Managing a bankroll

I've been playing online for about 4 years now, and have had some really good and really bad runs. When things are going well, I can slowly and methodically build my bankroll, constantly finishing in the money in tournaments and showing profits on the cash games. But most of the time, as soon as I hit a losing streak, I'll either play larger limits to win back my money, or if nothing else, stay at the same limits (putting a larger % of my bankroll at risk).

I know this problem is nothing new to the poker world, but I wanted to hear some strategies on how different people handle bad beats, losing streaks, etc and effectively build a bankroll by staying within certain limits (I've read and tried systems like Chris Ferguson's rules when he went from $0 to $10k). Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Since I am mostly a tourny player, I will usually jump right to the cash game and just play rock soliid poker. I will sometimes also play 1 table sit and go to build my bankroll back up. I do occasionally tilt, but in a controlled way. Overbetting monsters and making people think I am on tilt, which I am but in a good way. I will also multi table to try and play out of a slump. Hope this helps....gl.

the biggest thing and what your problem was is actually getting up the strength to move DOWN in limits, no one wants to, and its not at all fun, but in order to not lose your BR you must do this, and you will actually feel better later by still having and maintaining a br!

Here's a post that sums it up pretty well:

If you follow this, as your BR slides, you'll have to drop lower limits which slows the slide since you're risking less each time... for a long slide you may drop down for a while, but once it turns again you'll quickly move back up.

Having a strict set of rules on how you will manage BR will be very useful to you. Try writing the BR you need for different limits down on paper and then following that quite rigidly.

When you're on a loosing streak, such as I have been in tournaments lately, you just need to go to the tables knowing that you can win in the long term.

At some point you will start to think in terms of how you played hands rather than how lucky you got. Forexample I know that I played really well in tournaments today and yesterday, but I also know what sort of adjustments I have to make to my game (especially in my 6-max tournament game).

online poker for the most part is all about utilizing your streaks good and bad. when you're on a cold streak, you can't win hands and that's just a fact. you have to think of poker as a long term committment. its very hard to profit every single day, although some of us do. after you suffer a bad beat you CANNOT jump to higher stkaes to win it back, more times than not you'll be broke within a half hour. you just have to face that facts that bad beats happen and if it's really bothering you then get off for an hour to cool down. it's all psychological. jumping to higher stakes is the worst thing u can do after a bad beat. you don't play nearly the same as when you started. trust me i know.

if you want to play and i mean play consistantly every day, managing your bankroll will be by far the biggest key to success. you have to play within your bankroll. for example, i play $110 sit and goes and 2/4 pl omaha. i always make sure i keep atleast $5000 - 7000 in my account. bad beats happen and yeah it can clean waht u got on the table out, but you have to have enuff money left in reserve to rebuy and win it back, but win it back smartly.