If you play poker satellite tournaments and sit and go tournaments instead of cash table games then managing your bankroll is going to change a bit. I typically recommend buying 10x your tournament buy-in fee as then you have some chances to win some money. You don’t want to buy $100 and then play in massive tournaments with huge buy-ins because then you might get to only play one tournament if you don’t win.

Depending on how much you can afford will reflect the stakes you play in. If you can spend $100 then you should only play $10 tournaments until you can increase your bankroll significantly. You never want to risk more then 10% of your bankroll on any given tournament so always keep that as a rule of thumb when managing you bankroll.

One thing that all poker players have problems with in tournaments on sites like PokerStars.com is that if they play a $10 tournament and don’t win any money in it then they want to suddenly jump into a $20 tournament so that they can win more this time around. The only problem with this philosophy is that if you lose again then you’ll be down an extra $10 and which is 10% of your starting bankroll which you can’t afford. You need to stay consistent when you play tournaments and you should only increase the limits you’re playing if you reach 10x the next buy-in amount. If the next highest tournament costs $20 to enter then you need to wait until you have at least $200 before you start playing these ones.

Managing your bankroll in tournaments and sit and go tournaments on FullTiltPoker.net is a lot easier then cash table games because you know exactly what you need to risk every time you sit down at a table. This makes doing the math a lot easier and there is absolutely no excuse for mishandling your bankroll if you’re a tournament player. If you want to play more conservatively or you play with a larger initial bankroll then you might only want to use 5% of your bankroll each tournament. For instance if you have $500 in your account then you might not want to play $50 tournaments and you could move down to a $25 level so that it’s more feasible. Your initial bankroll will reflect whether you should play with 5% or 10% of your bankroll in each tournament and you should stay consistent.

In sit and go tournaments there is a 33% chance of winning some money in the tournament which is very high so by using only 5% – 10% of your bankroll you shouldn’t run into a bad streak where you lose everything. Those of you who play consistently at the stakes your bankroll can afford should realize profits from your play as long as you know what you’re doing when it comes to playing internet poker. Managing your bankroll is easy to follow in tournament play if you want to, so the only decision you need to make is whether you’ll follow the proper bankroll management techniques or do your own thing.