Just a few days ago, we discussed the importance of using ROI to measure how profitable you are in poker tournaments. Of course, return on investment numbers don’t exactly give you a handle on poker tournament bankroll management, so it’s worth discussing this concept more in-depth.

Starting Amount

The best place to begin with poker tournament bankroll management is your starting amount. Now there’s no one-size-fits-all starting bankroll that will satisfy every player’s situation. But a nice, conservative number for most players is 40-50 buy-ins for the limits they want to play. To illustrate this, you would need $500 if you mainly played $10 + $1 buy-in poker tournaments.

Why are so many Buy-ins needed?

One question that some beginning poker tournament players have is why they need so many buy-ins in their starting bankroll. And the answer is that there’s a lot of downswings and variance involved in poker. For example, you might go through a period where you don’t cash for 15 straight poker tournaments; then you’ll finally cash again, only to go through another cold streak right afterward. That said, you need a fairly large bankroll to survive these swings until things turn around for you.

Keep learning Poker Strategy

The ultimate goal of poker is to make a profit, and the only way to continually do this is by studying poker strategy whenever you get the chance. This is especially the case if you want to build your bankroll and move up in limits. Relating this directly to your bankroll, it’s a lot easier to effectively manage your roll when you are a good player who’s never in immediate danger of losing everything. Long story short, keep learning poker strategy so that you can continue building your bankroll.