Poker Bankroll Calculator

Most professionals recommend 10-30 buy-ins for cash games, depending on your risk tolerance. A conservative player should maintain 30 buy-ins, a standard player needs 20, and an aggressive player can manage with 10. A buy-in is 100 big blinds at your stakes. For example, at $1/$2 NL, one buy-in is $200, so a standard bankroll is $4,000 (20 x $200).

Bankroll management is the practice of keeping enough money set aside specifically for poker to withstand the natural variance (swings) of the game. Even the best players experience losing streaks. Proper bankroll management ensures that a bad run doesn't wipe you out. It means playing at stakes where your bankroll can absorb downswings, and moving down if your bankroll shrinks — rather than going broke chasing losses.

$1/$3 No-Limit Hold'em is the most popular floor game in Las Vegas and many other card rooms. A standard buy-in is $300 (100 big blinds). With a standard risk approach, you need 20 buy-ins or $6,000. Conservative players should have 30 buy-ins ($9,000), while aggressive players can start with 10 buy-ins ($3,000). Live $1/$3 games tend to be softer than online, so the standard 20 buy-ins is usually sufficient.

For $1/$2 No-Limit Hold'em, a standard buy-in is $200 (100 big blinds). With a standard risk approach, you need 20 buy-ins or $4,000. Conservative players should have 30 buy-ins ($6,000), while aggressive players can get by with 10 buy-ins ($2,000). If you're a new player or playing in tough games, lean toward the conservative end to give yourself the best chance of surviving variance.

Twenty buy-ins is the industry-standard recommendation for cash games, used by players like Daniel Negreanu and most training sites. It provides a solid cushion against variance while keeping your money in play. For more cautious players or those in tougher games, 30 buy-ins offers extra protection. For tournaments, 20 buy-ins is far too few — tournaments have much higher variance and require 50-200 entries in reserve.

Tournaments have significantly higher variance than cash games because you either bust or cash — there's no middle ground. In cash games, you can win or lose small amounts each session, so the swings are smoother. Tournament players routinely go 50-100+ entries without a significant cash. Because of this, the standard recommendation is 100 buy-ins for tournaments versus 20 for cash games. Sit & Go's fall in between, requiring about 50 buy-ins for the standard approach.

A common guideline is to move up when your bankroll reaches the recommended number of buy-ins for the next level. For example, if you're playing $1/$2 (buy-in $200) with a standard 20 buy-in rule, you have $4,000. To move to $1/$3 (buy-in $300), you need 20 x $300 = $6,000. To jump to $2/$5 (buy-in $500), you need 20 x $500 = $10,000. If your bankroll grows to that level, take a shot. Always have a stop-loss plan: if you lose 3-5 buy-ins at the new level, move back down until you rebuild.

Risk of ruin is the probability that your bankroll will drop to zero given your win rate, standard deviation, and bankroll size. With a conservative bankroll (30 buy-ins for cash games), your risk of ruin is under 5%. A standard 20 buy-in bankroll carries roughly a 5-10% risk of ruin. An aggressive 10 buy-in bankroll may have a 20-30% risk of ruin. These numbers assume a modest positive win rate — break-even or losing players will eventually go broke regardless of bankroll size.

Online poker generally requires a larger bankroll relative to stakes because you play more hands per hour (60-80 hands per table vs 25-30 live), which means you encounter variance faster. Online players also tend to be more skilled at equivalent stakes, making edges smaller. However, online stakes are much lower in absolute terms, so the bankroll in dollars is often smaller. For live poker, the same buy-in guidelines apply, but the slower pace makes swings feel more gradual.

The Kelly criterion is a formula for the optimal fraction of your bankroll to risk on any +EV bet to maximize long-run growth without going broke. For poker, the simplification is Kelly fraction ≈ edge / variance, where edge is your win rate per hand and variance is your standard deviation squared. It typically translates to roughly 20-30 buy-ins for cash games at average win rates, which matches industry-standard heuristics. Most pros play at half-Kelly (twice the bankroll Kelly suggests) because full-Kelly bankroll volatility is emotionally punishing to ride out, even when mathematically optimal.

Technically yes — opportunity cost is real. Money sitting in your bankroll isn't earning a return at investment rates. If you're rolled for 100+ buy-ins at your current stakes, you're carrying more risk capital than you need; some of that money could be earning 4-8% annually in index funds while you play with a 30-buy-in working roll. The practical answer for most players is no, though — bankrolls almost never become 'too large' before the player moves up stakes or takes shots. A 100-buy-in cushion at your current stakes is also valuable peace-of-mind that you can absorb any conceivable downswing without affecting your decisions at the table.

Rake reduces your effective win rate, which means you need more buy-ins for the same risk of ruin. Online rake is typically 4-5% of each pot up to a cap (around $3 max per pot at NL10-NL100, lower at microstakes). Live rake can be 5-10% with a cap, plus dealer tips of $1-$2 per pot. At $1/$2 live, a 'pre-rake' winner of 5 bb/100 might be only 2-3 bb/100 net of rake — meaning the same downswing math applies as a much weaker winner, requiring 30-50% more bankroll than rake-free calculations suggest. Always check the rake structure of your card room or site before sizing your roll, and use rakeback or VIP programs to recover some of it where available.