Poker Bankroll

Note: The following recommendations are for regular tournaments, not turbo or hyper-turbo formats. Again, it is important to consider variance for your chosen format.

The higher the variance, the larger contingency plan needed and therefore the larger bankroll needed. And you may need to increase the above numbers as you move up in stakes.

It is very important to know when to move down in stakes during a downswing. This is where discipline matters, but also humility.

Nobody wants to admit they need to move down in stakes, but sometimes the right thing to do is bite the bullet and rebuild the bankroll.

By the way, we cover proper bankroll management—and much more—in the Upswing Lab! Doug grinded this challenge often during the first few months, but progress has slowed to a crawl since then.

Throughout these challenge sessions, Doug explained and demonstrated the principles discussed above. Why not exploit this edge?

Be aware that it may take you more or less time to complete and this is purely a guide. A session is considered to be between hours at the table, and each time you start a new session you should sit back down with the same initial buy in not the previous balance that you had in your stack at the end of the last session.

Finally there will also be some brief notes from us on each stage to guide you along and explain the practical purpose of the stage and give you a little bit of encouragement.

Each stage you should start to feel more confident and more grounded in the way that you play, and please take our word for it that the practical experience is worth the time you are putting in at the tables, plus it makes it more fun and your building a bankroll as you go too!

Since Poker Professor started in we have had many success stories with our Bankroll Challenge. They'll get up times their buy-in, convince themselves that their run of monster hands and suckouts is actual skill and keep playing.

Three orbits later, they've frittered away some, if not all, of their potential profit simply because they didn't know when to quit.

Once you achieve that goal, cash out and turn the computer off. Hot streaks are going to end some time. For multi-table tournaments, try to restrict yourself to 2 percent of your bankroll for any one buy-in.

The same principle can be used for sit-n-goes. You need to make sure your buy-in total includes rebuys or add-ons. If you play a tourney that offers re-buys and add-ons, add up the cost of the initial buy-in, one rebuy and one add-on and then make sure you're still under the 5 percent mark.

As you'll see later though, it is generally a good idea to avoid rebuys and add-ons when playing in tournaments. So, now you have your initial bankroll ready to go, and you're itching to start making some money at the poker tables.

So, what rules should you follow when trying to increase your bankroll in the safest and most sensible way? Well, it depends on a few factors, and they are illustrated below.

Obviously, playing higher stakes will require a larger bankroll than grinding lower stakes of the same game type. However, this effect is not always linear, as the possible variance in moving from 50NL to NL may be such that the player requires more than four times the bankroll from his days of grinding 50NL.

In general, playing tournaments as opposed to cash games will be higher variance and require a larger bankroll even at similar stakes.

Lower variance game types will require lower bankrolls as compared to their faster-paced counterparts. Extremely high variance formats, such as super-turbo tournaments, will require you to have a higher bankroll in terms of number of buy-ins.

For tournament players, this figure refers to the player's return on investment ROI that they can expect from the tournaments they currently play.

For cash games, this figure is the player's win rate in big blinds per hands played. Regardless of whether one is a tournament or cash game player, a large sample size of hands is necessary to accurately assess the rate of winning.

Many people overestimate this number based on running unsustainably well over too small of a sample of hands. For those that are unsure as to the accuracy of their win rate, it is suggested that they proceed with caution and research.

This key aspect is primarily influenced by two key components: life roll or the person's other available cash and income streams and the mental composure of the player.

Mental composure refers to the individual tendencies of the player that will often converge with optimal bankroll management decisions unique to each individual.

Some players may feel that having a bankroll that is three times the suggested standard bankroll for their situation enables them to play better poker.

Why would we choose to promote PokerStrategy. Everything from the in-depth articles, to the videos and the forum, all contribute to the biggest and most engaging learning experience on the net.

Many may be sceptical, wondering what the catch is. Well there is absolutely no catch! At PokerBankroll. There are few sites that offer a totally free online poker experience, check out for more free Poker sites at pokerforfree.

If you have any comments about the calculator or would like to offer advice on how it can be improved, I would love for you to shoot me an email at greg[at]thepokerbank[dot]com.

I would really appreciate any feedback that you can give to help improve the bankroll calculator. SwC Poker is my favourite room to play at.

We recommend cautious numbers that help you avoid moving up and down frequently. Because most poker players will have a higher win rate if they become familiar with the games at a particular level, we recommend cautious numbers that help you avoid moving up and down frequently.

Moving up slowly helps with confidence, cuts variance, and increases the win rate for most players.