you play just for fun from time to time, you do not need a large bankroll. But, if you want to play more regularly, you should decide to be more conservative, especially if you want to be a professional. Bankroll is your “tool” to work. If you lose all of it, you won’t be able to earn money.

Set a target

When you play poker, you should remember that even though you might play well, you can always lose the hand. If you go all-in preflop with AA and someone calls with KK, 80% of the time, you will win, but 20% of the time, you won’t. So, if you invest all your bankroll during this situation, you will lose all your money every five times. To avoid this, try to invest only a small part of your bankroll in any one game.

Check the table in the next paragraph, "What stakes should I play?" for advice on how many tournament or table buy-ins you should aim to budget for with your bankroll. The advice varies depending on what game you choose to play, as there are extra considerations to take on board. In any case, serious players should be able to afford to lose their stack at least 20 times in any game.

If you are on a downswing or not ready to play on the limit, try to leave the stakes and rebuild your bankroll. There is no shame in leveling down. It’s very common. After doing so, you can try to attack the higher limit again. Do not play higher stakes than your bankroll permits. If you stay too long with not enough bankroll, you might lose all your money.

What stakes should I play?

How much is your poker bankroll? If you’re a recreational player just playing for fun, you don’t need a big bankroll to enjoy poker. But if you’re hoping to play poker seriously, you’ll need a much higher bankroll to stay in the game.

The below table shows what games and stakes you should consider playing, depending on your bankroll. It is based on a player taking poker seriously but not using poker as their sole source of income.

Bankroll	Multi-Table Tournaments	Sit & Go	Cash	Spin & Go
$10	N/A	N/A	N/A	$0.25
$20	N/A	$0.50	N/A	$0.25 or $0.50
$50	$0.55 tournaments (eg. Big $0.55, Hot $0.55, Bounty Builder $0.55)	$1	$0.01/$0.02	$1
$125	$1.10 tournaments (eg. Big $1.10, Hot $1.10, Bounty Builder $1.10)	$1.50 – $2.50	$0.02/$0.05	$2
$250	$2.20 tournaments (eg. Big $2.20, Hot $2.20, Bounty Builder $2.20)	$3.50 – $4.50	$0.05/$0.10	$5
$625	$5.50 tournaments (eg. Mini Daily Marathon, Big $5.50, Hot $5.50, Bounty Builder $5.50)	$7 – $15	$0.10/$0.25	$10
$1,250	$11 tournaments (eg. Sunday Storm, Hotter $11, Big $11, Bounty Builder $11)	$30	$0.25/$0.50	$25
$2,500	$22 tournaments (eg. Double Deuce, Mini Sunday Million, Big $22)	$60	$0.50/$1	$50

In the above chart, it is suggested that you have around 100x buy-ins for tournaments, on account of higher variance. If you want to play bigger tournaments, it’s suggested that you try to satellite your way into the field.

Spin & Go’s will require a minimum of 50x buy-ins. Similarly, it is recommended to have 50x buy-ins available for Sit & Go tournaments as well, but the larger the field is (e.g. 45 or 90-man Sit & Go’s), you are approaching multi-table tournament territory and will be looking for a higher level of protection against downswings.

The suggested bankroll for Cash Games would be a minimum of 25x full buy-ins (e.g., $2 at $0.01/0.02), so, at the $25 point, we aren’t really ready to play even the lowest stakes. Ideally, we’d have at least 40x to be truly comfortable.

Every author has slightly different guidelines when it comes to bankroll management. The truth is bankroll management is unique for everyone, and these are only guidelines designed to stop you from losing your entire bankroll. You must adjust to what suits your needs. For example, a player with $1,000 who only plays $1 Spin & Go’s can still go broke if they are a bad player.

It’s also true that a beginning player who has never played poker before or has little experience shouldn’t jump into a $0.50/$1 stake 6-Max cash game just because they have a $2,000 bankroll. It’s better to start at the Play Money tables, learn the basics and then move on to the smallest stakes possible until you’re happy with your game.