Many poker players, including professionals, have a tendency to burn through their bankrolls quickly.
Even the best players can ruin everything they've achieved in months of success in just one or two bad sessions.
A funny thing is that people who lose money playing live poker (about 90% of players) also complain that they can't keep a balance in online poker. Strange, isn't it?
What's surprising is that the winning players also share the same problem!
If a player is a constant winner in live poker, we can consider that he should also have good results playing online poker.
Unfortunately, being a successful online poker player requires much more discipline and control than in live poker.
Online players are generally more skilled and the game flows much more quickly.
If you're a good poker player, and you know you're capable of making money, but you still can't seem to maintain a stable bankroll, this article is especially for you.
1 - Play within the limits of your bankroll
Starting with the most important concept: you must play with your bankroll, i.e. the limits played, number of games, etc. will be decided based on it.
The simplest way to explain this is to look at the mathematical side of the gamblers' ruin theorem.
One of the concepts of this theorem is: take two players and pit them against each other in a zero-sum game (something like tossing a coin, where each player has a win/loss expectancy of exactly 0%).
One player has a finite bankroll. The other has an infinite bankroll. By repeating this game infinitely many times, the player with the finite bankroll will sooner or later go broke, while the other will still have his bankroll.
In the world of online poker, it's you against the world. That means one thing: it's your bankroll against the infinite bankroll of the rest of the world. If poker were a zero-sum game, you'd go broke.
If you're a winning player, you can certainly expect positive returns on your investments. But you need to have enough money in your bankroll to hold the bar at times of swing and negative variance.
Your bankroll, however finite, needs to be big enough to seem infinite. Try to make use of the rule that says you must put a maximum of 5% of your bankroll into play at a table.
If you really want security, lower this number to 1% or 2%.
If you never have to worry about breaking when you lose in a particular game, the chances are that you really won't break.
2 - Don't micromanage your cashier
If you're following the first rule and playing with a decent bankroll, then (without considering monstrous downswings) your risk of going bust is minimal, almost zero.
You play poker with chips, not money. You shouldn't think about money while you're playing, it's completely irrelevant. Think only about buy-ins and chips.
You shouldn't fall into the trap of wanting to check your cashier every minute.
When you're in an upswing, every time you look at your till, you feel good.
The number increases, and so does your ego.
However, it only takes one bad beat to bring this number down, and a lot. If you're still frantically checking your bankroll, this will make you feel very bad.
You want to get back the amount of money you had before, and you want it back instantly.
When you start having this thought, you've started "chasing your losses". You'll start pushing your game to try and recover the lost value, and that's never good.
This could be the first step towards complete self-destruction.
Typically in poker, winning money is a slow climb, but losing money is a free fall!
If you're looking at your balance sheet, you'll fall into depression when you see that "you've lost a week's work" or "it will take a week to recover what you've lost in an hour".
The only way to recover this quickly would be to take a "shot" at a higher limit, to try and hit something big, but this breaks the #1 rule, and is the start of the attitudes that will make it break.
3- Treat the game seriously
When you're playing real money poker, every session, pot and decision matters. Even the smallest mistake will cost you money.
The more money you lose through mistakes, the harder it will be to generate profits, and the easier it will be to go broke.
Limit your distractionsAs the word itself says, a distraction is anything that takes your focus off the game and onto something else.
When you start playing online poker without paying attention to the game, you're bound to make a lot of mistakes.
Each person is different: Some players can play very well while watching a movie. Others need to turn off everything around them to keep their focus on the game.
You need to understand your ability to concentrate on multiple tasks so that you can play optimally.
Don't play poker to cure boredomYou play poker because you want to, or because it's your job to make money.
Playing poker because you're bored will turn poker into fake entertainment, and that's extremely complicated.
Poker isn't always going to entertain you or be fun, and if your session is boring, this can cause you to try to do unthought-out actions to generate action in the game, and this will cost you money!
If you're bored and don't really want to play, it's best to find something else to do.
4 - Pay attention to your human needs
You are a human being, and human beings have needs. If you're not feeling well, or you're sick, you won't play your best poker.
The most important human factors related to poker:
HungerIf you're not eating well or you're very hungry, you won't be thinking as quickly as you should.
If you're hungry, this is yet another distraction that will get in the way of your game.
ComfortIf you're not comfortable, you're distracted. Get a good chair, a good monitor and make yourself as comfortable as possible.
Use every tip you can to make your gaming environment the best and most comfortable it can be.
ExhaustionIf you're tired, you won't play your best poker. If you don't play your best, you lose money, simple as that.
No matter how good the game is, if you're tired, go to bed.
Mental distractionsIf you have any worries on your mind, this will disrupt your thinking and distract you during the game.
It's best not to start playing if you're in a mental state that you don't consider "normal", such as nervous, worried or anxious, for example.
Drugs and drink are also a distraction. It's one thing to play while drinking a beer or two, but it's another to play completely stoned.
5 - Realize when you're tilted and should leave the game
Tilt is the number one bankroll killer worldwide.
It usually goes hand in hand with breaking one of the four previous rules, or it can arise from a simple bad beat. Tilt can lead even the best players into stupid actions, such as senseless plays, insane limit raises and totally unnecessary flips.
The cause of tilt is personal and varies from player to player, and can be triggered by a variety of reasons. Although it varies from person to person, the intensity and the possibility of avoiding tilt are unpredictable.
Some players, like Phil Ivey, rarely get tilt. When they are, it rarely affects their level of play to the point of "disaster".
Elite players aside, for the rest of us "mortals", when you feel any form of tilt, no matter how small, it's time to log off, get up and do something else.
Poker will always be waiting for you when you get back.
Summary
If you follow all these rules, and have a good winning game, we can say that the chances of you going bust will be very close to zero.
WarningIf you break just ONE of the rules, all the others can be broken almost at the same time, like a domino effect.
Poker will always be waiting for you, as long as you have a bankroll. If you lose everything, the situation is different.
Text translated and adapted from the original: Five Rules to Save Your Online Poker Bankroll by: Sean Lind
English 
Português do Brasil 
Very good article!
Poker Tips thanks you!
Great article!
Thank you for the compliment 🙂