What Amount of Money Should You Start With in Poker?

The first crucial decision you must make while playing online poker is how much money to wager initially. Find out how to choose your poker bankroll.

If you're serious about playing online poker, you should have a poker bankroll saved up that you can use to play, rather than using it to pay your rent. But how much cash should you put into your poker game?

Each and every poker player will have a different starting bankroll. However, we can provide you with important tips to assist you in making the right choice for your circumstances.

DETERMINE YOUR POKER STARTING BANKROLL

Your starting bankroll for poker will require a certain amount of money depending on a few factors.

Various Poker Game Types

Your required poker bankroll will vary depending on the type of poker game you'll be playing. Because of the huge unpredictability of tournaments, you need a lot more buy-ins than you would for a no-limit cash game, which in turn requires more buy-ins than a limit cash game.

You need at least 100 buy-ins of your average tournament buy-in to be adequately bankrolled playing poker tournaments because you can go a long time without making a sizable win and several tournaments without cashing. 85% of the players won't win anything because only the top 15% of the field will typically cash in the tournament.

Cash games have a slightly lower variance than tournaments because they involve a lot more grinding and, if you're a winning player, you'll win 50–60% of your sessions rather than continually losing buy-ins before earning one big score to make it all back.

For cash games, an average level of bankroll management is about 30 buy-ins for your stake level. If you're more outgoing, you could want to have as little as 20, yet if you're more reserved, you'll want 40 or 50. It all depends on how comfortable you are and how eager you are to reload if you run out of money.

Discretionary Income

The amount of money you can afford to lose is the most crucial factor when choosing your initial poker bankroll. Poker is a game of skill, but it also has a gambling component, so you shouldn't put any money at stake that you can't afford to lose.

Depending on your situation, you may be able to risk a different amount of money, but the higher the stakes you can begin with, the more money you have to start with. Some players like to begin at the highest stakes possible since they find it difficult to play effectively at the micro-stakes.

It will also determine the degree of bankroll management that you employ. In order to advance as quickly as possible at the lower stakes, many players may use a very aggressive poker bankroll strategy.

Poker Techniques

The quantity of money you need to play a certain game will depend much on whether or not you're a winning player and how much you win. The less chance you have of going broke with a lower poker bankroll, the greater the advantage you have over your rivals.

You may observe this in live cash games, when players with a sizable advantage over their rivals will travel with relatively little money in the knowledge that their advantage ensures they will win most of the time.

This is less of an issue in tournaments because volatility has a major impact on them. Regardless of your skill level, it's simple to go on a losing streak and consistently fail to make a significant score.

It can be helpful if you need to replenish your poker bankroll or wish to increase a modest sum of money into a significant sum. One of the most popular challenges for players to take on is based on how many well-known professional poker players got their start.

POKER BANKROLL CHALLENGE FOR $25

When asked how they got started playing poker in an interview during the heyday of internet poker, practically every celebrity would reply, "I deposited $25, learned how to play, and ran it up to hundreds of thousands of dollars."

Sounds quite good, no?

Many players still strive to achieve a similar result by investing little money in an effort to win millions. These kinds of challenges are an excellent way to teach yourself the skills you need to be a higher-stakes player but at a lot lower cost, whether you're a beginner or an experienced player who is just beginning to take poker more seriously.

Starting out with such a small poker bankroll encourages you to develop stringent bankroll management skills because you have to be moving up and down the stakes with restraint to prevent going bankrupt. It also gives you the chance to work with many people without spending a lot of money, honing your talents on the cheap so you'll be ready to advance to the level where the real money is produced.

If you want to begin one of these challenges, you must select the kind of game you want to play. I advise playing the lowest stake level your poker site offers if you want to play cash games. Most likely, this will be NL2 or 1c/2 with a $2 maximum buy-in. Sit and gos are a better place to start if you want to play tournaments because the variance is considerably smaller than MTTs. You should also play at the lowest stakes that they have to offer.

Setting goals for when you will increase the stakes is crucial when taking on these kinds of undertakings. For instance, if you're playing cash games, you might wish to increase your bet when the next level requires 15 buy-ins, which is 2/5 (NL5).

It's crucial to have a defined stop-loss to go back down once you move up. Many players dislike dropping back to lower stakes after rising up; they view it as a blow to their ego and would prefer to lose everything playing at a stake they can't win than to drop back and possibly rebuild. Avoid being one of these players by swallowing your ego and adjusting your position till you can replenish your poker bankroll and continue to play.

This perfectly sets up our next subject, which is knowing when to stop.

WHY IT'S IMPORTANT TO STOP?

When you make poor decisions at the table because you allow your emotions to rule, this is known as tilt. Tilt typically occurs in really unlucky situations after losing numerous pots in a row. The poker community frequently experiences tilt.

When you tilt, your entire poker bankroll is frequently at risk since individuals will frequently make absurd bets in an effort to recover their money, only to end up giving more of it away to the waiting regulars. When you notice yourself becoming upset while tilting, stop playing the game until you have calmed down and try again later.

There is a flip side to tilt, often known as "winners' tilt," just as there is a yin to the yang. This is an example of overconfidence that results from consistently winning hands and can give a player the impression that they are infallible. When a player has this mindset, they will start to play loosely because they believe that everything will turn out okay in the end. It won't. The cards will eventually catch up with you, so if you feel like your confidence is growing when you start winning, set a profit cap and stick to it.

The key piece of advice is to only start playing poker with money you are willing to lose.

One of the only requirements for participating in any poker game is having the necessary funds. To ensure that you have the resources to keep playing, follow our advice on how to manage your poker bankroll.