Some people claim that the micro stakes are unbeatable, which is a complete lie. The micro stakes offer the lowest form of competition available, as long as you’re willing to be patient and avoid being overly-aggressive against calling stations. Okay, it involves a little more than this, but the point of this article is to talk about micro stakes bankroll management.

The biggest problem people have when it comes to low limit bankroll management is playing at stakes where they can’t cover a sufficient amount of buy-ins. For example, a player will deposit $25 into a poker site, then jump into $0.05/$0.10 No-Limit Hold’em. This might seem okay since you’re playing against weaker players, but you also have to consider that $25 is only enough to cover 2-and-a-half buy-ins at these stakes. If you suffer a few bad beats at these limits, you are going to lose your bankroll rather quickly.

So instead of jumping into $0.05/$0.10 NLHE with a $25 bankroll, it’s a much better idea to drop down to $0.01/$0.02. Seeing as how the competition is so easy at these limits, and people are willing to go all-in with 8-6 (off-suit) on a regular basis, you’ll be able to experience success rather quickly. Sure there will be times when you’ll get beat by these crazy hands, but the large majority of the time, you will win lots of money (comparative to stakes).

More importantly, taking a $25 bankroll into $0.01/$0.02 NLHE gives you twelve-and-a-half buy-ins at these stakes. This means that you have plenty of buy-ins to survive bad variance and ultimately make some money. Now playing limits these low isn’t exactly ideal in terms of your overall money goals, but look at it this way: if you make $0.80 in an hour, you’ve made 40 big blinds. And if you consistently do this, you’ll be moving up the limits in no time!