What stakes should I be playing at in Texas Hold'em? What bankroll do I need?

When you open up an Online Poker room you will find that you are presented with a wide range of table stakes and limits for you to choose from. But how are you supposed to know which stakes to play at based on the amount of money that you have to play with?

This article will discuss the following key areas:

1. Choosing the right stakes.
2. The rules of Texas Hold'em bankroll management.
   • No Limit Cash Games
   • Limit Cash Games
   • Sit and Go Tournaments
   • Multi Table Tournaments
3. Important points of bankroll management.
4. Moving limits.

1. Choosing The Right Stakes

You could take your entire bankroll to one table and go for the big win, but this would be a very high risk strategy and you are likely to lose it all if you take this approach. Alternatively, you could play at very low stakes in relation to the size of your bankroll to play is safe, but you will not be winning much money at all during your time spent at the tables.

So which is the best option?

As I'm sure that you can imagine, the ideal stakes and limits are going to be the ones that maximize the amount of money we can expect to win whilst minimizing the chances of going broke. This principle of safely playing with your money at a the most profitable stakes is known as "bankroll management".

2. The rules of Texas Hold'em bankroll management

No Limit Cash Games

In no limit Texas Hold'em cash games you should expect to see a lot of variance. Therefore you should have at least 20 full buy-ins for any stakes that you would like to play at. To put it another way, you should only ever take a maximum of 5% of your bankroll to the table at any one time.

For example, if you have a $2000 bankroll, you have enough to play at the $0.50/$1 tables where the maximum buy in is $100. This is because $100 x 20 is $2000. If you had under $2000, you should look to drop down the levels until you had 20 full buy-ins for the lower stakes.

Limit Cash Games

The rule of bankroll management for limit Texas Hold'em is to have a minimum of 300 Big Blinds in your bankroll. Instead of using buy-ins to measure the appropriate bankroll amount, you should use Big Blinds because the amount you can take to a limit Hold'em game as the maximum buy-in is not restricted. Therefore to play in a $1/$2 limit Texas Hold'em game, you should have a minimum of $600 in your bankroll.

Limit Texas Hold'em has far smaller swings when compared to its no limit counterpart, which is due to the fact that the betting is fixed. Therefore as you would expect, you do not need such a large bankroll in relation to the stakes.

Sit and Go Tournaments

For standard Sit and Go tournaments, I would recommend that you have 30 to 50 buy-ins in your bankroll to play the Sit and Go games safely. This should ensure that you have a nice cushion to absorb the variance experienced from small tournament games.

If you are more of a serious player however and cannot risk going broke, I would recommend that you up this to at least 100 tournament buy-ins.

Multi Table Tournaments

Bankroll requirements for MTTs are quite similar to that of Sit and Go tournaments. I would personally recommend that you have a minimum of 100 tournament buy-ins in your bankroll for MTT games, just to be on the safe side. However, could easily reduce this to 50 buy-ins if you are prepared to take a little more of a risk.

In a nutshell, if you are unsure of where to play, make sure you have the bare mininmum of 50 buy-ins, and increase this amount depending on how much you would like to reduce the risk of losing your bankroll due to a bad run of cards.

3) Important points of bankroll management

• Bankroll management is vital to keep on top of variance.
• You should always stick to the rules at all times.
• Professional players should have bigger bankrolls.
• Bankroll management will not turn losing players into winning players.

There should be no excuse for bending the rules of bankroll management if you are focused on consistently winning money from poker. Moving up to too high a limit can cause you to lose a large chunk of your bankroll each time, so you should learn to stick at the safe limits and only move up when you have enough money to do so.

If you rely on the money you win from poker as your sole source of income, you should have a much bigger bankroll to play with. If you play poker on the side outside of your everyday job, the standard rules of bankroll management will work just fine. However, having 2, 3 or more times the bankroll management guidelines is advised if you heavily rely on the winnings from the game to ensure that large downswings will not cripple you. It is also useful to have the extra money in case of unexpected expenses.

If you are a losing player, bankroll management will not help you to win money. If anything, bankroll management will reduce the rate at which you lose money, but it will not turn your game on its head. If you want to win money from poker, you should work on your overall strategy and knowledge of the game. Nonetheless, it is a good idea to be aware of the rules of bankroll management to help you play at the most appropriate limits.

4) Moving Limits

If you win or lose a significant amount of money during play, you should be prepared to move up or down the limits when necessary.

If you win enough money so that you have the minimum bankroll requirements for the next level up, there is no reason why you can't move up the limits. The competition may be tougher, but the decision to move is entirely in your hands. You can stay at your current limit if you wish, but as far as bankroll management goes there is nothing holding you back.

If you lose so much money that your bankroll drops below the recommended guidelines, you should move down the limits so that you return to a safer limit. From here you can build your bankroll back up safely without risking going broke. It may well take a little longer than if you were to stay at the higher limit and play without adhering to the bankroll management rules, but your bankroll will be a lot safer this way.

This article was written by Greg Walker of ThePokerBank.com. This site contains a wealth of information based around Texas Hold'em, including a number of articles on key Texas Hold'em strategy as well as useful tips and room reviews.