Managing Your Poker Bankroll

Managing your bankroll will be one of the biggest factors in determining whether or not you will be successful as a poker player. It doesn’t matter if you plan on becoming a professional player or only want to play as an amateur. If you are unable to manage your bankroll properly, you will always be dealing with either not having enough to play, will be forced to borrow money from others or will always be scrambling to find ways to fund your games. None of these are positions you will want to find yourself in. To avoid such scenarios it is important to come up with some bankroll management skills.  This simply involves having spending guidelines in place that you adhere to no matter what. Below, we will discuss how to go about doing this so that you can successfully manage your bankroll.

Set Limits

You will need to set limits before you head to the casino or log onto your favorite online casino or poker room. Decide how much you can afford to lose and how much you want to spend. If at all possible, bring cash and leave your credit and debit cards at home so that you are not tempted to spend more money than either you can afford or that you have decided upon beforehand.

Once you reach those limits, push yourself away from the table and leave. If you hang around you may be tempted to keep playing. Now, if you are pretty disciplined then you may be able to stay and watch others play. However, if you are not, start heading towards the door. Knowing your particular temperament will help you come up with a plan that will provide you with the most money management success.

Be disciplined

It doesn’t matter how fancy the strategy you use to manage your bankroll if you do not have enough discipline to stick with it. This is because you won’t be able to follow it if you can not control yourself. If you do not have discipline then you may not even want to continue to play poker. You would probably do better with an activity that doesn’t require self-control because not only will you probably struggle as a player but you will probably end up losing a lot of money. Don’t do it to yourself. Learn to become disciplined or find something else to fill your free time.

Take your emotions out of the equation

To manage your bankroll successfully you will need to be able to separate your actions from your emotions. There will be times where you so desperately feel like playing even when it is advantageous to quit. You may be dead set on turning around a losing streak or may want to crush a certain player that really annoys you. You will have to be able to reel yourself in and stop playing when you have reached your spending limits. If you are not able to do so, you will have problems with bankroll management. 

Use bankroll management strategies

There are a number of different equations or strategies that people suggest players use to manage their bankroll. One very simple one is to divide your bankroll into small stacks. For example, if you have $200 to spend, break it into four stacks of $50. Use these individual stacks to wager. This will prevent you from losing all of your money at once. If you want, split them up further. The point is to set limits. By dividing your money and refusing to spend more than one stack at once, you help to protect yourself from spending losing all of your money at one time. If you win, make sure to re-count your money and divide it accordingly.

Play at tables that you can afford

Figure how much money you have to spend and then play at tables where you can get the most games in. Don’t play at extremely expensive tables where you won’t be able to play for long before going broke.

Learning to successfully manage your bankroll will be one of the most important skills that you develop. If you are not able to get this part down, you will have problems financing your poker games. This will result in you having to limit your play, give up the sport or may result in serious financial trouble.