Why Bankroll Management?

I regularly check my visitor referral information at SitNGoTraining.com. The referral information tells me where visitors come from and how they found my site. Many visitors come to my site as a result of a question they typed into one of the major search engines. Just yesterday a visitor typed the following question:

What does poker bankroll management protect you from?

What a great question. I have addressed this in my lesson on bankroll management but I wanted to expand on one of the reasons in this post.

One of the primary reasons for bankroll management is to protect you for the inevitable swings that WILL occur in your luck. That's right, I said the nasty word... LUCK. No matter how skilled you are as a player, poker still involves luck. Just ask Phil Hellmuth who is quoted as saying... "If there weren't luck involved I guess I'd win every one!"

I've often heard the coin-toss analogy used to explain the luck swings. In a nutshell, if you flip a coin enough times it will land heads roughly half the time and tails the other half of the time. However, it won't rotate evenly between head and tails. For a period of time it might land heads many more times than it does tails. And other times it might land tails many more times than it does heads. This is the luck swing that I am referring to. You have no control over it and it will happen regardless of anything you do to try to stop it.

There will be times when the cards go your way--when luck is in your favor and it seems like you can do no wrong. We've all been there (and love it!), but it never lasts. There will also be times when you are playing your best game (or at least you think you are!) but the cards just don't seem to go in your favor--your opponent catches that one-outer, or your draws never seem to complete. It is during these negative times that you must have a large enough bankroll to continue playing through the negative swing until your luck balances out.

So back to the question... What does poker bankroll management protect you from? It protects you from the inevitable swings that will occur as a result of bad luck. If you have a large enough bankroll you can play through the swings without worrying about going broke.

Now, if you feel like you are constantly on the negative side of the luck swing, maybe you need to focus on developing your skill further! For free poker strategy and training, check out my website at SitNGoTraining.com.

Good LUCK at the tables!