Building a Bankroll

One of the most often asked questions I get from beginners is how to keep from going bankrupt in their first 20, 40, 60 minutes of play. New poker players often make errors in how they ration their bankroll (the amount of chips they have to spend). I certainly did when I began playing. Even though Facebook poker isn't played with real money it still is extremely important to properly manage your bankroll.

When I first installed the Texas Hold'em application and got the first set of chips I was all gun ho and ready to go. I jumped into a 25/50 blind room with 500 chips. The blinds quickly ate up my chips and sloppy play took what was left over. I realized that I needed to think through my strategy a bit more. I invited a few friends, installed a few more applications and got a few more chips. This time I was a lot more careful, I played low stakes games and slowly won some chips. I kept doing this until I got to where I am now with almost 100k in chips.

If you're here it's possible that you're trying to become a better poker player. Since managing your bankroll is an extremely important part of being a good player here are a few tips on how to keep from going broke right away:

1. Start out small:
   New players loose all of their money quickly because they don't consider this point. If you only have 400 chips you shouldn't be playing the 100/200 blind hands. The general rule of thumb is to have 300 times the big blind. This means that if you're playing 1/2 hands then you should have at least 600 chips. I know this seems a little harsh but the reality is that people experience large swings. I've gone from 10k chips down to 1k chips up to 19k and back down to 0. This is just a fact of poker.
   
   I just laugh when I see players in the 25/50 blind hands with 1000 chips. I see most of them loose everything within 30 minutes. Here's a list of the minimum amount of chips you'll need for each of the different pot sizes for Facebook poker.
   
   • 1/2 blinds: 600 chips
   • 2/4 blinds: 1,200 chips
   • 5/10 blinds: 3,000 chips
   • 10/20 blinds: 6,000 chips
   • 25/50 blinds: 15,000 chips
   • 100/200 blinds: 60,000 chips
   • 200/400 blinds: 120,000 chips
   • 500/1000 blinds: 300,000 chips



2. Pick your tables:
   Along with starting small picking your tables and the people you play with is another important choice in building your bankroll. Generally when you're starting out your going to be playing with others who are starting out. A lot of people when they start playing poker don't care, they just throw away money and this makes them difficult to read and play against. When you're starting out I would advise playing against a few people at a time. Find a small table and play there. If you find you're loosing switch to another table.
   
   Starting small applies to this point as well. The larger blind tables generally have more experienced players there. If you go against an experienced player they'll call your bluffs and also bluff you out of your chips. It's a lose-lose situation. Pick your tables and the players you play against carefully, they're the people you're going to be taking chips from.

While a lot of people don't believe that this is important, I think it's extremely important. Building a bankroll is a good way to protect your hard earned work and keep all of your chips.

On a totally different note I didn't play any poker today so there won't be any updates to my chip count. I'm hoping that tomorrow I'll be able to play and get over the 100k chip barrier. Check in tomorrow to see if I did as well as for other poker tips. If you'd like to write an article or ask any questions write to me at fbpoker[at]gmail.com