bankroll management

The following principle is key to becoming a successful poker player. Without the proper money management skills, the best players in the world would go broke. For all you skim-readers, here are the basic rules of bankroll management for Texas Hold'em.

20 buyins for NL Hold'em.
300 big blinds for Limit Hold'em.
40 buyins for SnG Tournaments.

What is bankroll management?

"Bankroll management" (sometimes abbreviated to BRM) is where you play at certain limits to avoid losing all of your bankroll due to bad runs of cards, which any poker player must expect from time to time.

This is called "playing within your bankroll". Subsequently, if you play at higher limits where there is too great a chance of losing all of your poker money, you are "playing out of your bankroll".

Why is bankroll management important?

The reason why you should choose your limits carefully in poker is due to the variance. Variance is a term used to describe the "ups and downs" of poker where you fluctuate from having bad runs of cards to good runs of cards, resulting in varying profits and losses.

If you play poker for long enough there are going to be periods of time where you will consistently lose money, not because you are playing badly, but because the cards are not falling your way. This means that if you do not have enough money in your bankroll to absorb these big downswings, it is likely that you will lose it all.

Every player, irrespective of ability, will experience variance in their game. Bankroll management is in place to deal with this variance and allow you to continue playing without going broke.

Therefore every time we sit down at the poker table, whether it be live or online, we want to give ourselves the best opportunity to win a maximum amount of profit whilst keeping the risk of going broke minimal. This is where the rules of bankroll management come into play.