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A bankroll is the money you have set aside for poker and are willing to lose without it affecting anything else. The question is how big it needs to be for the stakes you play, and the answer is measured in buy-ins rather than in currency. The calculator above applies the commonly cited guidelines for cash games and tournaments at three levels of risk appetite. It is a rule of thumb, not a proof, and the sections below explain exactly where that rule comes from and where it stops applying.
Buy-in multiples for cash games and tournaments
Three risk levels, from conservative to aggressive
Shows what dropping a level does to the requirement
Recreational-player guidelines, widely cited and reasonably consistent across sources. Tournaments need far more because most entries return nothing at all.
| Risk appetite | Cash game | Tournament | Suits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative | 40 buy-ins | 150 buy-ins | Playing above your comfort, or replacing income |
| Standard | 25 buy-ins | 100 buy-ins | Most regular players |
| Aggressive | 15 buy-ins | 50 buy-ins | Money you are genuinely happy to lose |
The same guidelines applied to buy-ins a home game actually uses.
| Buy-in | Cash, standard | Tournament, standard | Tournament, conservative |
|---|---|---|---|
| $20 | $500 | $2,000 | $3,000 |
| $50 | $1,250 | $5,000 | $7,500 |
| $100 | $2,500 | $10,000 | $15,000 |
| $200 | $5,000 | $20,000 | $30,000 |
Bankroll
These are the commonly cited recreational guidelines, not a risk-of-ruin calculation — a real one needs your win rate and variance, which a home game does not give you enough hands to estimate. Tournaments need deeper rolls because most entries return nothing at all.
Poker results swing enormously in the short run, and the size of those swings scales with the buy-in rather than with anything about you. That is why the guideline is a multiple: twenty-five buy-ins means the same thing to a five dollar game and a five hundred dollar one. What changes between players is how many buy-ins they need, not the fact that the unit is buy-ins.
In a cash game you can leave at any point with whatever is in front of you, so a bad session costs part of a buy-in. In a tournament you either cash or you get nothing, and most entries get nothing — even a strong player cashes well under a third of the time. Long stretches with no return are normal rather than a sign anything is wrong, and the bankroll has to survive them.
It is not a risk-of-ruin calculation. A real one needs your win rate and your variance, and it needs them measured over a sample far larger than a home game produces — tens of thousands of hands, not a few dozen Friday nights. Anyone giving you a precise bankroll number from a handful of sessions is giving you a number derived from noise.
The rule that actually protects a bankroll is not the starting number, it is what you do when it shrinks. If you drop below the buy-in multiple for your stake, move down a level until you are back above it. This is unpleasant and almost nobody does it, which is precisely why it is the part worth committing to in advance rather than deciding in the moment.
These guidelines assume the game is roughly break-even or better for you. A friendly monthly game with a fixed buy-in and people who are there for the evening has both lower variance and a much smaller total exposure than the guidelines are designed for. If your annual poker spend is a known, small number you are content to lose, bankroll management is not really the problem you have.
The single most useful thing about a bankroll is the boundary, not the size. Money set aside for poker, which you do not top up from elsewhere mid-session, turns a run of bad results into information instead of a decision. The moment you are reaching for money that was earmarked for something else, the number in the calculator has stopped being the relevant question.
People treat the bankroll number as the thing to solve and it is usually the wrong end. You cannot conjure more bankroll, but you can pick a smaller game, and every guideline here rearranges into the same advice: play a stake where your roll is comfortably above the multiple. A player with five hundred dollars asking whether it is enough for a hundred dollar game is asking about the wrong variable.
None of this works without a record. PokerChip.live logs buy-ins, rebuys and cash-outs as the game runs and keeps the results across sessions, so your actual position is a number you can look at rather than a rough impression. Impressions are reliably wrong in the direction of thinking you are ahead.
FAQ
01
For cash games, commonly 25 buy-ins, or 40 if you are being careful. For tournaments, commonly 100 buy-ins and up to 150 conservatively, because tournament variance is much higher.
02
Because most tournament entries return nothing. You either cash or you do not, and long stretches without a result are normal even for strong players, so the bankroll has to absorb them.
03
It is on the aggressive side but workable if you are a winning player and genuinely comfortable losing it. If the money matters to you, 25 to 40 buy-ins is the safer range.
04
Move down a stake until you are back above the buy-in multiple for that level. It is the part of bankroll management almost nobody follows and the part that actually does the work.
05
No. A real risk-of-ruin figure needs your win rate and variance measured over tens of thousands of hands. These are the commonly cited guidelines, which is the right tool at home-game sample sizes.
06
Less than it does for someone playing to win money. If your buy-in is fixed, the game is monthly, and the yearly total is an amount you are happy to spend on an evening out, the boundary matters more than the multiple.
07
Yes, and that boundary is more useful than the exact size. A bankroll you do not top up mid-session turns a losing run into information rather than an in-the-moment decision.
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