Sit and Go Bankroll Strategy for Online Poker

I recently sat in a nine seated, sit and go tournament on full tilt poker and during the first few hands, as I usually do, I sharkscoped all of my opponents.  The tournament cost $10 plus one dollar for administration fee to get in and I was just being my same dutiful self in making sure I had any available advance information on my opponents.

I guess what I found shouldn't be so shocking to me anymore, because the bottom line in online poker is that more than 75% of all players lose money.  The picture of profiles I was looking at with all my opponents at this table confirmed why that 75% marker is so believable.  Not only did each and every one of my opponents have a losing record mired in red, each one of them were also plenty of their bankroll given the amount that they had not in online poker.

Sit and go tournament's are in my view the best and easiest, and most conservative way to learn the game and build your bankroll online.  You may be one of those players who go online to play poker purely entertainment and social value.  If you are, I don't know why you're wasting time on this website just go have some fun.  If you are however one of the few players who are committed to improving your game and learning the basics of bankroll management using sit and go tournaments, then keep reading.

There is absolutely no reason at all given the state of the majority of opponents you find it online poker that you cannot start to build poker bankroll online using other players' money.  Some successful players have even started with zero dollars.  You don't have to be packed stringent on your budget, but if you do make a deposit to deposit more than $50 or $100.  Depositing this amount will require that you play some relatively low buy-in sit and go tournaments.  I mean like one dollar, two dollar, and working your way up to five dollar sit and go tournaments.

To be successful sit and go tournaments, you need to learn to play your opponents each and every level that you tackle.  A lot of players complain about these lower levels because of be enormous amount of suck outs their opponents make.  In reality, the more frequent those types of errors are made by your opponents - even if it means you losing a big pot - the more profitable those tables will be for you.  It's all about how you just do your opponents, and that can be the one dollar level or the $1000 sit and go competition.

The reason you should start with such low deposits is that it forces you to learn the game at each level before moving up to a level that you might not be competent at- yet!  There is an added benefit in doing this as well, in fact like building your bankroll and keeping your deposits to a minimum you are essentially playing with other players' money. Now it's not as easy as it sounds to be sure.  You may actually have to reload to be made even four times with your $50 deposit.  But if you find you have to do that a few times you have definitely saved yourself all lot of money on bigger deposits because obviously you weren't ready tougher competition or the type of opponents that you are actually facing.



In the pokersitandgoreport.com video series I introduced the 50/250 rule, which basically applies strategy you holding your $50 deposit into a $250 bankroll before you start moving to higher levels such as $10 sit and go tournaments.  In that sense you will have earned the right to move up because you have been a proven profitable player at the levels just below it.

After that, it's pretty easy to apply a maximum 5% buy in based on your bankroll in order to keep your budget check.  For example you have $300 bankroll you wouldn't play tournaments that cost you more than $15.  Keep the 5% in mind though as a maximum, where really you should be looking at something closer to 2% and 3% maximum buy-in.

This really may sound too conservative to a lot of new players.  Esspecially those players just getting into the game and expecting that profits will come much quicker and easier than what I am portraying here.  For a very small percentage of the online player population that may be true, they're the ones that probably don't need help and may be extremely talented or extremely lucky.  Don't count yourself in that group.  It's a poker bankroll mistake.

Money management in online poker

To be a successful poker player you have to be able to exercise good bankroll management skills. If you are unable to manage your poker money correctly, you will never be able to become a long term winning poker player. Even if you were the best player in the world, it would be impossible to be able to make money from poker if you did not use good money management skills.

Bankroll management basically involves playing at a certain levels and buy-ins to help prevent yourself from going broke at the poker table. You have to set yourself limits to where you can play poker due to the variance found in every poker game. There are always going to be times where you have runs of bad luck that you cannot control, and you will lose money due to the bad runs of cards, and not necessarily due to any bad play. Therefore there is no use in putting all of your poker money on one table, because there is a good chance that you will lose it all and not be able to continue playing poker.

As a result, it is important that we have a large enough bankroll to absorb the effects of this variance so that we can continue to play poker even when we have very bad runs of cards. In addition, we don’t want to go over the top and play at micro levels with a huge bankroll because it is unlikely that we will go broke, and we want to give ourselves the opportunity to win a decent amount of money from our poker sessions. Therefore there are useful rules that you can follow to make sure that you give yourself the best opportunity to make money from poker without going broke.

In cash games, you should never put more than 5% of your bankroll onto the table at any time. So if you want to play in $1/$2 cash games and intend to buy in for the full amount, you should have a bankroll of at least $4000. This will then give you enough room to take a few bad beats and losing sessions, but still be able to continue playing poker without the fear of going broke. Another way of looking at the 5% rule is to remember that you should have 20 times the maximum buy in of the level you wish to play at in your bankroll. Most online poker rooms offer a wide range of limits, so it is perfectly possible to keep your bankroll under control, no matter how large or small it might be. Alternatively, if you are a poker tournament player, you should have around 40 buy-ins minimum for the level of tournaments you wish to play in.

It is important to remember however that bankroll management is only useful if you intend to play poker regularly, and that you are a winning player. If you only play poker casually then it is not as important to have a set bankroll, but to just be careful with your money instead. In addition, bankroll management will have no effect on your moneymaking endeavours if you are a losing poker player. However, bankroll management will slow down the time it takes for you to lose the money if you are used to playing at higher stakes.