An age old question asked in the poker community is: 

"How much of a bankroll do I need to play such and such a limit, or game? "

A bankroll is the amount of money you have allocated strictly for playing poker. It is not meant to buy groceries, to pay the electric bill, or to go out for drinks with friends. Your bankroll is meant only for dealing with the downswings in poker.

It would be difficult for a carpenter to get any work done without tools or for a fisherman to catch anything without with out a boat and fishing rods. For a serious player to play poker, you need money. If you take the analogy a step further; Imagine, a fisherman who has his boat and his rods but only has enough money for 2 days worth of bait. What is going to happen if he doesn’t catch enough in those 2 days to buy more bait? Quite simply, he’ll be out of work. He didn’t allow himself enough leeway to compensate for a couple of bad days. A smart fisherman on the other hand will leave himself enough money for several weeks of bait and supplies to insure success.

A Recreational Bankroll
A recreational bankroll can be replaced fairly easily. For example, if you earn $1,000 a week at your job and lose the $100 you had set aside for poker, it wouldn’t be too difficult or inconvenient to replace it (as long as your significant other does find out about it.) Someone who plays poker “just for fun” can use a recreational bankroll and just replace their losses as they occur.

A Professional Bankroll
A professional bankroll is difficult to replace. Again, if you made $1000 a week but you had set aside $10,000 for poker, it would take quite a bit of time for you to replace the $10,000, and your significant other would more than likely find out about it! A good poker player keeps a professional bankroll.

If you are a winning player you should never have to replenish your bankroll from an outside source. Your bankroll should be large enough to withstand any downswings which will leave you with enough money to recoup those losses when the downswing ends.

If you are a losing player no bankroll will ever keep you from going broke, it will only prolong this inevitable outcome.

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One of the most important fundamentals of successful online poker is managing and setting your poker bankroll (the money you allocate to play with).

Whatever your bankroll - it needs to be treated with respect. Being realistic about your poker bankroll and Playing within your limits is the key. Put simply it doesn't matter how much you could ultimately win if you don't have enough money to get there.

Too many players start off with too little bankroll for even the low limit games and then after a couple of wins, move up a level and then get themselves into trouble.

There are many guides to calculating how much is enough for what limits -

Suggestions range between 20-50 times the max buy-in in a cash game / tournament entry, or 200-400 times the big blind. Even at the lower range of these figures this is generally a far bigger bankroll than new players think necessary.

Ben Roberts (pro Poker Player) suggests

“it may be worth playing in Limit games in order to build and not lose cash in a more controlled way. This is may also be a good strategy if you are hunting poker bonuses and just trying to clear deposit bonuses with minimal bankroll.

Looking back at the broad range generally recommended here are the kind of bankroll figures they suggest for No Limit games -

With 20-50 times the $25 max buy-in buy-in a for 0.25 NL cash game it would mean a $500 - $1250 bankroll.

$5+50 SnG tournaments need a $110 - $275 bankroll.”

The important issue here is that playing in too higher limit game for your bankroll will seriously affect the way you play. If you are constantly worrying about it being your last tournie or not calling a hand because it’s the last drop of cash you have - you will not make the right choices based on the game alone.

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