If you want to get serious about making money playing poker, then the first crucial step is building a bankroll.
A poker bankroll is a special amount of money that you set aside for poker alone. For limit games, this amount should be around 200-300 times the amount of the big bet, so for your standard $1-2 limit hold 'em game, your bankroll should be around $400-600. The cash swings in no limit hold 'em and tournament games are much higher, so a larger bankroll is required for those. I recommend at least 100 times your tournament buy-in or the buy-in for the no limit game, so if you're playing a $1-2 no limit game with a max buy-in of $100 (or buying in to $100 tournaments), you should have a poker bankroll of around $10,000. I personally keep a bankroll of $10,000 for no limit buy-ins, $100 tournament buy-ins and limit Omaha HiLo, one of my personal favorites.
Without a bankroll, making money consistently playing poker is very difficult and highly luck based. You need enough of a cushion to take big hits. My first mistake when I started playing poker was that I started with a $2,000 bankroll and immediately started out with $100 buy-ins to no limit hold 'em games. I did well for a few months and grinded it up to $3,500, but then started spending it back down to $2,000. I don't know about effective bankroll management! I figured that as long as I kept a few thousand dollars in my bank account, I'd always have enough money to play because I'd always make money in the long run, right?
Then I had a few losing months and soon found my bankroll at $600. This wasn't a proper bankroll - it was simply my bank account - and at the time I was taking my first shot at making a living playing poker. I was forced to spend the $600 on my rent, had no money left to play poker and had to venture back into the working world to fund my bankroll again.
I made two huge mistakes when I first started trying to make a living playing poker.
First of all, I was playing games that were simply too big for my bankroll. I figured that 20 buy-ins would be enough, but it simply wasn't. I'd go all in with a set, only to have someone call and hit a higher set on the river. I'd flop a nut straight and have someone hit a back door flush. Luck can be a cruel mistress, and I highly underestimated just how 'long' the 'long run' is. Poker evens out over the long run if you play your odds, yes. Unfortunately, that long run can at times be months or even years.
Secondly, I didn't have a dedicated poker bankroll. I had a certain amount of money in my bank account, and I was living off of my winnings. The importance of a dedicated poker bankroll must not ever be underestimated! Do not use money in your bank account for poker! Do not pull money out of your poker bankroll!
Remember, your poker bankroll is sacred and should be treated as such. You should only ever pull money out of your poker bankroll when it rises far above the amount needed for the limits that you're playing at. I now maintain a $10,000 bankroll for my 100 buy-ins. I find that double your normal bankroll is a good amount to allow yourself to pull cash 'off the top' if you need or want it. I only pull money out of my poker bankroll when it is over $20,000 - which it consistently has been for the last 2 years.
No comments:
Post a Comment