Bankroll Management

Making good decisions is what sets winning poker players apart from the losers. If you can consistently find the right line and then execute it, then you’ll have no problem raking in the chips.

However, there’s more than just figuring out whether to raise, check, call, or bet. One decision that you need to keep in mind is bankroll management. This means that you need to be careful about how many chips you’re bringing to the table and how many you have left overall.

Simply put, a bankroll is the total amount of chips that are available to you. Whether you have 5,000 or 5,000,000 chips, you still want to take good care of your bankroll to ensure your continued success.

It’s All About the Mental Game

The big reason that we care about bankroll is because it affects our mental game. Have you ever played a game where you felt like you had everything on the line? Even if the right decision was to go all-in, then you might have held back because you didn’t want to stop playing the game.

That’s why you should make sure that you only bring a small fraction of your total chips to the table. For instance, if you have 10,000 chips, then buy-in for 500 chips. That way it’s no big deal if you lose. You can simply reach back into your bankroll and buy back into the game.

Cut Your Losses

Bankroll management will also help you to cut your losses. Especially if you’re the type of player who can tilt off and have a hard time dealing with losses, then you can use bankroll management to mitigate that damage.

If, for example, you have 500,000 chips, then you can set a rule for yourself that you’ll only go through 10,000 of them in a single session. Maybe you buy-in for 2,000 chips. Then, if you lose five stacks, you quit the game before you tilt off any more chips.

By being careful with your poker bankroll, you can make sure that you’re always bringing your A game to the table.