Building your bankroll. Part II.
As a follow-up to Building your bankroll - Part I, we will take a look at the practical aspects of building a poker bankroll. Whether you plan on playing poker full-time or just casually, it is important to set a budget for your gambling. Managing and maintaining this budget are key components to “building your bankroll.”
Starting from Scratch
While it is hard to start from nothing in brick-and-mortar casinos, I know some poker rooms offer beginner bonuses for poker classes. Spirit Mountain Casino, for example, teaches poker school on Fridays. And, if you deposit $20, the house will give you another $10 to play with.
Although this is hardly starting-from-nothing, it is a nice incentive to get started playing.
Most online poker rooms, Full Tilt Poker, Poker Stars, and Doyle’s Room have first-time deposit bonuses, and even freerolls (Free Tournaments with satellite or cash prizes) for new players to get started.
These freeroll tournaments usually have between 2500 and 5000 players, and you generally have to get in the top one-percent to receive a prize (cash or seat). Some you have to win outright.
It is tough to place or win any of these, but what better way to get started than to play in free tournaments and never risk a dime of your own?
Scratching from the Start
Taking a portion of your weekly paycheck and allocating it to poker is a more-common way of starting out.
As was mentioned in Building your bankroll - Part I you want to play in game that allows for comfortable buy-ins.
Barry Greenstein, in his excellent poker book Ace on the River
So, if you take $100 out of your weekly paycheck to play poker, it is relatively easy to replenish that $100 (just wait until next week’s paycheck) if you lose it. However, if you have taken out $100 a week for three months and now want to play poker with $1200, it will be a bit harder to replenish that bankroll. So, you might not want to risk it all on one $1200 buy-in. Four $300 buy-ins across multiple days may be smarter and safer.
Taking the game selection from Building your bankroll - Part I and staying within the buy-in boundaries described here, you can plan a strategy for making profit, increasing your bankroll, and properly managing your money.
Andy Vaughn has played poker professionally, both online and in Las Vegas Casinos. His favorite games are mid-level no–limit and deep–stack tournaments. He has an M.S. in Sport Psychology, and Talkingchips.com is his pet project.