Why do you play poker? If you are like many millions of people around the world, you have a dream to one day win the National Football League’s Super Bowl. It sounds like a reasonable goal, but is it possible to do so with the skills you have developed through years of practice and study? If you are like many millions of other people around the world, you think that it’s easier to win the Super Bowl than it is to win the money in the bank.
Whether you are one of the greatest quarterbacks in the history of the National Football League, or you are one of the worst, you know that you have a shot at being the best every season that you play football. You may be able to sustain a streak of luck, but without the skills and resources of a poker pro, it’s hard to stay on top of your game.
If you want to play poker like the pros, you need to have a bankroll that can withstand the down swings. The most important part of bankroll management is to always have an amount of money in your pocket that you aren’t likely to spend on much else. It should not matter to you if you spend a hundred dollars on poker or if you gamble it all on a sports bet. Your decisions should be driven by skill and your bankroll, not by the desire to have fun.
Dewabet is meant to be entertaining. When you are gambling, you are always hoping for the best, but you are not always going to win the best. It is important to set limits on poker bankroll and always play within those limits, but it is also important to be realistic about your expectations. If you can’t help but think about how much you’d like to win each night, you’re going to be in trouble over the long haul.
To keep focused on your long-term poker bankroll goals, use an average of your income or net winnings per poker session and divide it by 2 or 3. This is the amount of money you should be playing when you hit a big win. For example, if you make $100 at a session, bet $150 and have $300 free from your online poker account, you should be playing between four and six sessions before you move up in limits. If you have $200 free from poker, but you play between six and eight sessions, you should be playing between eight and twelve games. Important, but very realistic.
It is tempting to work on several tables at once, but if you do it online, you will have a better idea of how much you are spending on poker by the time you start playing. It takes a lot of skill to play more than two games at a time, and you will easily find yourself in over your head. Multi-tabling is for amateurs and newbies. For the beginner, it is better to start with single table and multi-table tournaments. At the lower limits, where the money is not much of a motivating factor, many players play way too loose. They tend to bet on everything and try to do too much to make more money than is really possible.
Many of the top international players do not even play much above single table tournaments, and many of them have become experts at winning multiple events at once. Chris Moneymaker was known for his ability to win many poker events at once. Most people believe that it takes at least 10,000 hands of poker to develop the skill of playing good enough to win a big tournament, but that is far from the truth. The number is much smaller, in fact I believe it can be fewer than that.
As skill and judgment become enhanced, you can move up in limits. It takes a lot of skill to move up in limits, especially at low money games. On the other hand, most players are skillful enough, and at higher money games they can take more of a bankroll because the entry fees are lower.
One of the southwest hold’em tournaments I played on Poker Stars the other night was a $1,500 buy-in. I watched a player win a big tournament by just playing one hand. It was amazing to watch a skilled player move all in with a small hand. In cash games, you often need a multi-table strategy to make a stable income. Playing a single table tournament is simply not enough. If you want to be a winning player you need to play in a multitude of games at a variety of levels.
Just remember that patience is going to be your best friend, so you can endure a couple of bad beats, grind out a few wins and then move on to the next game. Just like the old saying goes, “You got to keep working if you are going to succeed.”
It is possible to win a nice amount of money and still learn the game and advance your skills.