is a bankroll totally necessary?

hey guys, first post for me. searched a lot on the forum, but didnt find exactly what i was looking for? im 21 years old, and i've been playing 1/2 NL hold em for about 3 years now, and not to brag, but im really good, ive made a lot of money, and ya, ive had my share of luck... and again, not to brag, but i bring home appx $700 per week. I have more than enough to pay the bills, and i always stash some away in my savings account. anyways, whenever i play poker, the money i buy in with is always extra cash that i have on me. I play poker 3-5 times per week, i keep everything logged, and can afford it. What im getting at, is im trying to get an answer for the question... Do i really need a bankroll? i mean, from what ive always known, a bankroll is money, set aside just for poker, to play the game with. And anything over the player's required bankroll, is profit. but really, its always profit for me, or its just a small loss. So do i really need a bankroll for the way i play, and the funds i already have?

Welcome

You will always have a bankroll, as the money you play with is your bankroll, but whether you decide to separate it out and use it to decide what level of games to play at is up to you

I find it useful to keep it separate, see how it goes up and down, and use it as part of my goal-setting process - but at the end of the day we're all different

somehow i dont understand what ur saying

but let me put it this way
bankroll=money= funds to play poker with
no money= no bankroll= no real money games

This is the thing that happens with a lot of players that are relatively new to the game. Your on what we call a "heater", which means your playing well, not getting any overly bad beats put on you, and hitting flops. Heaters can anything up to 100K hands. A "Cooler" is quite the opposite, this is when your sets are running into bigger sets, your AA is continually getting cracked and no matter what you do you can't win, some of the best players in the world have gone through coolers lasting over a year, and im talking full time professional players here.

Hence the reason for a bankroll, poker by nature is a very swingy game, you have lots of ups (as your doing right now) and lots of downs. You need your bankroll to cover you on one of these losing streaks so you can stay in the game.

Oh your not as good as you think you are.

ok, so everything ive won in the past 3 years, is just luck? trust me, ive had my share of bad beats, aces cracked by junk, and im not on a "heater". i dont always win, but i am pretty far ahead with my winnings. all im saying, if my first post was too confusing... is that poker of course, is not my main source of income. It is not my proffession, and the money in my pocket has basically been my bankroll. i was just wondering if it would help me in any way to set up a bankroll strictly for poker, or if sticking the buyin and profits back in my pocket is alright too? oh, and thanks tenbob... never said i was great, but i am a good player. im respected at my casino, and have a reputation as a player not too many want to get involved with... but i never claimed to be something great... also, i dont think playing for 3 years qualifies me as a "new" player anymore, especially with the amount of seat time i DO have... so dont assume please

I don't think tenbob was trying to be an ass, he's just making a tongue-in-cheek statement. None of us are as good as we think we are. Surely you can agree with that?

As for the bankroll issue, I think what you're doing is fine if it's working for you. If you are serious about it though, I would recommend giving yourself a set amount to play with, and then keep track of your wins/losses. You say that you've been recording everything? If so, did you know you can claim your losses on your taxes (if you live in the US). If you decide to set a finite bankroll for yourself, make sure to follow proper bankroll management to help protect it.

Time to move up to 2/5 nl and see how you do, you should be able to beat that game.

my casino doesnt have 2-5 when i play... all they have is 1/2 NL, 3-6 limit, and pot limit omaha. thanks for the replies

You're young, and all this looks like gravy to you. 3 years on the plus side speaks for itself.

BUT!

You should probably separate out some amount of those winnings, say $1000 and call that a bankroll. Track that , use it to keep score. Make every conceivable effort to use only that money. When you cash out big, note that in your records. When you have to replenish out of your own pocket, note that.

The answer to your original question would have to be, NO, if you have deep deep pockets, and money means little to you, then why bother with any BR management. But if you are like MOST of the poker playing populace, then you should be managing that money. Perhaps a particular goal would help you focus. Make enough money to pay cash for a house, pay cash for a car, and pay cash into a long term annuity so you can do nothing but play poker without stress the rest of your life.

thank you! thats the input i was needing!!! thanks man, i appreciate it.

i'm kinda like jackofspades in a way. i don't set aside money for poker, i just to the casino and gamble with extra cash I have. anything i win, i end up spending, i think we are more of just recreational poker players versus the amateur players. so we are in different leagues. bankroll management helps to track your wins and lose but that doesn't really matter if your just playing for fun but happen to be good and a winner.
therefore, if you want to step up your game, starting developing a bankroll, move up the limits and improve your play

I'd say you should have a separate bankroll and keep track of it I'd recommend more than $1k for a bankroll preferably around $5k and keep a lot of it in various length CDs arrayed by how likely you are to need to take the money out based in a specific period of time, if you're running well you won't need to touch a lot of it and it will gain interest for you there, and if you need it you can pull it losing the interest on it. Since you're likely to be playing with only small portion of your bankroll at any time if you're using proper bankroll management techniques this would be an easy way to gain from the unused portion of your bankroll, while be able to keep it relatively liquid.

so how much should my bankroll be at to play a 2-5 NL table? 5-10? 10-20?

Playing live is a little different than online, the players are worse, and the action slower. I always use a 5% rule for my online br and 10% for my live one.

So for 2-5NL you need $5,000
For $5/$10 NL youd need $10,000
And for $10/$20 youd need $20K

Oh fyi I'm playing well over 10 years now, and I still consider myself new. Oh and welcome to the forum.

I prefer a pretty conservative strategy for bankroll size, as you can invest the other money that you're not playing with and not have to worry about being priced out of a juicy game if one comes up. So I generally keep more than is generally recommended. If you're looking for optimal bankroll management and you know your average rate of return and variance in different games you might want to check out the Kelly criterion, which is described in chapter 24 of The Mathematics of Poker (if you don't want to buy it, you can just read up on it Borders or something and take notes.) But the important thing is to make sure you feel comfortable with your bankroll size and make it work for you as much as possible.

As Mike Caro is fond of pointing out, if your bankroll is easily replaced, you should be more willing to risk it (perhaps all at once). So, if your "bankroll" is just any left over money you happen to have after you pay your bills, then sure, risk it all by buying in. Then, when you have more left over later, same thing. The only issues that would arise would be when you want to play but don't currently have that left over money, or if there is some kind of extra juicy game that you can't get into for the same reason. Since you don't rely on poker to play your bills, and we will assume you don't have a gambling addiction, then you don't ever really "need" to play, and can simply do so when you have funds on hand.

Ed Miller article about "budgeting" for poker instead of having a bankroll here (addresses this issue, although in this case we will assume that our OP is a winning player and simply spends what he makes from poker on cars and TVs ).