Bankroll management in online poker???

koalapanda said:

It really depends on your goal and whether you can easily re-deposit:
Aggressive (Shot-Taking / Rec Player): ~20 buy-ins for Cash / 50 buy-ins for MTTs. Works if you don't mind re-depositing if you bust.
Conservative (Pro / Building from $0): 50–100 buy-ins for Cash / 150–200+ buy-ins for MTTs. Essential to protect against bad swings.
There are also plenty of free bankroll calculator tools online and threads right here in the CardsChat Strategy sub-forum if you want to dive deeper into the math!

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Conservative bankroll management is for professional / semi-professional players and especially those playing in tough mid or high stakes games, where edges/winrates are small, and its a disaster to lose a significant percentage of your bankroll. If you are playing with a small bankroll ("Building from $0"), you want to get your bankroll growing, and for that reason being a bankroll nit is almost as bad as ignoring bankroll management completely.

You are playing in very soft games, so you should have a high winrate, which reduce the size of the required bankroll. And you also dont have much to lose (literally), since it should not be that big of a deal, if you need to make another small deposit. Maybe you would rather not, but everything else being equal, its a whole lot easier and less painfull to find $100 to replace a lost bankroll rather than $1.000 or $10.000.

So dont be a bankroll nit in the micros. Until you have a bankroll of at least $500, you want to be in "Shot-taking" mode trying to move to 5NL, when you have $100-120 and to 10NL, when you have $200-250. For MTTs you typically want to play a mix of buy-ins, and with <$500 its completely reasonable to take at least a few "shots" for up to 2% of your bankroll.

Then at some point you might find, that your bankroll has outgrown your skill level, or that it just does not make sense for you to try to move up further right now, because games dont run that often, or moving up will drive up variance more than your hourly winrate. And then this is the time, where you move to conservative bankroll management and perhaps consider withdrawing some of your winnings as well.

Without a proper approach to bankroll management, even strong players can face serious financial losses. Understanding the principles of bankroll management is not just an additional skill, but a necessary part of successful poker play over the long term.That's why in poker it's not just your skill level that matters, but also how you manage your money, i.e., bankroll management.In poker, it's not just about being able to win, but also being able to survive the periods when you're losing by playing correctly.

fundiver199 said:

Conservative bankroll management is for professional / semi-professional players and especially those playing in tough mid or high stakes games, where edges/winrates are small, and its a disaster to lose a significant percentage of your bankroll. If you are playing with a small bankroll ("Building from $0"), you want to get your bankroll growing, and for that reason being a bankroll nit is almost as bad as ignoring bankroll management completely.

You are playing in very soft games, so you should have a high winrate, which reduce the size of the required bankroll. And you also dont have much to lose (literally), since it should not be that big of a deal, if you need to make another small deposit. Maybe you would rather not, but everything else being equal, its a whole lot easier and less painfull to find $100 to replace a lost bankroll rather than $1.000 or $10.000.

So dont be a bankroll nit in the micros. Until you have a bankroll of at least $500, you want to be in "Shot-taking" mode trying to move to 5NL, when you have $100-120 and to 10NL, when you have $200-250. For MTTs you typically want to play a mix of buy-ins, and with <$500 its completely reasonable to take at least a few "shots" for up to 2% of your bankroll.

Then at some point you might find, that your bankroll has outgrown your skill level, or that it just does not make sense for you to try to move up further right now, because games dont run that often, or moving up will drive up variance more than your hourly winrate. And then this is the time, where you move to conservative bankroll management and perhaps consider withdrawing some of your winnings as well.

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100% agree with this philosophy, especially at micro stakes. Being overly conservative at 2NL or 5NL traps players in high-rake hell for way too long.


That said, aggressive shot-taking only works if you have two key rules locked down:

1. Strict Discipline to Drop Back Down: A "shot" isn't a permanent move. If you lose 2 or 3 buy-ins at the higher stake, you must drop back down immediately to rebuild without tilting.
2. An Actual Edge: Shot-taking speeds up bankroll growth only if you're already a winning player. If your foundational strategy has leaks, aggressive BRM just accelerates going broke faster.

If losing $50 or $100 isn't life-changing money for you to reload, taking aggressive shots with 20–25 buy-ins is easily the fastest way to climb out of the micros.

koalapanda said:

1. Strict Discipline to Drop Back Down: A "shot" isn't a permanent move. If you lose 2 or 3 buy-ins at the higher stake, you must drop back down immediately to rebuild without tilting.

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This is true. If you have set a limit like 20 BIs for cash, then you must move back down to 5NL, if you drop below $200 and to 2NL, if you drop below $100. So maybe you started a session with $230 and decided to play 10NL, because you were feeling good and/or you found some good tables. But it did not go well, and you ended the session with $198. Then its back down to 5NL the next session.

But as long as you do that, there is a limit to, how bad things can go, if you are actually a winning player. Ending back at 2NL require you to lose another 20BIs at 5NL, which is possible but not something, that happen all the time. And then "going broke" and having to redeposit require you to lose another 50BIs at 2NL, which is extremely unlikely to happen, if you are a winning player.

Of course these limits are not set in stone. If you dont feel comfortable playing 10NL, when you have reached a bankroll of $230, then just continue with 5NL a bit longer. But if you are still not comfortable moving up, when you have $530, then you should probably work on increasing your risk tolerance, if you want to have success in poker.

koalapanda said:

1. An Actual Edge: Shot-taking speeds up bankroll growth only if you're already a winning player. If your foundational strategy has leaks, aggressive BRM just accelerates going broke faster.

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This is also true, but if you managed to grow your bankroll from $50-100 to >$200 playing 2NL and 5NL, then there is at least some indication, you are a winning player. And you are also unlikely to become good enough to beat 10NL by playing 100.000s of hands at 2NL. Or for tournament players become good enough to beat $3-5 games by playing freerolls or penny games.

In order to grow as a poker player you need to experience, what its like to play with just slightly better opponents, who might put you in some tough spots, and where your medium strong hands might shift more towards showdown value, because they wont pile in a ton of chips with bad hands. So you need to move up at least a little bit and then spend most of your practice and learning time there rather than at the very lowest stakes.

Bankroll management (BRM) is a skill that should be studied just as seriously as poker strategy. There is no single universal bankroll chart because the right approach depends on the format you play and your tolerance for risk.
A recommended approach is:
Learn the fundamentals of BRM first. Before moving up in stakes, make sure you understand concepts such as variance, risk of ruin, ROI (Return on Investment), and the appropriate bankroll size for your game.
Use bankroll charts as guidelines, not absolute rules. Experienced players adjust their bankroll requirements based on their skill level, the toughness of the games, and whether they rely on poker as their primary source of income.
Have clear rules for moving up and moving down in stakes. It's not just important to know when to move up—it’s equally important to know when to move down if your results aren't meeting expectations.
Keep detailed records of your results. Without accurate data, it's difficult to know whether you're truly beating a stake or simply going through a hot streak or a downswing.

This thread is really important for me, as soon as I read the whohe posts I'm going to use bankroll management for myself, so I don't go broke again 🙃