One of the drawbacks that I have had in the past due to having a good paying job, is that I've developed EXTREMELY poor bankroll management discipline. I look at the big payouts of the bazillion MTTs available on Stars and FullTilt, then just buy-in or play many satellites without taking into account how the buy-ins effect on my bankroll.
"I can just reload if I hit a bad stretch."
Fortunately, I haven't had to reload often over the past 3 years or so, but that mentality is detrimental to building any kind of significant bankroll that makes all of this time that I spend playing poker, worth it. So, my #1 News Year's Poker Resolution is to develop and maintain sound bankroll management discipline.
The guidelines that I have adopted are those used by Chris Ferguson in his project to start with $0 and build it to $10k. Here are his rules:
* Never buy into a cash game or a Sit & Go with more than 5 percent of my total bankroll.
* Don't buy into a multi-table tournament for more than 2 percent of my total bankroll.
* If at any time during a No-Limit or Pot-Limit cash-game session the money on the table represents more than 10 percent of my total bankroll, I must leave the game when the blinds reach me.
Nothing ingenious, but very good rules to keep me out of trouble. I have actually used these rules for the past couple of months and it has worked out thus far. Along with following these rules, I have created a spreadsheet that tracks the fluctuations in my bankroll and the acceptable buy-ins. I update it after every day of playing poker and get a good visual of the changes in my bankroll.
If you have similar issues with bankroll management, I recommend that you try out Ferguson's rules, or something similar. And maintain some sort of spreadsheet to track your bankroll. Email me if you want a copy of mine.
