Quick Tips for No Limit Bankroll Management - Game Selection
Know your limits. Improper bankroll management is all too common a problem. Many players have read recommendations of what levels to play in limit (usually in the range of 200X the big bet) but in no limit the big bet is the buy-in. Obviously 200X the buy-in isn’t a good place to adjust from, and 200X the big blind is almost completely irrelevant.
Understanding what kind of player you are will help you figure out what levels you can and should play.
Casual players with the ability to re-buy after the session is over can comfortably buy-in for 20% of their short term bankroll. The minimum a player should consider buying in for is 50x the big blind, less than that and you can’t play good poker. If that means you can only buy-in once because the game you want to play doesn’t have a smaller table then be prepared to go home early.
Casual players who intend to not need to re-buy for quite some time should consider a smaller buy-in proportionally to their bankroll. Ten buy-ins should be enough to ride out most swings. If you lose 5, then drop down a level, you can lose for a long time before your wife ever finds out. There is nothing wrong with playing a lower level after a bad run.
Professional players [using the term loosely to mean anyone who relies on withdrawals from their bankroll to pay some bills] need more of a net. If I bust my bankroll it means finding another job, if this is you then you need to take a lot of precautions about not having that worst case scenario happen. Don’t buy-in for more than 5% of your bankroll. That means for a $500 buy-in you shouldn’t consider playing with less than a $10,000 bankroll. If this means you can’t play $500 then don’t. If this means you can’t play $100 buy-in then maybe you should consider making poker a hobby until you get a bankroll built. You can’t afford to make withdraws to pay rent when your bankroll is less than $2000.
Keep in mind, there’s nothing wrong with beating up the $25NL game on partypoker until you build a better bankroll. I can honestly say I built my bankroll like that. Moving up too fast from there was my biggest mistake, don’t make the same mistake.
