How Not to Suck at Poker: Have a Proper Bankroll

Don’t Play on Scared Money

One of the most common ways players suck at poker is playing with scared money.

If you’re scared to lose the money in front of you, or you simply can’t afford to lose it, it’s impossible to play a very strong game of No-Limit Hold’em.

You have to be willing to put every chip you have in front of you across the line at any time. If a player knows you’re not willing to risk your chips, they’re going to walk all over you.

Even if the other players don’t catch on to your un-willingness to risk your chips, you’ll be unable to pull the trigger when the time comes to make a bluff or difficult call you know to be correct.

Example:

Imagine you sit down at a $1/$2 No-Limit Hold’em table with $200, which you can’t really afford to lose. Partway through the session, you face a tricky spot: You raise preflop from the cutoff with A Q , and the big blind reraises all-in for $150 more.

Even though your read suggests the big blind might be pushing with a weaker ace or small pair, you start second-guessing your decision because you’re afraid of losing. Instead of making the mathematically sound call, you fold out of fear. This hesitation often leads to missed opportunities and keeps you from making correct plays over the long run.

Related Reading:

• How to Manage a Poker Bankroll | Bankroll Calculator

A Poker Bankroll Must Sustain Losing Streaks

The final reason all poker players need a bankroll is to avoid going completely busto. Regardless of how well you play the game you’re going to have periods of time where no matter what you seem to do, you just can’t post a win.

Some of the world’s best players have endured months of straight losses. For this reason you need a bankroll large enough to sustain these losses and allow you to continue playing until you earn the money back on your next upswing.

If the size of your roll will leave you broke after one or even a few concurrent losses, you’re simply gambling that you don’t start your poker timeline off on a downswing.

If you start to lose significantly the best thing you can do is to drop down in levels. That way, even though your BR is lower than where it was when you started, the ratio of your roll to buy-ins for the game you’re playing stays healthy.

If you still can’t win even after dropping down in limits it might just be time to take a break. Clear your head and come back to the game fresh.

Poker Bankroll Rule of Thumb

The rule of thumb for a cash-game bankroll is to never have more than 5% of your entire roll in play at one time. This means a 20 buy-in minimum for single-table cash games, and more for multi-tabling.

In a tournament setting you typically want over 100 buy-ins to the tournaments you want to play. So if you’re playing $5+50¢ tournaments, you want $550 as your roll.

This almost ensures that (as long as you don’t suck) you will never go busto.

A Poker Bankroll is a Slow Build, Not a Race

Yes, the stories you’ve heard from your poker playing buddies are true. There are some people who deposited $100 online and within a couple of years had $1m+ bankrolls and were playing some of the highest-stakes available.

This is not the norm. And it’s not very likely it’ll happen to you.

Back in the early days of the online poker boom (2004-2006) this might have been a semi-common story but it certainly isn’t the experience for most every poker player in the world.

Most poker players, in fact, never even advance past the micro-stakes. But there certainly are ways you can build a nice, profitable poker bankroll over time with solid practice and good money management skills.

Example:

Consider you start at $0.25/$0.50 No-Limit Hold’em with a $500 bankroll. You focus on consistently outplaying weaker opponents and gradually move up to $0.50/$1 once you’ve built your roll to $1,000 or more. Each time you hit a comfortable target, you take a shot at higher stakes. If the shot fails and you lose a few buy-ins, you simply drop back down to regroup. This cautious but steady approach is how most winning players grow their bankrolls.

Related Reading:

• 5 Rules to Save Your Online Poker Bankroll

There’s Poker Money and There’s Life Money

We can’t stress enough how important it is to keep those two things separate.

The added stress playing for money you need to get by everything is more than enough to keep you from playing your best poker game. And simply not something you’d ever want to experience.

If you’re playing online poker and you don’t want to keep re-depositing, follow our guidelines and give yourself the best chance of never going broke. 

Related Bankroll Strategy Articles:

• Your Bankroll Part 1: How Many Buy Ins Should You Have?

Modern Game Types

Some specialized formats, such as fast-fold poker or short-deck Hold’em, can produce far greater swings than traditional full-ring No-Limit Hold’em. This means that even a solid player with a well-sized bankroll must be ready to endure extended downswings. You can employ tracking software or more advanced statistical models to better understand the higher variance inherent in these games. Armed with this data, you might increase the recommended buy-in requirements from twenty to thirty for a given cash-game format, or push your tournament buy-in threshold above one hundred.

In higher-stakes environments, external factors like player skill pools, time of day, and table selection can significantly alter your short-term results. Sometimes, stepping down a level or two, even if you can afford bigger games, can optimize profit until you gain sufficient experience or information on your opponents.

Risk Management and Evolving Strategies

Bankroll management doesn’t operate in a vacuum. As your skill level improves and you become more familiar with advanced topics like ICM (Independent Chip Model) or GTO (Game Theory Optimal) strategies, you may find it beneficial to size your bankroll in anticipation of aggressive moves. This might mean having a deeper reserve to support high-variance tactics, such as large multi-barrel bluffs or wide 3-bet ranges.

Simultaneously, you need to recognize when it is wise to tighten up your gameplay to protect against sudden losses. While being overly tight in a good game can cost you, mixing in periods of lower-variance play is often a useful tactic to stabilize your bankroll after a rough patch. Balancing aggression with prudence helps smooth out the inherent volatility of poker, enabling you to thrive over the long run.