Whether you have a bankroll of a few hundred dollars or a few thousand dollars you need to manage it. If you don’t manage your money while playing poker then you’ll end up running out of money in most cases. When you start losing money it’s almost automatic for most people to want to chase the losses and get it back as soon as possible. The reality is that you will lose more in most cases if you chase your losses. It’s important to set some win and loss thresholds so that once you hit the threshold you can stop playing.

If you have $500 in your bankroll and you’re a cash game player you won’t get very far by playing $1/$2. You might get lucky and win some money initially, but eventually you’ll most likely lose your entire bankroll. If you’re playing cash games with $500 you need to start playing on the micro limit tables until you can build up a more sizeable roll. A big part of poker is variance and your bankroll needs to be able to handle the variance you’ll experience in cash games. It’s really easy to lose 5 buy-ins before getting on a hot streak and winning 10 buy-ins. If you only have 3 buy-ins in your bankroll because you’re playing at limits that are to big for your roll then you’ll end up losing your money before winning any a lot of the time.

For those of you that play in tournaments it’s really simple to manage your money. All you need to do is decide how many buy-ins you should have in your bankroll. Everyone suggests a different amount and it’s hard to find people in agreement on how many buy-ins you should have, but you should make sure you have at least 20-30 buy-ins. This means that if you have a $300 bankroll you should play the $10+$1 tournaments until you can build up a bigger bankroll.

It isn’t that difficult to make sure you don’t lose all your money while playing poker, but if you don’t keep it in mind you can easily make some big mistakes. When you aren’t having a good day playing poker the best thing to do is leave the poker room for the day and go back the next day. If you don’t you can easily tilt away your bankroll which will mean less time spent playing poker. It would always be nice to win every session you play so you never need to worry about your bankroll, but this isn’t the case for 99% of poker players.

If you’re a poker player that tends to play passively in normal world series of poker tournaments while waiting for monster hands then you aren’t going to do very well in a heads-up tournament. You need to play aggressively in a heads-up event so that the pressure is always on your opponent. Generally you should always raise the flop in a heads-up game unless you’re folding. When you’re first to act preflop in a heads-up game and you flat call the big blind you’re leaving yourself open to a raise. In this situation a smart player is going to steal your blind. One way to counter a player that raises the pot when you limp preflop is to limp with big hands so that you can re-raise.

Most pots should be played out before the flop in a heads-up tournament. If you make it to the flop then you need to make sure you apply pressure on your opponent by betting. You don’t need to bet a huge amount of chips, but it should be enough to make your opponent fold if they have nothing. By checking on the flop you’ll leave yourself open to being bet against. The only time you should really check on the flop is if you’re planning on folding your hand or if you’re trying to trap your opponent.

In a heads-up tournament the winning hand is often not that great of a hand. It’s semi uncommon for both players in a heads-up game to hit a pair on the flop or better. If you have top pair or better without many draws on the board then you most likely have the best hand. I wouldn’t go all-in with top pair, but you can definitely play the hand down to the river if your opponent is betting. You could also re-raise if there are any draws on the board because you don’t want your opponent to hit a draw on you.

The best way to win these types of tournaments is to by playing aggressively and grinding down your opponents chip stack. Once your opponent has a small chip stack they will start moving all-in most likely. You should fold if you don’t have anything as you don’t want to double up your opponent once you have them on the edge of elimination. Try and wait for a couple suited connectors or face cards or something so that you have a good shot at beating your opponent and winning the tournament. If you happen to double up your opponent after grinding their stack down then you need to start trying to grind it down again.

* The first thing we need to look at is when you should start stealing the blinds in a tournament. Most of the tournaments you’ll play will start with 10/20 blind levels and will go up every 5 or 15 minutes. There isn’t much of a point stealing 30 chips from the pot and I wouldn’t recommend doing so as it will only make you stand out at the table. Wait until the blinds are around 25/50 minimum before you start trying to steal the blinds.

* When you do start stealing blinds you need to always make sure you’re in a good position to steal them. The best position to steal the blinds is in late position, but at the same time you need to be careful. A lot of players will re-raise you if you raise on the button simply because it looks like you’re trying to steal the blinds. I try to avoid stealing the blinds on the button unless I know my opponents are fairly passive. On a 10 player table the best position to try and raise from is the 6-7th position as it doesn’t look like you’re stealing the blinds then.

* One way to steal the blinds if you have a lot of chips in the tournament is by raising the pot in first position. Of course you’re taking the risk that someone is going to push all-in on you, but at the same time if you have a lot of chips most players won’t readily move all-in on you with nothing. When you raise in first position it also makes it look like you have a big hand since most people wouldn’t think about stealing the blinds in this position. The most important thing if you try stealing the blinds in first position is to only raise 3-4X the big blind so you aren’t committed.

* When you’re stealing the blinds you want to try and make sure you have some sort of hand. If you get re-raised a bit you don’t want to automatically have to fold. If you have a hand like a suited 9-8 then you could call a small re-raise in hopes that you hit your straight or flush on the flop. You can create some large pots by playing marginal hands like this. You want to make sure you only call small re-raises though as this type of strategy can become expensive.

You need to be able to draw a fine line between playing loose and playing conservative. You don’t want to come across as the loose player on the table and you definitely don’t want to be the conservative player on the table. The less you stand out on your poker table the better shot you’ll have at picking up the big pots. In cash games I really like playing as many hands as I can.

There are several factors you need to consider before playing a hand though. The first thing you need to check is what cards you were dealt. If you have a garbage hand with no options then just fold. If you have suited cards, connecting cards or something similar then you should try to limp into the pot. In a cash game you only need to win a couple big hands, but in order to do that you need to play hands.

By playing suited cards and marginal connecting hands you’re allowing yourself to hit some monster hands on the flop. Remember you only want to call these types of hands if you’re able to limp into the pot for the price of the big blind. Any two cards have a chance of winning the pot before the flop. If you’re in a pot with 8-7 and the flop comes down 6-5-4 then it’s unlikely you’re going to lose the hand. Most people would never have hit the straight because they play too tight, but by limping into pots you’ll leave yourself opportunities to hit hands like this.

When you have premium hands preflop you’ll want to raise the pot up a bit, but make sure you mix it up. You’ll need to raise a few marginal hands as well to keep your opponents guessing. If you only raise when you have a premium hand then you’re going to notice everyone on your table folds when you raise which is no good. If this starts happening then you need to start raising marginal hands and playing your premium hands slowly.

After the flop in Texas Holdem you need to be able to play your opponent. You need to be willing to bet the pot out if they check it. You need to be willing to raise and re-raise your opponent if you think they have nothing. You also need to know when to fold the hand and call it quits. If you can find the perfect mixture of these plays above then you’re going to have success. Waiting for pocket aces to double up on isn’t going to get your very far as a poker player.

A set of aces might look awesome when you’re playing Texas Holdem, but when you’re playing Omaha Hi/Lo you aren’t going to win many hands with a set. Typically the winning high hand will be a straight or better and often the winning hand will be a high flush or better. If you’re facing a big bet you really need to decide how good your hand is and how many hands can beat your hand. If a lot of hands beat your hand then you should most likely just fold and a pick a better spot to play a big pot.

When you’re playing a hand and trying to win the high hand it’s always good to have a shot at winning the low hand. You need to use two cards from your hand minimum to make your high hand and low hand, but the cards you use for each hand can be different if you want. This means that you can potentially win both the high and low hand. It’s always best to have the option of winning the low hand in case you’re going up against a monster high hand that you can’t beat.

If you’re chasing a hand because you feel you have won the low hand you need to be careful in Omaha Hi/Lo. The low hand does receive 50% of the pot if you’re the only winner, but if you tie the low hand then you need to split up the 50% of the pot. A lot of time I’ve seen people chase a low hand and end up only winning 25% of the pot. Winning 25% of the pot is fine when there are 4+ players putting money into the pot, but if there are only two of you in the pot then you’re losing money by winning 25% of the pot.

Always try to have the best low hand when you’re chasing after the low pot so that the worst you can do is tie the pot. If you’re in the pot with one other opponent and you feel they only have a high hand then you can stay in the pot with a marginal low hand so that you can try and pick up the low pot. Omaha Hi/Lo is a game with lots of action and those of you that can stay out of the action and focus on playing solid hands should have no problem winning money. In a cash game you only need one big hand to make your day profitable so you should try playing only your premium starting hands.