Online Poker: Managing Your Money

By BJ VanderWoude
4-26-06

When starting to play poker online, there are several key factors in being successful from the beginning. Poker is a game of skill and the more time that you devote to playing and studying the game, the better your results will be. With this in mind, money management or bank roll managing is one of the first components to poker that beginners should learn.

The first key to managing your money, is determining how much money you would like to play with. Make sure when you sign up for Full Tilt, you get the best Full Tilt Bonus available. The best advice I ever received was to only play with money that you are willing to lose. This helps because you are able to play the game without having to worry about losing so much that it affects the way you play. This is crucial to your development as a player because the more hands you play, the more beats you see, the more accustomed you become to particular situations, as well as the flow of the game, the better you will become.

With respect to online poker, money management becomes an entirely different ball game than playing in live games. When starting playing online, do research and make sure that you are playing at a reputable site (Party Poker, Full Tilt, Poker Stars etc.) that maintains its integrity through other third party companies. My advice to beginning player’s, who are playing online, is to not purchase chips through your credit card. Casino’s do so well because people have a hard time associating real money with chips. This is true with credit cards as well, because the money is not being depleted from your account, but rather added to your debt. There are hundreds of horror stories of college students racking up thousands of dollars of debt using their credit cards to play online poker. My advice would be to use a debit card or open an online account that you can link directly to your checking account. This way the money can come in and go out freely, and you will directly be able to see whether or not you are profiting from your play.

The next step would be to decide what games to play. As a beginner you would like to play against other beginner players, both to develop confidence as well as slowly build your bankroll. The biggest mistake that a beginner can make is to automatically assume that they must acquire money quickly, and or jump into a game that is too big for them. You might induce the learning curve a little quicker, however the ratio compared to the money that you lose will most likely not be worth it. Most sites have limit hold em games that start at .50/1 or 1/2 limits and or PL/NL games that start at .10 / .25 stakes, which is relatively low. This is a great place to start. You will not see the most talented players, however you will be able to test out certain strategies such as check raising and learning to play in right position.

Another key concept of money management is to determine how you play when you are either up money or down money. You will see that most player tend to change the way they play when they are down money. Most times this is subconscious. A player realizes they are down money and thinks that they must get the money back, therefore playing quicker and less selective than they normally would. This is called going on tilt. The better players do not often get tilted however no one player is immune to this, as it is more human nature than anything. If you feel that you are starting to play on tilt, the best idea is to get up and stop playing for a little while. This will give you the chance to vent and reorganize your thoughts to where you can play normal again. The same goes for when you are up money. The fact that you are winning hands and winning money should be a good sign, yet some players get over greedy and start to play more hands than they normally would, because they think that they are running good.

This can be the quickest way to deplete the money that you are up.

Online poker is a game of impulse, one can bet anywhere from 1 to 1 million dollars with the click of a button, without having to actually physically see the money. This is why you must be very careful, especially in the beginning of your playing. Most sites allow you to set a transaction/withdrawal limit, and it is a good idea to set these limits. This will eliminate some of the impulse that is associated with online poker and can allow the player to play, without the chance of them losing their shirt. A great way to manage your money is to set different levels for yourself. If you start out playing 1/2 limit hold em with 50 dollars, then you can set a limit of 100 dollars. Once you reach that point, you can cash out 50 dollars and still be left with your original buy in to continue playing. By setting goals, you are working towards something and therefore can feel accomplished when you succeed. This will help you immensely when managing your bankroll.