Bankroll Management 101. Important to new players.

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Well, we had some new visitors in the chat room today and they all had a few questions about bankroll managment. So I lined 'em up and knocked 'em down. Soupie asked me to post about bankroll managment so here it is! Now my numbers may be a bit on the high-ish side, but I always like to play it safe when we're talking about poker.

Alot of new players make the mistake of depositing 50 bucks on Party Poker and taking their shot at greatness. This is one of the most fundemental mistakes for new players and I will explain why.

To understand why Bankroll Managment is so important, you have to understand how you should approach the game of poker.

Poker is a long term game, it is not AA v KK getting cracked on the river. It is a game of thousands of iterations of these hands. Throughout the carreer of a poker player, you will see aces more than your fare share and though you will lose with them from time to time, you will win a lot more. Everytime you play aces properly, it is a positive investment even though you may lose money on any given occurence. It's not a game of, "Mah gaht dahm aces got cracked a-gaht-damn-gain! Gah!"

Poker is a horrible short term game, you can be ontop of the world one day and drowning in the depths of the river valley the next. It's a game of swings. You WILL lose at some point, it's a statistical certainty. It is the undefinable "luck" that people are so quick to blame. So you need to make sure you have enough money in your online bank so that the loses don't phase you. You need a fat enough roll to never go bust becuase of a bad streak and to help prevent tilt. For me (I play 100-200NL cash games on Empire) 100 bucks just isn't what it used to be from a poker perspective. Some days, I start out real slow and lose 2 buyins, but I don't tilt becuase the money and results don't get in the way towards playing great poker. My bankroll is too solid to be phased by a bad week, therefore my play is not phased by a bad week.

You can find the accurate numbers for a proper bankroll all over this great forum of ours. But I like 15-30 buyins for No Limit (Maybe even more for 6max), 300BB for limit and 15+ buyins for tournies (More for MTTs). If you play a little from column A (limit) and a little from columb B (Tournies or NL) a good rule of thumb for your bankroll size is never risk more than 5-10% of it on any given day.

The numbers might be a little off here or there but the idea is: If you're never risking much of your bankroll from day to day, you allow yourself to play your game risk-free. Losing money won't drive you to suicide *cough* And your back should never be against the wall.

Poker is a game of positive longterm investments, you want to make sure that you have enough money to stick around and reap the rewards of these investments.

-'rilla