Money management (part 1 of 3): How to build a poker bank-roll

One of the most common questions a new player will ask is how do you build a bankroll? What complicates the matter is very few people are willing to invest a significant amount of money when they begin playing; even though this is what is needed.  As an alternative to a ready-made bankroll, these players have decided to attempt to build one. This is a totally acceptable practice, but is very difficult to pull off.

Building a bankroll requires patience and mental toughness. You need to be patient and play within your bankroll; and you need to be mentally tough and shrug off the bad beats, so you don’t end up tilting off any more of your precious bankroll.

The bare minimum I suggest for any player is a 10 buy-in bankroll. A 10 buy-in bankroll still has you in dangerous territory; your likelihood of going broke is still pretty high (about 50/50 for an average winning player). However, starting with anything less than a 10 buy-in roll is virtually guaranteeing you go broke.

Most players will deposit between $50 online and let the chips fall where they may. Unfortunately, these players aren’t willing to play the stakes needed to avoid going broke (with $50 you should be playing games with a $5 buy‑in or less), instead they sit down in a $50 or $100 game, take one bad beat and are out of action. If they were in a $5 game, they could take one, two, even five bad beats and still have plenty of money to play. Remember, you can’t play poker without money; NEVER risk your entire bankroll!

The reason most people won’t play within their bankroll is most of us really don’t care about $5 (which is a very good win in a $10 game!) and want to play higher stakes -real money- games. Well, if you want to play $100 games you’ll need a minimum of $1,000 to take a legitimate shot at those stakes, so if you’re willing to deposit $50 you can forget about those games.

Fear not, there is a remedy! Yes you will have to grind out some lower limit games in the beginning, but you can move up to those $100+ games a lot quicker if you use my short bankroll method.

Phase 1 - Choosing a site. You want to choose a site that offers at least one level below the stakes you intend to start out playing, the more the better. If there are no lower limits you’ll need to begin with 20 buy-ins, not 10 (the short buy-in approach only works if you can drop in limits). Also you want to make sure you are receiving a deposit bonus or rake-back.

Phase 2 - Choosing what stakes to play. The key to playing a short bankroll is to be willing to move up and down in limits. With a $50 bankroll you will mainly play $5 games ($.02/$.05 NL, $.10/$.20 limit). However, you will also be taking shots at higher limits.

Phase 3 ‑ Moving up in limits. When you take shots you want to risk between 20%‑25% of your total bankroll; instead of playing $5NL, you’ll be sitting $10NL. Instead of $.10/$.20 limit, you’ll be playing $.25/$.50.

If you win during one of these excursions to the higher stake games you’ll have a nice increase to your bankroll, and you can simply continue on in your normal $10 games.

For instance: If you’ve been playing the $5 games and are up to $70, you can scout out the $10 games looking for a soft lineup. If you sit down and win $20 your bankroll will be $90, and you can go back to grinding the $10 games, while you continue to keep an eye out for a juicy $10 game (don’t get carried away, not every game is juicy!). Now you’re one good session away from making the $10 games your permanent home.

If you suffer a loss in the $10 game you still have $60, so no worries. Your bankroll has taken a hit, but it’s still intact and ready for action. The key to this method is your willingness to move down in limits when you suffer losses. If your bankroll falls below10 buy-ins you must move down to the $2 games until you get back to $50. As long as you can do this you’ll avoid going broke.