Every book on poker preaches bankroll management. Play within your bankroll they tell you. Move up only when you have the bankroll to do so. Now I am not going to go against this sound fiscal advice. Bankroll management is a key to learning the game and being successful in cash games. But there is a huge flaw in the initial advice that makes achieving the incremental bankroll strategy completely flawed.
The assumption is that everyone starts with a bankroll that is X times larger than either the Big Blind in the game the are playing or X times larger than an average buy-in for that game. The gold standard for most of the advice is that you need 300 times the Big Blind to play regularly at any limit. So a $1/$2 game requires a bankroll of $600; $10/$20 requires $6,000.
Now there are a lot of assumptions in any theory of money management from the stock market to investing in real estate. There are several in the poker bankroll management advice. Let’s start with the biggest one here: Where did you get the money for your very first poker bankroll? How did you fund your first poker bankroll?
All of the bankroll management advice rests on this first chunk of cash and most of them assume you funded your poker bankroll with the maximum you could dedicate to poker but not so much that you can’t pay the rent. But what if you have a good job or a great job and you just got a nice bonus or won the 777 slot machine or got a nice inheritance from Aunt Libby? Now your poker bankroll is not related to your financial status and you get to start playing at a level that your bankroll dictates, instead of perhaps starting where your skill level should place you.
Wonder why there are just as many fish at $10/$20 as there are at $2/$4? Bankroll Management. How did the kid next door get make $3,000 playing .50/$1 online? Bankroll Management. But its not that they are so good at managing their money but a whole lot of players read a book about managing their poker bank and never considered learning the game first. So they jump into the game that is either selected by their bankroll or by their level of risk aversion or thrill seeking. Wouldn’t ability be a wiser place to start than bankroll?
