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article from www.sitngoplanet.com

Good Bankroll Management is Critical for SNG Success, this article looks at what size bankroll Sit N Go Players should work with for the most poker profits.

Good Bankroll Management is a critical success factor in any form of poker. In fact poker history is full of examples of great players ending up broke due to not managing their poker bankroll correctly.

Here is the key to good bankroll management in SNGs:

You need to have enough buy-ins to ensure that you do not go broke due to the natural swings (variance) of the game. The question is then - what are the swings that a SNG player can expect?

This will depend on the buy-in level at which you play and your profitability. Large sample-size surveys have found that - statistically speaking - even a winning SNG player will experience a downswing of 20 buy-ins once every 500 games. That is not to say everyone will experience this - the nature of an average means that some people will see less variance while others will see more.

So how can you protect against these swings of fortune? The answer is to ensure you have a big enough bankroll to withstand them. Most Pro SNG players recommend that the minimum requirement is 50 buy-ins for the level at which you play. Others suggest that a 100 buy-in bankroll will effectively shield you from any thoughts / concerns about variance.

Here is what your 50 buy-in Bankroll should look like for the various levels.

$5+50 SNGS - $275

$10+1 SNGs - $550

$16+1 SNGs - $850

$20+2 SNGs - $1100

$25+2 SNGs - $1350

$30+3 SNGs - $1650

$55+5 SNGs - $3000

Another key to bankroll management is your ability to replenish your bankroll should you go broke. For some people, particularly those who play the occasional game for leisure purposes, this is not an issue - they can simply set aside a portion of their disposable income to cover this eventuality. For those people who rely on poker income (for example to see themselves through college) then it is important to maintain good discipline with your bankroll.

A final thought for this introduction is that good bankroll discipline can provide you with an indicator of when to move up SNG levels. The '50 buy-in' rule means that the bankroll required for the next level is easy to assess. If you experience a negative run at the higher level then it becomes easy to drop back down and rebuild before taking another shot.

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To be a successful poker player you have to be able to exercise good bankroll management skills. If you are unable to manage your poker money correctly, you will never be able to become a long term winning poker player. Even if you were the best player in the world, it would be impossible to be able to make money from poker if you did not use good money management skills.

Bankroll management basically involves playing at a certain levels and buy-ins to help prevent yourself from going broke at the poker table. You have to set yourself limits to where you can play poker due to the variance found in every poker game. There are always going to be times where you have runs of bad luck that you cannot control, and you will lose money due to the bad runs of cards, and not necessarily due to any bad play. Therefore there is no use in putting all of your poker money on one table, because there is a good chance that you will lose it all and not be able to continue playing poker.

As a result, it is important that we have a large enough bankroll to absorb the effects of this variance so that we can continue to play poker even when we have very bad runs of cards. In addition, we don’t want to go over the top and play at micro levels with a huge bankroll because it is unlikely that we will go broke, and we want to give ourselves the opportunity to win a decent amount of money from our poker sessions. Therefore there are useful rules that you can follow to make sure that you give yourself the best opportunity to make money from poker without going broke.

In cash games, you should never put more than 5% of your bankroll onto the table at any time. So if you want to play in $1/$2 cash games and intend to buy in for the full amount, you should have a bankroll of at least $4000. This will then give you enough room to take a few bad beats and losing sessions, but still be able to continue playing poker without the fear of going broke. Another way of looking at the 5% rule is to remember that you should have 20 times the maximum buy in of the level you wish to play at in your bankroll. Most online poker rooms offer a wide range of limits, so it is perfectly possible to keep your bankroll under control, no matter how large or small it might be. Alternatively, if you are a tournament player, you should have around 40 buy-ins minimum for the level of tournaments you wish to play in.

It is important to remember however that bankroll management is only useful if you intend to play poker regularly, and that you are a winning player. If you only play poker casually then it is not as important to have a set bankroll, but to just be careful with your money instead. In addition, bankroll management will have no effect on your moneymaking endeavours if you are a losing poker player. However, bankroll management will slow down the time it takes for you to lose the money if you are used to playing at higher stakes.