SNG Bankroll Management

This article will help with poker bankroll management, this will help you manage your money, specifically which buy-in levels to play and when to move up stakes. Giving good bankroll advice depends on many variables and is different for each player.

Here are a few of the variables you will need to consider:

Level of Experience The first advice we will give will be for brand new players For example, it depends, how much poker and/or sng experience do you have? If you have experience, are you a winning or losing player?

If you are brand new to poker or sngs and have no idea if you will be a winning or losing player, then you need at least 200 buy-ins for the sngs you play. This means if you have $200 for yoour bankroll you should start at the $1 SNGs. Some poker rooms have lower stakes than this too.

Now that doesnt mean you have to keep 200 buy ins in your poker account it just means you need to have 200 buy ins available to play with in the short term. I keep my bankroll scattered over a half dozen sites and in my savings account. So if you have $200 in your poker account and dont plan on depositng any more if you go broke then you should be playing the $1 SNGs to start out. Once you have proven you can win over a large sample, preferrably a few hundred games.  We will discuss more about moving up later in the series.

Winning or Losing Player

It is ok to move up and take a shot every once in a while, just make sure you move back down before a significant amount of your bankroll is lost due to variance or tilt. So even if you start off as a winner, stick to 100 buy-ins until you can study your stats first hand over a very large sample and 200 buy ins if your play is affected by losing streaks. Most players, including myself play less than ideal poker during some of their losing streaks.

If you are a losing sng player then its a good thing you found this article/video, we will be able to change that around for you quickly. Losing players should play the lowest stakes the poker room offers. If your bankroll is less than 200xs the lowest offered stakes, then find a poker room that has lower buy-in sngs. If money is not an option try play money sngs. I hear people say I cant play at the lower stakes because the players are so loose and bad its all luck, its not as fun, etc… This first part about players being extremely loose is true, however most players dont realize that the same strategy needed to beat the $10+$1 sngs is also the strategy to use at the $0.50 +$0.05 SNGs. The level of competition is extremely similar.

Even the $20 +$2s at a lot of sites arent much different. So until you have the bankroll and skills to play over $20 buy-in sngs, you might as well be playing the lowest buy-ins, instead of throwing money away at the $5 and $10 sngs. If money isnt an option and you prefer learning at higher stakes, because it makes it more fun then you should have at least 200 buy-ins, and preferrably more to use to practice and learn where your leaks are. ROI, willingness to move down, bankroll replaceable. single or multi tabling.

If it is turbo or non turbo, how good is the competition. -If you are an experienced, winning player you can risk more of your bankroll on a single sng than other players, because your downswings are smaller than other players. The higher your ROI the lower your minimum bankroll requirements can be. Most experienced, professionals advise playing with 100 buy-ins minimum and 150 to 200 buy-ins if you have tilt problems.

Most players play less than optimal during a downswing, so its important to have the cushion. If you have put up huge samples of consistent winnings, and rarely tilt then you can get by with 50 buy-ins. Downswings are caused by variance and/or poor play and even the absolute best players in the world experience downswings of 30-40 buy-ins. Now, if you are a winning player who tracks his stats, and are wiling to move down in stakes during a downswing you can get more aggressive with your bankroll and break the 50 buy-in rule.

However, you must have proven with a large sample that you are winning player and that you have the ability to move down if a downswing takes place. This has been the downfall of many poker players, the inability to move down. Moving down involves discipline, because by moving down you have to accept those losses and admit that you are going to have to do twice as much work to get them back. but its just a fact of life if you want to be serious about poker. you need to be maximizing your profit potential while minimizing your risk to go broke. The Kelly Criterion and other advanced strategies can help you if you would like to get more aggressive with your bankroll.

The Kelly Criterion was published in 1956 and its a mathematical formula designed for gambling situations with positive expectation, in other words when you have an edge. If you can consistently win at sngs then you found a gambling situation where you have a significant edge, something that is very hard to find in the gambling world.

Basically it tells you how aggressive you can get with your bankroll without ever risking going broke. The key is you have to set points of dropping down during bad streaks. kind of like stop losses for stocks. From what ive seen the formula reccommends that a 16% winner, someone who is crushing the stakes, needs about 10 buy ins and a 10% ROI player should start at 15 buy ins and will need to move down if they reach about 9 buy ins. so if you start off with a 6 game losing streak you will have to immediately have to move down, thats why i prefer a little more cushion when i get aggressive with my bankroll.

So if you are 10 % ROI and wanted to play the $10 sngs youwould need about $150 and move back down when you hit $90. For myself I usually like to keep over 50 buy ins if the buy ins are $20 or higher and i am multitabling. If its on pokerstars where the competition is tougher, i prefer 100 buy ins. but will take shots at higher stakes, usually single tabling.

If you are not able to reload or are living off your sng income, never grind with less than 100 buy ins in my opinion. if you single table and win consisentently >10% ROI, you can get away with 50 buy ins.

“This video was posted on youtube by Darragh White a.k.a DarraghWhiteBoy and shows an excellent aggressive SNG strategy which not only helps you win money, but more importantly helps you practice bankroll management”