Bankroll Management
Managing your bankroll effectively is all about playing within your means, having the discipline to drop down a level, and emotional control. Failure to manage your bankroll, regardless of your skill, will result in failure. The law of probabilities will simply take you down if you are not careful.
There are many methods of bankroll management out there. The one you choose to follow really depends on your comfort level and discipline. In either case, deviating from your bankroll managment method based on emotion is a recipe for disaster. Not only that, you will play much better poker when you know exactly what your limits are and feel as if you have plenty of room to withstand the inevitable swings in poker.
My preferred strategy is based on using a specific percentage of my total bankroll to use as my buy-in. It allows you to move up to higher levels rapidly and sometimes see an exponential increase in your bankroll. However, it also requires a lot of discipline. The percentage figure you use should be no higher than 10%. Personally, I stick to around 5% or less. Whatever you are most comfortable with is what you should choose for a percentage. To be clear on how this works, say for example you have a bankroll of $200 and you choose to use a 10% strategy, you will be buying in for no more than $20 regardless of the limit you are playing. The real downside to this strategy is it can be incredibly frustrating and take a lot of discipline when you hit a bad run (which you will).
Eventually though, you may want to settle into a different bankroll strategy where you just start to accumulate many multiples of your typical buy-in, say about 50 or more.
A critical thing you have to accept is that from time to time you will have bad runs and will need to be humble enough to drop down a level. This is a very difficult thing to do for many players. The desire to get back to even can be an overwhelming emotion. You have to keep that in check and stop playing if you need to.
I have personally found that getting in the habit of sticking to a disciplined bankroll management strategy makes for a much more enjoyable playing experience. I feel I make much better decisions on a consistent basis following a solid bankroll discipline.
Take Care and See You at the Tables,
Tbone