Why Do I Play Poker?

Hi, my name is Mark and I’m the owner and one of the writ­ers of Poker Bankroll Blog. The peo­ple behind Why Do I play Poker have very kindly given me the oppor­tu­nity to write a guest post for their site.

Before I start on the main topic for this arti­cle, I want to give a short intro­duc­tion to my blog. My aim for Poker Bankroll Blog is for it to become the best online arti­cle data­base cov­er­ing top­ics like poker bankroll man­age­ment , poker math­e­mat­ics, poker strat­egy and much more.

I have 6 years of online poker expe­ri­ence so there are plenty of top­ics to write about. But as it’s usu­ally the case with hobby blogs, the chal­lenge is to find the nec­es­sary time. I’ve real­ized that I don’t have time to write every­thing myself, and as a result, I have opened up my blog to fel­low poker writ­ers in order to build my arti­cle data­base and get dif­fer­ent point of views on the many aspects of poker.

All poker play­ers have bad beat sto­ries to tell. That’s because poker is essen­tially a game of prob­a­bil­i­ties (some crit­ics claim it’s a game of luck but that’s because they don’t know bet­ter). Even if you’re ahead of your oppo­nent with a pair of kings on a K85 rain­bow flop, there’s always the pos­si­bil­ity she catches a J and Q on the turn and river for a straight. This ele­ment of chance is the source of all vari­ance in poker.

Vari­ance in com­bi­na­tion with your poker skills at the tables is what makes your stack swing from hand to hand, and your bankroll vary on a daily, weekly, monthly and year­ly basis. If you’re a poker begin­ner, your bankroll will most likely decrease due to lack of expe­ri­ence, but even poker pros have bad runs. Solid bankroll man­age­ment is the best weapon against vari­ance and the related risk of ruin.

Obvi­ously you’re much more likely to lose a 100$ bankroll play­ing two 50$ SNGs com­pared to play­ing 2$ tour­na­ments. With solid bankroll man­age­ment you will always have enough SNG and tour­na­ment buyins in your bankroll to out­last bad runs. Most experts rec­om­mend a bankroll around 50 SNG or tour­na­ment buyins on the level you’re play­ing to min­i­mize the risk of going broke in the long run. Serious/pro poker play­er usu­ally have around 100 buyins in their roll. Before mak­ing your first deposit, make sure you are aware of the con­se­quences of your bankroll man­age­ment choice.

If you’re deposit­ing look­ing for quick thrills and the chance of build­ing a bankroll with light­ning speed, by all means go ahead and risk your entire bankroll on one tour­na­ment. Just be aware that your chances of suc­cess are quite low. If you’re look­ing to sus­tain your bankroll over a long period of time then stick to the 50 buyin rule of thumb. How­ever, fol­low­ing this plan means that you will be grind­ing it out in small buyin tour­na­ments and SNGs for a long time in order to increase your bankroll enough to move up to the next level.

If you’re a poker novice your bankroll will ben­e­fit a great deal from learn­ing all the poker rules. I’ve writ­ten a series of arti­cles describ­ing every­thing you’ll need to start play­ing poker. It might also be of inter­est to you to join the High Pulse Poker site where they have freerolls to increase your bankroll every 15 minutes.