Building a poker bankroll
When you’re getting started playing online poker it can be hard to manage your budget, or “bankroll”. Building a poker bankroll requires self control and careful management, but it will be one of the most helpful things you can do for your poker career.
You should aim to have a bankroll of about 300 times the big blind for the limits you’re playing at. That means that if you’re playing $0.01-0.02 games, you can get away with $6. For $0.05 – $0.10 games, you would need $60, and so on.
If you find that you are doing well in your online poker game at the limits you’re playing at, you can use the size of your bankroll as an indicator of whether or not you are ready to move up. If you’re playing online poker games in the micro limit 1cent/2cents range, and you have racked up a bankroll of more than $60, then maybe it’s time to move up to the 5cents/10cents limits.
If you find yourself losing a lot in the higher limits, move back down to the lower stakes games for a little while, build your bankroll back up, and then try again.
Don’t rush to play at a higher limit just because you think that you can win more there, or because it looks more glamorous. If you start playing at a higher limit before your bankroll can support it, you risk being bullied at the table, which will result in you losing money.
Even strong poker players experience swings in their fortune. You need to have a bankroll which can support those swings, so that you can ride out the losses and then make them back with some wins later.
If you are playing a poker variant such as Stud, Triple Draw, or Baduga, you may need a little more money overseas online pharmacy than if you were playing Texas Hold’em poker, because these games have more betting rounds, and you need to be able to survive them.
July 05 2010 11:29 am | Online Poker