Look after your bankroll, and your bankroll will look after you: Managing your money in poker.

Bankrolls is one of those subjects in poker that often crops up in passing but is seldom given the proper consideration it deserves.

Professional players live by their bankroll. It keeps them in action, funds their travel, day-to-day expenses and pays the bills. Of course, not everyone is a high stakes rambling gambling pro. At the other end of the scale are recreational players who sit down for a low stakes social game once or twice a month.

In between are the legions of regular online and bricks and mortar players. While all these players may buy in at a game for different reasons the one thing they should all have in common is a bankroll.

Proper money management is as important a factor in poker as learning the odds, hand selection and position. Any player who wants to keep in the action should both have a bankroll and develop the skills to manage it.

So in the spirit of helping everyone continue their enjoyment of the game here’s the Big Slick guide to most important bankroll issues:

What is a bankroll?

It may sound like a trick question but let’s answer it anyway - a poker bankroll is a sum of money that is set aside specifically for playing poker.

The key point here is the bankroll is for playing poker. It’s not the rent money. Or the beer money! It’s poker money. An affordable amount that enables you to start playing.

The obvious hope with a bankroll is to increase it through winning at the tables. The aim is that you manage it well enough, and win enough, to enable you to play indefinitely without having to ever call on outside funds again.

So how big should my bankroll be?

This depends entirely on how high a stakes poker player you want to be. But as a rule of thumb mathematician and respected poker author Mason Malmuth suggests a bankroll should be 300 times the size of the big blind of your chosen level of play.

This means if you play $1-$2 limit hold’em your bankroll should be $600.

Now that may seem like a ridiculous wad of cash for a $1 / $2 game. But the reasoning behind it is absolutely sound. Anyone that’s played poker for a few years will tell you that no matter how good you are you’re going to suffer long losing streaks.

Having a sufficient bankroll will sustain you through these times, keep you in the action and stop you going broke. Remember, the aim of bankroll management is to sustain your poker playing indefinitely. If you were playing $5 / $10 on a 600 bankroll a few bad sessions in a row could wipe you out. But by sticking to $1 / $2 you suffer a loss but can still play.

Advantages of managing a bankroll properly

If you play well and stick to a set of bankroll rules you shouldn’t go broke. We reckon the promise of endless poker for a one-off investment should be enough to make everyone study the game and manage their money properly!

But there is another big advantage of proper money management in poker – it removes much of the stress and emotion attached to playing the game. If you’re sitting in a cash game in the middle of a big losing streak you won’t be worrying about running out of money.

Instead you can be relaxed in the knowledge that your bankroll will sustain any more bad beats Lady Luck decides to deal out. Of course, a relaxed player making the correct playing decisions in a calm frame of mind is more likely to win than one who’s panicked, worrying that they’re close to going broke and making the wrong decisions in an effort to chase losses.

Growing a bankroll – How big should it get?

As you play your bankroll will shrink and grow with your fortunes. You may even have to drop down a playing limit level to counteract a bad run. But because you manage your bankroll properly you can withstand these bad patches and, over time, if you play well, your bankroll should grow. Following the 300 x big blind rule you will be able to increase the stakes you play for.

The eventual blind levels you settle at are a matter of personal decision. What stakes do you feel comfortable playing at? For some $5 / $10 will be high enough. Others will want to grow their bankrolls indefinitely, playing in games with higher and higher stakes.

Bankrolls – the final word

The bankroll theory works. Tens of thousands of poker players can testify to that. It is possible to start with $300 at $0.25 / $0.5 and work your way up to $20 / $40 and a $12,000 bankroll.

But the theory isn’t a blue print to making money on its own. It’s dependant on good long-term diligent play. And the only way to achieve that is through study, practice and control.