Poker Bankroll management

Bankroll management is one of the most important aspects of being a winning poker player in the long run.
Due to poker’s luck element, there will be periods of time where even though you are playing good poker, and making the correct decisions, luck will go against you. These periods, known as downswings, can be devastating to your bankroll if you haven’t managed it well enough to withstand them.

Many a good player has gone broke while experiencing a downswing as they’ve been too proud and stubborn to drop down to the appropriate level for their bankroll. As a rule of thumb, whether you’re buying in shortstacked ( 20 big blinds ), full stacked ( 100 big blinds ), or into tournaments, you should always have between 20 and 30 buy ins to account for variance.

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For instance, if you’re playing a no limit $.50/$1 cash game, and are buying in short stacked ( $20 ), you should never have less than $400.. ( $20 buy in x 20 buy ins = $400 ). If your bankroll drops below 20 buy ins for the level that you’re playing at, then you should drop down to playing at the level below until you get your bankroll back to $600. ( $20 buy in x 30 buy ins = $600 ).

But on the other hand, if your bankroll increases to 30x the buy in for the level above, you should move up to that level.
In this example, the level above would be $1/$2 blinds, buy in $40, so when your bankroll has increased to $1200, ( $40 buy in x 30 buy ins = $1200 ), you should move up to the $1/$2 level. Once there, you would now not drop back down unless your bankroll dropped below $800. ( $40 buy in x 20 buy ins = $800 ).

This gives you the manoeuvrability of being able to loose up to 10 buy ins before having to drop down again. So the rule is, whether you’re playing cash games or tournaments, whatever level you’re playing at, if you drop below 20 buy ins for the level you’re playing at, move down to the level below, but if you can increase your bankroll to 30 buy ins at the level above, move up to that level.

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Using this system will avoid you going broke by allowing you to cope with any downswings that come your way.