Poker bankroll management (BRM) is the practice of keeping a dedicated pool of money set aside for poker and using clear rules to decide which stakes to play. Done right, it ensures you always have enough to weather normal variance without going broke.
The core rule is simple: always have at least 20 buy-ins for the stake you are playing. But good BRM goes further than that. This guide covers the full picture — how many buy-ins you actually need, when to move up and down, how to take shots at higher stakes, and how to handle downswings without blowing up your roll.
Welcome to this Quick Plays video on bankroll management. Bankroll management, also referred to as BRM, is a core principle that all successful poker players must understand and abide by. Knowing how to manage and allocate our bankroll keeps us in the game and away from being broke. So let’s explore this powerful concept…
You may have heard the popular poker adage “playing within your bankroll.” This phrase can mean two things:
As we all know, there is a lot of variance in poker. Sometimes everything goes right, and we feel like geniuses, and other times, everything goes wrong, and our opponents hit every flush draw against us. So it’s important that our bankroll can handle these common fluctuations (also known as variance).
The common rule for NL cash game players is 20BI. So if you play $1/$2 live cash games and buy in for 100bb, or $200, then you should have a bankroll of at least $4,000. And if you play $25NL on online and buy-in for 100bb then you should have a bankroll of at least $500. This rule ensures that you never buy-in at the table for more than 5% of your bankroll.
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Fix your poker math ASAPYour bankroll management should also reflect your poker goals and playing frequency.
If you play poker for fun and don’t rely on it for income, you can afford a less strict BRM strategy—but it’s still crucial to avoid playing stakes that could result in uncomfortable losses.
If poker is your primary income source, you must adopt a more disciplined approach:
Professionals also need to consider moving down in stakes when experiencing a downswing to preserve their bankroll.
For more advice on BRM and other considerations, read this in-depth guide for becoming a poker pro on RCP.
The idea is to have a big enough bankroll to withstand typical poker variance and lower your risk of ruin (aka risk of going broke). Now for a recreational player, this isn’t as big of a deal. If you play poker as a hobby you can always add to your bankroll later with paychecks and savings. And if you play as a hobby you don’t fully depend on poker winnings to support you.
Professional poker players on the other hand, ones who make most or all of their income from playing, will want much larger bankrolls. This is because they will take from their bankroll to pay their bills, they want an emergency fund in case things go wrong, and it’s really hard to play poker is you don’t have any money! And even more so for professional online players who play lots of tables and can easily have 20+ buy-ins spread across all of their games.
For professional players, I usually suggest closer to 50BI for live play and closer to 100BI for multitabling online. It’s conservative but better safe than sorry when your monetary livelihood depends on it.
The other aspect of “playing within your bankroll” is playing a level that your bankroll AND skills support. Just because you are a recreational player with $10k in the bank doesn’t necessarily mean you should be playing $400NL online. Sure, you have 25BI for it, more than the 20BI minimum, but if you can’t beat $400NL, what’s the point?
You’d be better off playing a smaller game that you have positive expected value in than playing a higher game that you’d lose in…even if your bankroll would allow you to play it. All of this talk about bankroll management assumes that you are a winning player. If someone is a losing player, making tons of common poker mistakes, then BRM would only prolong the time until they are broke.
But enough theory, let me really show you why BRM is vital:
Let’s say you only have $100 to your name and you sit in this $100NL game. As we know 1BI is nowhere close to good BRM, and here’s why. Say EP open-shoves for $100 and it folds to you with AA in the BB. This is a great situation and the easiest call in the world! And for whatever reason, villain shows us he has KK (instead of a poker range which contains KK along with a other starting hands) which we obviously crush.
However, like most poker situations, even though we are crushing our opponent he still has some equity and will win this hand a portion of the time. In fact, his KK has 18% equity against us which means not only will we lose 18% of the time…but we’ll actually be dead broke 18% of the time. And while this is an extreme example, just losing your poker bankroll 18% of the time would be awful. Again, it’s tough to play poker if you don’t have any poker money!
And just to show you something, here is a poker variance calculator from PokerDope.com If we plug in some simple numbers we can visualize possible downswings and variance within a sample. Let’s plug in a 3BB/100 winrate, a standard deviation of 75, and a sample size of 100k hands. You can change all of these numbers to match your own…such as if you know your WR is different or the standard deviation from your poker database is different.
But with these numbers, we see two big things:
First, notice the absolute worst performer in a 20 player simulation actually lost over 46buy-ins in this sample. It would be nice to be the player who ran +104 buy-ins…but we can’t all be huge luckboxes. So while 100k hands may seem like a lot, and even with a positive winrate, it’s possible to lose a lot of buy-ins due to significant runbad that none of us are exempt from.
And second is the possible downswings. If we stretch the sample size to 1 million hands we see a player can hit three huge downswings of 37, 37, and 35 buy-ins. If a professional only used a 20BI bankroll he could have easily been wiped out by standard variance. A recreational poker player doesn’t fully rely on poker income and can always supplement their bankroll…a professional player doesn’t have that luxury if poker is their main income.
Stop losses are predetermined limits that, when reached, prompt you to end a session.
Setting stop losses helps prevent small losses from spiraling into significant bankroll burners.
This tip becomes especially important if you struggle with tilt or other mental game issues. While easier to implement in live cash games, you can also set virtual stop losses for online play.
Adhere to your stop losses strictly to protect your bankroll and prevent emotional decision-making.
I also want to mention moving up and down real quick, since this is directly related to BRM. First, is that if you use BRM the chances of you going broke are very small. If you start playing 100NL online (fun fact: the ‘best online casinos’ in Finland are called parhaat netticasinot) with a $2K bankroll and overtime your bankroll drops to $1K, you should move down since you have a proper bankroll for 50NL. Assuming you keep moving down when your bankroll forces you to you would have to lose more than 50 buy-ins before you hit 2NL…which isn’t very likely for a winning player.
You may be wondering when and how to take shots with your bankroll. The truth is that most players tend to play the same limit for way too long and end up stagnating both their strategy and potential winrate as a result.
I personally suggest most players use a “15/2” BRM strategy.
Push play, and I’ll explain what this is:
Overall, the exact BRM strategy you use to take shots is based upon three main things:
I wouldn’t suggest that a losing player focus on taking shots. Rather, if you know you are currently a losing player, it would be best to focus on improving your strategy.
As for risk tolerance and your overall poker goals, these are very personal. However, even though most people have a fairly low-risk tolerance, I highly suggest you exercise this trait. Not that you should become a degenerate who is always on the verge of being broke, but never risking money without certainty is a great way to miss heaps of +EV opportunities.
Another reason why I suggest being so aggressive with taking shots, especially early on, is that the rake is brutal at lower limits. Even if you are crushing a winrate against other players in your game, if the rake is too high, it makes growing a sustainable bankroll nearly impossible.
So taking shots to hopefully minimize the amount of time you spend in the rake traps that are micro limit stakes is super valuable.
Drucker once said, “You can’t manage what you don’t measure.”
The same applies to your poker bankroll.
Keeping accurate and detailed records of your bankroll is essential for effective management. Maintain a record of your current bankroll, wins, losses, and overall performance at various stakes and formats. This helps you identify trends, make adjustments, and assess your progress over time. Utilize tools like PokerStack (iOS or Android) or PokerTracker 4 to simplify the record-keeping process.
Plus, you will need these records if you live in a country that requires you to file taxes on poker earnings.
Some top tools for tracking include:
These tools help players make data-driven decisions. But before buying PT4 or HM3, be sure that your online poker site allows for HH downloads and usage.
You need at least 20 buyins for $1/$2, which means $4,000 if the max buyin is $200. This gives you enough cushion to handle normal downswings without going broke or moving down under pressure.
The 20 buyin rule says you should have at least 20 full buyins for whatever stake you are playing. It is the standard minimum for live cash games. It protects you from going broke during normal variance while still giving you room to take shots at higher stakes when your bankroll grows.
Yes. If your bankroll drops below 15 buyins for your current stake, move down. This is not a sign of failure. It is the correct play. Moving down keeps your bankroll alive and gives you time to plug leaks before trying the higher stake again.
Yes, but you need to play at a stake where $500 represents at least 20 buyins. That means $0.25/$0.50 online (with $25 buyins) or the lowest available live game in your area. Playing $1/$2 live with only $500 puts you in financially dangerous territory.
Start at the lowest available stake, keep strict records, and only move up when you have 20 buyins for the next level. Withdraw winnings periodically but always maintain your 20 buyin floor. Patience here compounds fast. A $500 starting bankroll can reach $1/$2 in a reasonable timeframe if you are disciplined about game selection and stake sizing.
Yes. Tournaments require a much larger bankroll relative to buyin because variance is significantly higher. The standard recommendation is 100 buyins for tournaments. A player who regularly plays $100 tournaments should have $10,000 dedicated to their tournament bankroll.
Every poker player goes on downswings. Even winning players can lose 10, 15, or 20 buyins in a row due to variance alone. Knowing this in advance does not make it feel better, but it does help you respond correctly when it happens.
The first thing to check when you are running bad is whether variance is to blame or whether your play has slipped. These feel identical from inside a downswing. Pull up your hand history or session notes. Are you getting in good with the money and losing to bad beats? Or are you forcing spots, calling too wide, and making decisions you would not make when running well?
If it is variance, the answer is to stay the course, trust your process, and protect your bankroll by moving down if you hit your trigger point. If your play has slipped, the answer is to fix that first before putting more money on the table.
Practical steps during a downswing:
Move down in stakes when you hit 15 buyins for your current game. Do not wait until you are desperate. Moving down early keeps your bankroll alive and takes the pressure off your decisions.
Reduce session length. Tired, frustrated players make worse decisions. If you are losing and feel yourself forcing action, end the session. The table will still be there tomorrow.
Review sessions the next day, not the same night. Post-session review done immediately after a bad run is often emotionally charged and less useful. Sleep on it and look at the hands with fresh eyes.
Do not chase losses by moving up in stakes. This is the most common bankroll management failure. The idea that you can win it back faster at higher stakes is how small downswings become account-ending ones.
Downswings are part of the game. They are not a sign that poker is rigged or that you are not good enough. They are math. A proper bankroll absorbs them. An improper one does not.
BRM is a key principle of all winning poker players. Having enough money to keep you in the game and diminish your risk of ruin is huge. Don’t be an ego player. Play games you know you can win when you have the money to play them. If you don’t have the money or skill now, keep working to grow both your bankroll and ability.
And one last note, is that you don’t have to bring your whole bankroll with you at all times. Just because you have $4,000 to play $1/$2 live doesn’t mean you need to bring $4K in cash with you the casino. Just make sure you have the $4k set aside as your poker bankroll so you can weather the variance.
Same as always, if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to let me know. Otherwise, good luck and happy grinding!
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