The Texas Holdem Party Guide on how to Manage Your Bankroll

In Poker and games like Texas Holdem how to manage your bankroll is an essential skill and is arguably the most important aspects of being a winning poker player. Without it, the best players in the world would lose their bankroll.  Poor bankroll management is the reason so many otherwise good players go broke.

Bankroll management is essentially where you play at certain limits depending on the size of your bankroll to avoid losing it due to a bad run of cards. If you play “under rolled” (to high a level for your bankroll) then there is a much greater chance you will go broke.

In essence a players bankroll is there to absorb variance. Variance is the term used to describe the ups and downs of good and bad cards, resulting in varying profits. All players who play long enough will experience variance, times where you are still making the correct decisions, however the cards are not going your way. Your bankroll has to be big enough to be able to cope with these inevitable poor periods of cards.

 

Bankroll management table

 

Moving up or down

There will be times when due to variance your bankroll becomes too small for the level you are currently playing at. When this occurs you should drop down a level, continue playing within your bankroll and concentrate on building your way back up a level.

Also if you have reached a high enough level to support the next level in limits then if you feel confident enough, by all means move up. A drop back down will be required if you find yourself loosing.

“Taking a shot” is a term used in poker by where you test out a high limit slightly “under rolled” just to see how well you do. It’s not a bad tactic to employ just make sure that most on the time you play you are practising proper bankroll management.

In addition, if your bankroll is big enough to handle the next limit up, then it makes sense to move up to that limit if you feel you can beat it. Just be sure to drop back down to the lower limit if you experience significant losses.