Published on
Update on
Author

To excel at poker and become a successful player, one of the things that you will need to pay close attention to is bankroll management. I have played quite a number of casino games and poker happens to be one of those with a pretty high degree of variance. That said, proper money management is vital in helping you to deal with the variance.

The goal in poker is to either make some profit from your gaming sessions or to continue playing for as long as you can without going broke – achieving this without a proper bankroll poker management strategy can be a very difficult task.

5 Tips on Bankroll Management

So, how exactly do you go about managing your online poker bankroll? Well, here are some great tips that will help you do just that regardless of whether you are playing online, live, or creating a bankroll for tournament poker:

  1. Create A Separate Balance for Your Poker Bankroll
  2. Select Your Games and Tables Carefully
  3. Always Play Within Bankroll
  4. Know When to Be Aggressive and When to Lower Your Stakes
  5. Track Your Poker Gaming Sessions

1. Create A Separate Balance for Your Poker Bankroll

This essentially calls for poker players to treat the game of poker like a business. By extension, this means that their poker bankrolls are investments.

Image of Separate Balance for your poker bankroll

As such, the bankroll needs to be separated from other personal finances. By so doing, you will never need to worry about losing all of your money if the odds do not favor you, which is very likely to happen from time to time. Moreover, you will also have more peace of mind which will let you concentrate on making the right moves instead of worrying about losing all of your money.

When setting aside the amount you wish to wager at the poker tables you should be very reasonable with the general rule of thumb being that you should not set aside more than you are willing to lose.

2. Select Your Games and Tables Carefully

Image of selecting your poker games and tables

There are so many different types of poker and at the casino that you will be playing at, there will likely be multiple tables where you can play. Ideally, the table that you chose to play at should be the one where you feel most confident that you have a good chance of winning.

For beginners a great place to start would be at the tables with the lowest possible rakes but as you advance you will need to be aware of your edge against your opponents. You can also look into finding games with beatable rakes or with rakeback perks for an even greater chance of making some profit or playing for longer.

3. Always Play Within Bankroll

Image of always playing within your bankroll

As you may have noticed, the first two tips lead up to this one. In my experience, this is perhaps the most challenging decision that poker enthusiasts have to make when at the poker tables.

The temptation to take a stab at higher stakes when things are going really well is almost irresistible. Even in cases where you are losing, you may be tempted to spend more than what is in your bankroll to, hopefully, offset your losses. As tough as remaining disciplined may be in such a situation, it is imperative that you stick to your guns and ensure that you do not go over what you set aside in your bankroll. This is especially important when playing in tournaments and correct bankroll management in poker tournaments will allow your money to go further.

4. Know When to Be Aggressive and When to Lower Your Stakes

Image of when to be aggressive and when to lower your stakes

Now, as much as keeping your bankroll intact is important throughout your gaming session, it is also very important to be very strategic about the decisions you make. Most notably, you have to be willing to take calculated risks and make decisions based on how those risks impact your poker bankroll. This will mostly come down to how robust your overall poker strategy is.

On the flip side, you should also be willing to drop in stakes even in cases where your bankroll allows you to play higher. You will not always need to do this, but when the circumstance calls for it, you should be ready to make a decision that you will be willing to live with.

5. Track Your Poker Gaming Sessions

Image of tracking your poker gaming sessions

Some people may argue that monitoring your poker bankroll all through the duration of your gaming adventure could lead to poor or emotional decision-making. That is not entirely accurate.

To begin with, you should completely keep your emotions out of it. Secondly, keeping a poker journal and/or tracking your sessions can go a long way in helping you in managing your bankroll better. Not only will you be able to identify the poker games or tables that you fare best in, but you will also figure out which areas you need to improve in.

Thankfully, this has been made much easier thanks to the existence of several amazing apps that are designed to make a poker pro out of you.

Poker Bankroll Tracker Solutions

As mentioned above, one of the best ways of managing your poker bankroll is by tracking your gaming activities. Keeping a journal of your gaming activities can be pretty daunting especially if you play a lot of poker games. However, this does not have to be the case, thanks to several fantastic poker bankroll tracking software. With these, poker players no longer need to manually log each of the gaming sessions. Still, they can use any of the amazing tracking software that track gaming activities and go a step further by analyzing your performance. Your poker gaming is about to get yet another big boost.

List of Poker Bankroll Trackers

PokerCharts.com, a web-based poker bankroll tracking platform, is easily one of the most polished trackers on the internet. The site allows its users to figure out hourly rates, visualize their wins and losses and even sort out their results based on game type. All this goodness is free to try and only $2 per month once the trial period comes to an end.

Another great web-based poker bankroll tracking software is Poker Dominator. It is mostly known for a special feature that allows players to import hands from PokerTracker thus enabling them to easily track their bankrolls. It is also free to use which may make it a great option for just about anyone.

For mobile poker players, one of the most notable trackers is Poker Bankroll Tracker by Filavision. Available for both iOS and Android devices, this amazing has tons of features and supports multiple variants of poker gaming. It even allows you to connect with friends and watch their live sessions which you will hopefully learn something from. To top it all off, the free version of the app is pretty good but there is an even more advanced Pro version for those looking for the ultimate poker gaming experience.