Bankroll management is one of the most important things in successfully playing poker. Your Bankroll decides which Blinds you can play without too much risk and which Blinds would just be stupid to play with.

For Fixed Limit players it seems like the best system is the 200 BB (Big Bet) rule. This means to be able to play for example at $1/$2 tables, your bankroll should at least be $400. It is very important to not be afraid to go a step down when your bankroll decreases. Of course this step is very hard to take, as you have to admit that you might not be good enough to play this level. Normally you go back one level if your bankroll reaches at least 150 BB of the lower level. For example, if you have lost a lot of your $400 and have only $150 left, you should go back to $0.50/$1 tables. But the same goes for winning players. Don't be afraid to step one level higher if you have the bankroll for doing so. To go from $1/$2 to $2/$4, for example, you would need a bankroll of at least $800. On the higher levels you should proceed more conservatively. Therefore you should play on one level until you have about 300BB of the higher level.

For No Limit players the bankroll should be handled with much more caution, as you are able to lose much more money in a short time than in fixed limit poker. Because of this reason you should have at least 10 stacks of the level you want to play at. 1 Stack normally consists of 100 Big Blinds in NL Hold Em. Now if you want to play for example at $0.50/$1 Blinds, you should have a bankroll of at least $1000. This seems high, but who hasn't had the experience of going all in with a very good hand, just to lose against a backdoor draw? Of course there is nothing wrong with going all in with the by far best hand at the moment, but such situations show how fast you can lose a lot of money because of the incredible luck of others.

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