Bankroll managment

I have a question on how to properly manage my bankroll. I started on pokerstars 2 weeks ago with a mininum deposit at started playing in the $1 doller sit and go's 45 players paying the top 7, mainly in an effort to improve my game, I usually play 1 or 2 games a night, now my br is at $180. I want to move up in limits but i need to know what limits to play so I dont ruin all my hard work in 2 or 3 evenings.
Any suggestions on this would be great.

I would be very cautious about moving up into the more expensive games. Last year I started on Party Poker with the minimum deposit and turned it into 400 bucks in 2 weeks. Moved up to the more expensive games (like 3/6 NL) and I was broke in a day. At the higher limits it only takes a few bad plays to wipe you out.

I would consider moving up to 2 or 5 buck buy in tourneys as this is what I play now.

Try some of those 18 or 27 people $5 SNGs.
The skill level is not much different from the $1.
There may be a few less maniacs so the play is a little more predictable.

If you start doing badly you can always step back down to $1.

Good luck mate.

If you are gonna move up then maybe start off by playing some limit ring games. This way you wont go broke and if you get burnt you can walk away without throwing the lot

Also, try some 5/6/8 table STT's and see how that goes. I have been pretty succesfull at these and if you are a reasonably ok player, you will normally do ok

Good luck

In reading on the subject of poker bankrolls, there seems to be a pretty wide range of opinions. I have seen the recommendation of 350 times the big blind of the ring game you're playing, down to 150 times the big blind. I have also seen the total of the betting round used (sb+BB). I personally split the difference and use 200 x BB as my guideline.

Now remember, this isn't how much money you should take to the table with you. You NEVER want to take your entire bankroll to any one table for a single session. A run of cold cards can wipe you completely out, no matter how skilled you may be. This formula is designed to give you an idea of what level of game you should be concentrating on, based upon your total available funds.

Using the 200-blind guideline, a player with $180 in poker money should be realistically playing nothing larger than the .50/1.00 table, and even that's a bit of a stretch. The .25/.50 tables are going to be more comfortable for that sized bankroll.

Some adjustment should also be made for tournament activity. Let's say that you've decided to devote half of your $200 bankroll to tournaments and half to ring games. The general rule of thumb is to divide your tournament bankroll by 10 buy-ins. So, in this $200 split-bankroll scenario, you would not play anything larger than a $10 buy-in with your $100 in tourney money, nor play any ring games larger than .25/.50. with your $100 in table money.

Many thanks for that bit of advise rammerjammer, I'm going to try a few $5 sit & go's over the weekend and see how I get on. I don't really want to be playing $1 games for the rest of my life. I let ye know how i get on !

Thanks for sharing, Irish. That rough lesson demonstrates perfectly the soundness of the "200 x BB" guideline. The 3/6 tables shouldn't be tackled with anything smaller than a $1200 bankroll, if you buy into the concept. Dave stepped up too quickly, with a scant 1/3 of the recommended funds, and found out the hard way how rapidly what appears to be a decent chunk of change can evaporate. Live and learn. I made the same mistake several times early on in my internet play. Some of us are more stubborn than others.

Another important dynamic of bankroll management along with, how much of it should be in play at any time, and what tables you should play at based on the size of your bankroll is how much you should allow yourself to lose at any one sitting.

This is summarized from an article by Annie Duke:
"When I first started playing poker, my big brother gave me a great piece of advice. He told me to never lose more than 30 big bets in a game, give or take. That means I shouldn't lose more than $180 in a $3-$6 game, $600 in a $10-$20 game and so on. What a great piece of advice that was, one of the most important he ever gave me for money management,...
...One thing the 30 bet rule does for you is limit your losses in games where you might be the sucker. Until you are able to accurately judge how you play compared to others in your game, loss limiting with the 30 bet rule effectively stops you from dumping off large sums of money in games you may not be able to beat. This is always a good strategy for bankroll health!...
...When you are losing, your table image erodes and table image is very important to how much money you can take out of a game. Other players are also more likely to play hands strong and fast against you, bluff at you and generally will be more likely to run you down which will take away your ability to bluff. All of this really eats into your earnings....
By limiting your losses to 30 big bets, you are effectively minimizing the time you spend playing with a poor table image, playing passively, or steaming at the table and maximizing the amount of time you spend playing your A-game. If you don't go beyond 30 big bets, you won't dump off large sums when you are playing poorly or are in a bad game and might not be able to soundly assess your circumstances. Loss limiting acts as an objective stop-gap...."

I have taken this to heart and assure myself of the 30 bet limit by not coming to the table with more than that amount. I'm not the most disciplined poker player in the world or Cardschat for that matter, and I probably lose more than I win. But a $30 deposit now lasts me a month rather than an hour. The dollar a day I lose is well worth the value of the entertainement I get in return.

No LIMIT 50 cents/ 1 doller blinds

i play whatever limits fit 10/20 times into my bankroll

so say i got$200 ill only play $10 or $20 RING GAMES

until that is my build is my bankroll up again,


at the moment worked my bankroll up so i am able to be at $25/50 blind tables with max buy in of $50

and am allmost once again able to play 50/1$ blind tables.

(**If you didn't guess i once built my bank roll to quite a healthy amount then decided to move up in the poker world to big limits and lost big amounts of my BR, ive spent a month starting from bottom again but am now back up!**)

I have had bad luck keeping my bankrolls, Pacific poker gave me a 100 dollar bonus, i made 130 and cashed out the 30, then i lost the remaining bonus money in just one night. I would reccomend playing micro limit tables untill you feel like u can handle the higher stakes. Also, the low buy in heads up tourneys are great to try out.

thanks for all the advise , over the weekend i progressed to the 5$ sit and gos on pokerstars played 6 games in all, 1 bad beat and 1 game where i just got rags rags rags. But i won one of them and came in 3rd in the rest, so im happy enough at this level for a few weeks, the level of skill is a little bit better put generally these games seem to have a lot of fish, especially after 11pm or so !!!!!

Hi mate,

Well done on progressing. You will find the level a bit better but as the tables are smaller and they are SnG's you will get a better feel for your opponents, as you wont be moved all over the place

Where you said about their being fish - you will find that in small table SnG's players will call the BB if they can see the flop, hoping to hit something. It might not be that they are bad players, its just cheap to see if you can hit something and also players are less likely just to chuck all their chips in like in MTT's.

So dont be afraid to make call the BB quite a lot early tourney, the blinds are small and if you hit something you can quickly get a nice stack and this will normally take you through to either 1st or 2nd place.

Good luck

Once again thanks for the advice, I tend to play tight at the beginning of a sit and go and let the lunatics at it for the first 10 or so hands, when I do enter a pot i tend to do so raising, but as a variance in play ill try and limp in a few times in the early stages and see how i get on !!

It's really hard to stop at a set limit sometimes,,especially if your in the middle of a winning streak

Okay, I'm confused. The minimum buy-in on a $10/$20 No Limit Hold 'Em ring game is going to be $500. The minimum buy-in at a $25/$50 NLHE ring game is going to be $1000.

So, do you mean you're playing dime/20-cent and quarter/half-dollar tables? (In which case, you're using your $200 appropriately.)

Or are you completely full of s**t and wasting our time by posting nonsense? (In which case, you should just go away.)