Without question, the toughest part of being a True Grinder is managing your poker bankroll successfully. It's the lifeblood of your game however and you must take (sometimes painful) steps to manage it properly. In this article we're going to discuss some of the methods of establishing, managing, and most importantly growing your bankroll.

Establishing Your Poker Bankroll

This part is simple, unless you just won the lottery you're going to have dig into your pocket to fund this little venture. Before you make that first buy-in however, let's talk about a little math that we will call Bankroll 101 (coming soon to a college near you, NOT). Your bankroll at any given time should contain a minimum of 600 Big Bets (BB) for Limit Grinders and 50 minimum Buy Ins for No Limit. If you're a tournament player, you should have 50 Buy Ins for Sit and Go's and 150 for Multi Table Tournaments.

Now, you may be thinking that these numbers are high (or perhaps the author is!), especially if you've read other bankroll management articles that are floating around. Truth is, we're not here to teach you how to be a donk or a casual player. As Mike Matusow would say, "The kiddie game is around the corner". If you feel like you can't handle this sort of thing, time to check out now because these are the big leagues and just like the NFL, it stands for "Not For Long" if your bankroll can't hang! These numbers are high because we're teaching you how to PROTECT your bankroll under the assumption that losing it entirely would completely put you on life tilt.

Of course, it's hard to apply hard and fast rules in most cases when you're talking about people. People are different; they have different styles, tastes, etc. They also have different weaknesses and in the poker world, weakness is something that gets exploited very quickly. For the purpose of this discussion we're going to assume that you're a solid player who understands the value of managing your bankroll and even as a True Grinder, you're prone to tilt from time to time. So these numbers are here to protect you, get over it.

So using this math you would need at least a $1,200 bankroll to begin playing 1 / 2 Limit Hold'em (or any other variant). What's that? You only have $500 bucks to start grinding it out? No problem, pick your game accordingly. You may want to begin with playing $10 SNG's using the formula we presented above. Once your bankroll hits the next level based on the math and where you want to play, move up. Simple, right?

If your starting bankroll falls into the "I'm so broke I can't even pay attention" category, then you're going to have to start playing at the micro-limit level (nickel and dime blinds) and perhaps break the bankroll rule to get there. The good news is that those games tend to be donkfests and you should be able to crush them with relative ease. The bad news is is that your swings and the competition only get tougher as you move up the ranks. But hey, you're ready for this because you've read up on the all of the great stuff here at The Poker Grind and signed up for our newsletter to help keep your head in the game, right? NO? Then get on the ball and sign up on the right side of this page.