Bankroll examples for Texas Hold'em

A good way to start out is by learning how to play Limit Texas Hold'em well. This is the most popular game played both online and offline. But more importantly, it is an easy game to learn and to play at a decent level as a beginner. See our Limit Texas Hold'em strategy articles. You should be aware that a beginning player can easily lose 30-50 big bets at one table during a few hours of online poker play, even strong winning players can lose this much if they are running unlucky. This equals losses of $60-$100 at a $1-$2 limit game, which is still considered low limit. Knowing this should help you accepting the unavoidable swings that take place in poker. Good professional poker players usually need a bankroll of at least 300 times the big bet, when playing Limit Texas Hold'em, in order to play comfortably over time because of the big swings. Also your playing style affects the size of your bank roll. The looser you play (can still be a good way of playing) and the more loose/aggressive games you participate in, the bigger will the swings in your bank roll be.

Here is a table with bankroll requirements for various limits at Texas Hold'em:

As you can see, for Limit Texas Hold'em we recommend a bank roll of 300-500 times the Big Bet and for No-Limit a bank roll of 1000-2000 times the Big Blind.

For more details read money-management.