💰 Bankroll management
the skill that keeps you in the game
Bankroll management is the unglamorous skill that separates players who last from players who go broke. Poker has huge short-term swings, so even a winning player can lose for weeks. Managing your bankroll means only risking a small slice of it at once, so variance can’t end your run.
Your bankroll is money set aside for poker and nothing else — not rent, not savings, poker only. It isn’t your chip stack in one game; it’s the fuel tank for your whole career. Every good habit in poker starts with protecting it.
Why does it need protecting? Variance. Even the best players lose most of the tournaments they enter — that’s normal, because one first place can pay for many misses. But it means anyone, however skilled, can hit a long losing stretch. Your bankroll is the cushion that lets your skill survive the swings.
The working rule is counted in buy-ins: how many entries your roll covers at a given stake. Soft, small games need around 15 buy-ins of cushion; tougher fields swing harder, so a healthy roll needs 25–30+. Playing above that isn’t forbidden — it’s called taking a shot, and it’s fine when it’s deliberate: a small slice of your roll, with a plan to move back down if it misses.
What bankroll management is not: chasing. Losing a few buy-ins and jumping up in stakes “to win it back fast” is the classic way rolls die. Moving down after a rough patch isn’t a defeat — it’s the professional move that keeps you in the game.
💡 Key idea: never play stakes where losing one buy-in would hurt your decisions. Scared money plays bad poker — a right-sized bankroll is what lets you play fearless and focused. (Watch the event cards in your career: they warn you when a buy-in is a thin roll or a shot.)
The core idea is buy-ins of cushion. A common guideline is 20–30 buy-ins for cash games and 50–100 for tournaments (which swing far harder). If your bankroll is $1,000 and you keep 25 buy-ins, you play $40 games — not the $200 game where a couple of bad nights wipes you out. When your roll grows, you move up; when it shrinks, you move down without ego.
The math behind it is simple: a positive edge only pays off if you get to keep playing. Bet too big a fraction of your roll and a normal downswing — which will happen — busts you before your edge can show up. Bankroll rules aren’t about being scared; they’re about staying in the game long enough for skill to win.
Questions
How big should my poker bankroll be?
A common rule is 20–30 buy-ins for cash games and 50–100 for tournaments, because tournament results swing much harder. The safer you are, the deeper the cushion you keep.
Why do good poker players still go broke?
Usually not from bad play but from playing too high for their bankroll. Variance guarantees losing stretches; risking too large a share of your roll turns a normal downswing into a bust-out.