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- Managing Your Bankroll
Arguably, the most important factor in being successful when you play poker is good bankroll management. You know you are going to lose sometimes. It's simply not possible to play poker and not lose. You may even have to sit down to as many as 10 tables or more before you start winning. The key is to minimize your losses when you play poker. Protect your money!
The term "bankroll" refers to the amount of money you have available to play poker with, not how much money you have in the bank. If you are using all of the money you have as your bankroll, you're taking a tremendous risk. Many people who play poker don't even bother with bankroll management. A player who is relatively new to the game will usually take whatever money he has to play poker with and sit down with most of it on their first table. Inevitably, these players will lose their money, and lose it quickly.
Management Strategies
Let's take a moment to discuss some bankroll management strategies you can employ when you play poker. These techniques are always used by professional poker players when the play poker. Keep in mind - these are suggestions, not commandments written in stone. Players have to decide what works best for them when they play poker, formulate a plan of action, and stick to their own rules to be successful.
Tournaments and sit and go's
When you play poker tournaments or sit and go's, it's a good idea not to buy in to any game that will cost more than 2% of your bankroll. Often consisting of thousands of players, tournaments are very hard to win. You need to be patient and make good decisions, even to the point of having the discipline to fold those cowboys when you know you're beat.
Cash games
Don't sit down to any cash game with more than 5% of your total bankroll. Cash games are a great way to earn your winnings quickly, but you can lose your roll just as quickly on these tables if you're not careful. When you play poker cash games, you need to play a little more aggressively, and the larger your stack, the more aggressive you can be. If your winnings equal 30-50% of your original stack, it's a good time to find another table.
Level down when you have to
Everybody has to level down sometime. It's not something to be ashamed of. Just because you're a good player doesn't mean you have to play the high stakes games. Poker happens in streaks. You may go on winning for several months straight, and then out of nowhere it seems you can't win a hand for the next year. When you find yourself on a losing streak, play the lower stake games for a while. When you start winning again, go ahead and move up to the higher stake games.
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