What is Bankroll Management?

The emergence of online poker platforms has created an entirely new type of poker player. Usually these are young people from some corner of the world, who seem to appear from nowhere and work themselves up from the lowest to the highest limits within a very short time. Where others used to need half a lifetime, these people need just two or three years.

The career opportunity that online poker offers by being constantly available to the public also demands new qualities from the player himself, however. If you want to get ahead in online poker, you not only need to be a good player, you also need to be a good manager – your own manager.

Always see the money you take to a table with you as an investment, in the same way you would if you were buying shares. As someone who is responsible with their money, you would only buy those shares if they promised a good return and the risk of loss was manageable. It’s the same concept when you use bankroll management in poker.

It shows you what limits to invest in, i.e. how high your stakes should be, to find a good balance between your desire to...
... advance as far as possible when you win and collect a lot of money.
... not drop too far back when you lose and not lose too much of your poker money.

You want to make a lot of money when you win but not be hit too hard when you lose. This can be done by keeping to the '25-Buy-in-Bankroll Management' rule. It tells you how big your poker account (bankroll) has to be to move up a limit, and when you need to put on the brakes and move down a limit.

Bankroll management for the Big Stack Strategy looks like this:

You always join a table with a full stack (100 big blinds). 100 big blinds equal one buy-in.