The Definitive Poker Bankroll Management Guide 2024
Bankroll management is a crucial aspect of poker and one that many players overlook. A player's bankroll is their financial foundation, and it's essential to manage it carefully to avoid losing it all. The goal in poker is to get to a position where you only need to play with winnings, and losing your whole bankroll puts you far away from this.
In this Definitive Poker Bankroll Management Guide, we cover the golden rules of many buy-ins you need, apps and trackers to help #you, how to stay ahead of the rake, and good principles for tournament and cash poker players.
Losing your whole bankroll is a painful experience and one of the worst things that can happen to a poker player. Follow this guide and stop it from happening to you.
The Definitive Poker Bankroll Management Guide Golden Rules
Bankroll Buy-ins: How many buy-ins do you need?
This is a fundamental principle for good bankroll management. It is crucial that you have enough buy-ins in your bankroll to cope with variance. You may be the best player in your game, but if you've got a high percentage of your money in a game, it only takes a small bout of bad luck to destroy your bankroll.
The number of buy-ins you need depends on the game you play and your style of play. The wilder the game and more aggressive your style, the bigger the swings are likely to be. You likely need more buy-ins for multi-table tournaments that you will for cash poker. A good guide is to have between 50 and 100 buy-ins depending on these factors.
To put that into context, if you play £1/£1 cash, you need at least £5,000 to be properly bankrolled for the game. If you play £5 online sit and gos, you need £500. That's a lot of money for most people, but it really is what you need behind you to guarantee negative variance (bad luck) doesn't kick you out of the game.
Play at the right limits - and the same limits
This is closely linked to the rule above. It's important to play at a consistent buy-in level, over a long period of time, to manage your bankroll. If you jump from £5 sit and goes, to £125 multi-table tournaments (MTTs), and then play 5/10 cash (pounds or pennies), it is going to be very hard to manage your bankroll.
You could find your winnings at the smaller buy-ins get crushed by a tiny amount of bad luck (or tougher opponents) at the higher buy-in levels. For this reason, playing a steady limit level and only moving up to the next buy-in when you have won enough to cope with that level, financially, will help you to progress as a poker player.
Keep accurate records of your wins and losses
Tracking apps are an excellent way to keep a handle on your poker finances. So many players think they're winning players, beating their local game, but many of them are simply wrong.
Gambler biases often arise when people overestimate their wins and underestimate their losses. Others fail to take into account tournament fees when mentally estimating their results.
Tracking your results takes the guesswork and biases out of the equation and leaves you with the raw, hard facts.
Using an app to track your poker results has many benefits beyond just demonstrating whether you're a successful player - it also tells you which games are most profitable for you. And if you build up a big enough sample of results, you can accurately tell what your expected win-rate is for different games.
You can also see if there is a specific game that you aren't beating, giving you the option to either concentrate on improving, or avoiding that game altogether.
Poker Bankroll Tracker is our app of choice in this area. It is an excellent tool for keeping all of your results in one place.
If you're looking for something more in-depth that also measures your performance, Holdem Manager 3 allows you to manually add in results, which could be a great way to keep your live and online results in one place.
Use a stop-loss
A stop-loss is a pre-determined amount of money (usually measured in buy-ins) that a player is willing to lose before ending their poker session. It's a good way to decide beforehand what you are willing to lose in a session.
One of the biggest challenges poker players face is their own emotions when things aren't going well at the table.
Sometimes tilt can cause players to lose far more than they should and Mike Caro's famous "Threshold of Misery" theory applies here. There is a limit to the amount of pain a poker player feels during a losing session. If he reaches this, the loses don't feel any worse, but the loses can still increase. It leads to poor play and poor decisions.
Set a stop-loss of three, four or five buy-ins, depending on your temperament, before you sit down to play, and have the discipline to see it through. If you're a winning player, you may rarely need the stop-loss, but it's an important bankroll management principle to keep your poker finances secure during difficult sessions.
Play many smaller games rather than fewer big ones
By spreading your bankroll out into more smaller games, over a longer period of time, you limit the impact of variance, and you'll probably also find it helps with any tilt issues you might have. Playing more games at smaller stakes reduces the significance of one single game, making a bad beat or bad play less significant.
Imagine if you have every penny in your bankroll in a game of poker - something we strongly advise against. Now imagine how you would play and how frustrated you would be if you got unlucky. Compare that to playing a series of games where you have only 1% of your bankroll in play. It may take longer you for you to build that up, but it's a steadier and more sustainable way to play poker.
Taking shots is fine - if you have a plan
A good way to jump up a level in poker is to take a shot at a higher level. "Taking shots" at higher levels of play always suggests that you aren't properly bankrolled for the higher game, and that can be OK if you have the discipline to move back down if it doesn't work out. Make sure you have a plan and set aside a specific amount for the shot.
We highly recommend you decide before your poker session whether and when you plan to take a shot. Don't do it after a big loss or big win - do it in a planned and prepared way.
Avoid chasing losses
Chasing losses is a common mistake that many players make, but it's a surefire way to lose your bankroll quickly. If you are on a losing streak, take a break from the game, and come back later when you are more focused and less emotional.
Remember that cash poker is one long session. And tournament poker may be individual sessions, but no player can win the majority of these games. It just isn't how the game works.
Play your A-game and your luck will turn around rather than trying to force yourself out of the red.
And remember, if your poker losses ever become a worry, or you're finding it difficult to stop, BeGambleAware is an excellent organisation who can help.
Rake - know the game you're in
Rake eats away at your profits and it's really important to understand what form of rake is being applied to a game. If the rake is too high, it won't matter how good you are, some games are just unbeatable. And even if the rake is fair, you need to know the rules as it will affect your results and should impact the way you play.
Financial goals help
Setting a financial poker goal for yourself is a good way to stay focused and motivated. Goals can keep you on track and remind you what you're aiming for. The important thing is not to allow a goal to impact your play at the table, but it can be a useful way of staying motivated and disciplined.
A financial goal can also be an exciting thing to achieve. If your reward is to move up to a bigger game or treat yourself or your family, then meeting that achievement can be a great feeling. Just don't let it influence your stakes or your play.
Rakeback - be aware of it but don't let it affect your decisions
Rakeback is a reward to keep you playing poker. It's a benefit that can really pay off, but only if you don't allow it to determine how you play or how long you play.
Some poker players can become obsessed with rakeback and let it determine how long they play for, and which stakes they play, regardless of how they're playing and what their bankroll looks like.
This is the danger of rakeback. Rakeback is very welcome as a means of reducing the impact of rake, but if it starts to affect your decisions, you might need to think about whether the game you're playing is right for you.