In my first blog entry I promised to give you some tips to help you prevent having the same bad start as a new poker player as I had experienced myself. If I had made a plan how to manage the money I put aside for poker (my bankroll) in a sensible way I could have avoided a lot of anger and frustration later on. Looking back I can say that the careless and sometimes even reckless handling of my bankroll was the biggest mistake that I made in my young poker career. For that reason I would like to write something about Bankroll Management today.
Chris Ferguson who in the year 2000 was the winner of the main event of the WSOP decided to take an interesting challenge in the year 2006. He wanted to earn $10,000 in the course of a year without depositing even a single cent. First things first: he successfully completed his own challenge. The hardest part for him proved to be the many freerolls he had to compete in in order to get a handful of dollars to enable him to build a bankroll in the first place. In the course of this experiment Mr. Ferguson set up the following rules for himself:
- I will never buy into a cash game or a Sit&Go with more than 5% of my total bankroll (exception for the lowest limits: I am allowed to buy into any game with a buy-in of $2.50 or less).
- I will not buy into a multi-table tournament for more than 2% of my total bankroll and I am allowed to buy into any multi-table tournament that costs $1.
- If at any time during a NL (No Limit) or PL (Pot Limit) cash game session my money on the table represents more than 10% of my total bankroll I must leave the game when the blinds reach me.
Please note that I used Dollars as a currency for these rules because I took them straight from Chris Ferguson and didn’t want to pretend he used Euros for his calculations. I will use Euros for the remainder of the article though.
Only 3 rules but very well thought through and in my eyes very user friendly for beginning players.
Let’s look at an example to make it clearer: let’s assume your first deposit in a poker room is €100 and you are planning on mainly playing Sit&Go. That means your bankroll is exactly €100 (unless you receive an instant bonus on depositing), 5% of the total bankroll are €5. Therefore you will play Sit&Go games with a maximum buy-in of €5. You are not able to find a Sit&Go for €5 or less, but one with a buy-in of €5.50 – are you still allowed to play?
Well, it is your bankroll and of course you can decide to play. If you want to know my answer however it is a clear and loud “NO!”. Despite you needing only €10 more (so you have a €110 bankroll) so you don’t breach the 5% rule with that buy-in of €5.50 I would still advise you not to compete in the game.
We have put these rules up in order to successfully manage our bankroll and we do not circumvent or overrule them when we feel like it. To be a winning poker player in the long term means that you have to have a lot of discipline. Even and especially when dealing with your bankroll. In our example you are exactly €10 short of being allowed to play in the €5.50 Sit&Go according to our rules. Play in €3.40 Sit&Go tournaments and compete there until your bankroll reaches €110 or more and then change your limit and try your luck in the €5.50 tournaments.
Let’s assume you haven’t played your best poker or were simply unlucky and lost ten of the mentioned €3.40 tournaments in a row. Your bankroll has been diminished to €66 and 5% of it would now be €3.30. You know what that means, right? 🙂 Exactly! Your bankroll doesn’t allow for €3.40 Sit&Gos anymore so you have to switch to €2.50 Sit&Gos until your bankroll is at least at €68 again (5% of €68 equals €3.40).
One of the main side effects of consequent bankroll management is that you will be able to find the limit that suits your current ability. You will change limits several times, I guarantee you that. The rewards for your discipline and consequence will be manifold:
- You will soon be playing at a limit that allows you to enjoy success and a sense of achievement.
- You don’t play for money you can’t afford to lose without even noticing.
- In the long term you will always play limits according to your skills.
- You do not risk losing your bankroll at once and the risk of losing it at all is reduced to a minimum.
- It is a fun and a great sense of achievement to realise you can beat a limit and are approaching a higher limit cent by cent and Euro by Euro.
The main advantage is that you can enjoy the game of poker much more relaxed with those rules. Poker shall be fun right from the start!