Luck, strategy, skill, psychology — those are the ingredients of poker. However, those ingredients can’t come together without a little glue, and that glue is usually a nice fat bankroll. Now, if you’re trying to build your bankroll in time for a good multi-table tournament, you need to also learn how to protect that bankroll. Yes, it’s true that we’ve covered bankroll management in the past, but the truth is that it’s always a good time to make sure that you’re tweaking your strategy when you’re in tournament play. There are a lot of factors that come into play when tournaments are involved that it’s really a good idea to ensure that you are looking at every factor carefully.
So, the first thing that you will need to think about is how much of your overall bankroll you want to devote to any one tournament. It’s said that you really don’t want to invest more than 1% of your total bankroll into any tournament. Now, you have to understand that at the beginning this limit is going to keep you out of a lot of big tournaments. However, that’s the way it’s designed by default — if you were to plunge into every big money tournament that you find, you would end up not having enough bankroll left to cover you for the games that you really want to play. Why would you want to waste good money like that?
The type of tournament that you decide on will also make a difference. If you end up only going with the tournament that seems to let you buy more chips if you bust out. It might seem like this would be more a value proposition than just busting out, but beware — these tournaments can lure you into spending a lot more money than you might expect. You would be better off playing tournaments that aren’t going to come with that feature, until you can actually afford it. Make sure that you calculate your bankroll correctly to accommodate this ability to buy back into the event — if you ultimately choose to walk down this path.
The 100 buy-in / 1% rule helps you make sure that you’re getting enough chances to make money while also helping you avoid risks. Let’s say that you have a bankroll of $2000. That’s a pretty nice bankroll!
With the 100 buy in rule, you can get into tournaments with a $20 buy in and still not blow through your bankroll too quickly. On the other hand, if you only have $500 then you will have to tread carefully. You will only be able to go into $5 tournaments. Many casinos do run these types of tournaments to give players something to do when they don’t have big monster bankrolls.
There are still a lot of opportunities out there to grow your money, so make sure that you pay close attention to them!