Bankroll management is a very important aspect of a serious poker player's strategy. Bankroll is not the amount you sit down with at the table. What I'm referring to is the amount of money set aside specifically for playing poker.

Keeping an adequate bankroll allows you to withstand the up's and down's that are inherent with the game of poker. Short-term downswings or losing streaks are inevitable, and the short-term is longer than most people realize.

If you've read my Step-by-Step plan, then you already know about the 300 big bet rule-of-thumb for limit hold'em. That is, for a winning player, a decent bankroll size is equal to 300 times the size of the big bet for that limit. For example, if you're playing at the $3/6 limit, you need $1,800 (300 x $6 = $1,800).

You may think that almost two thousand dollars is an unusually large amount needed to just play $3/6. After all, you usually buy in to a $3/6 game at the casino with only $100. But, let me tell you from experience, after a ten session losing streak, you'll be glad you have that extra cushion. In my first two years of playing online poker, my biggest downswing was 150 big bets, and I had several downswings of 100 big bets. Keeping that extra money on hand for poker, allowed me to continue playing despite those downswings. Of course, in the long run, I made it all back, and then some.

Some people make the argument that they don't need to keep a separate bankroll for poker. They say they're not relying on poker winnings to make a living, and they can afford to take a loss and dip back into their personal money, and they're just playing for fun after all.

Ok, if you're only playing for fun every once in a while, then go ahead and just pull out your buy-in money and play. For serious poker players though, those who make an effort to study and practice their game, it is much better to keep a separate poker bankroll. Just ask my wife about that. There's no way she would let me take out $2,000 from our checking/savings account to play a session of $15/30. But, since my entire bankroll evolved directly from my first $20 deposit, and it stays separate from "our" money, then I can play any game or tournament I want. I never have to worry that a poker loss will affect our personal finances. It is a comfortable feeling to have.

I'm mostly a limit ring game player, so I'm not an expert on the bankroll requirements for the other forms of poker, but here are some rules-of-thumb I have heard:

• Limit Ring Games - 300 Big Bets
• No Limit Ring Games - 20 Buy-in's
• Sit-n-Go Tournaments - 30 Buy-in's
• Multi-table Tournaments - 100 Buy-in's

A decent poker player can expect to earn, on average, about 1 big bet per hour at the poker table. It would be nice if it was always a steady 1 big bet every hour, but that's not the way things work. You need tens of thousands of hands under your belt, before you can begin to determine a reliable win rate. A good bankroll will allow you to play long enough to reach "long-term" results.