One of the original trendsetters in online poker has reopened.  PokerRoom.com once again offers poker online after a two year absence from the industry.  If you are looking for a new online poker home or just a new pool of players, consider registering for an account at PokerRoom.

Why is PokerRoom different than other online sites?  First, PokerRoom has a proven history of integrity.  When online poker was in its infancy, PokerRoom was the first site to be certified by eCogra.  Next, they are completely licensed and have chosen to do so in both Canada and Gibraltar.  Being licensed in multiple countries assures they meet a higher ethical standard.

Next, when the United States changed their laws regarding online poker, PokerRoom did the honorable thing and left.  Other online sites chose not too and are now either paying Billions in fines or are no longer in business.

For those wanting to play more than Texas Hold’em, PokerRoom should be your home.  With games spread in Hold’em, Omaha, Stud, Omaha Hi-Lo, Stud Hi-Lo, and even Five Card Draw, well rounded poker players will never be without a game.  Tournament players are also not restricted to just Sit and Go’s and full ring game tournaments.  Popular offerings such as deep stacked tournaments, heads-up tournaments, and even bounty tournaments are offered on  PokerRoom.

How many times have you contacted support to get an answer to a problem and wound up waiting for days for an answer.  You do not have to worry about that at PokerRoom.  With PokerRoom support, if you do not have the time to wait for an email response, you can call a support representative on the telephone or even chat with one via the PokerRoom client.  With multiple options for support, you will never be waiting for an answer.

Do you ever get frustrated with sites that have a limited number of deposit and withdrawal options?  You don’t have that problem with PokerRoom.  Several deposit options are available, including e-wallets, credit cards, and bank drafts.  When you want access to your poker cash, you have almost all the same options for withdrawals.  Ease of deposits and cash outs is one reason people trust PokerRoom.

How many times have you watched ads for online poker sites where it seems all about the sponsored pros at the sites?  PokerRoom hasn’t spent Millions on paying pros to promote their site.  They let the games, and clever commercials like the one below do the talking for them.

Click here to view the embedded video.

PokerRoom has everything that poker players could ask for and is one of the most trusted sites in online poker.  Register for your online account today and become part of the PokerRoom nation.

In recent years, online poker players have begun to demand more from online poker sites than just Texas Hold’em games.  With the rise of mixed games, websites have had to scramble to keep up with the demand of players.  Fortunately, PokerRoom has been well ahead of the curve and offer a strong spread of game for those who like to play poker online.

PokerRoom obviously offers No-Limit Texas Hold’em.  Considered the Cadillac of poker, Texas Hold’em is the game that started the poker boom.  However, unlike many sites, PokerRoom spread all variants of poker at all bankroll levels including Pot-Limit Hold’em.  Daniel Negreanu calls PL Hold’em the most skillful form of the game.

Omaha poker is easily the second most popular game in the world.  In many cases, pots in Pot-Limit Omaha easily exceed NL Hold’em.  Omaha is offered in the wildly popular Pot-Limit format and Omaha Hi-Lo is offered in both fixed limit and Pot-Limit.

With the rise of mixed games, many players have begun to take up Seven Card Stud and its cousin, Stud 8 or Better.  While both games are fixed limit games, these games are essential to become a well rounded poker player.  PokerRoom offers both these games at most bankroll levels.

Finally, old school poker players remember Five Card Draw.  Once considered a poker dinosaur, this game has seen a resurrection online.  PokerRoom offered Five Card Draw before the game was considered cool and players now taking up the game will find plenty of action on the site.

In addition to cash games, you will find plenty of tournaments spread in each variant of poker offered at PokerRoom.  Sit and Go’s and multi-table tournaments are offers 24 hours a day and specialty tournaments such as deep stacked events are also available.  Tournament range in PokerRoom from less than $1 all the way to $500 buy-ins.

If you are new to any of the games listed above and would like to learn them, the rules to all the poker games are available at the PokerRoom website.  Also on the website, the PokerRoom Community has a set of forums that players can use to pick up strategy tips and discuss plays made in the games.

As you can see, PokerRoom is more than just Texas Hold’em.  Players in most poker disciplines will find plenty of action at the site.  It is easy to open an account with numerous deposit options available including credit cards and other payment processors.  Register for your account today and enjoy all the games that PokerRoom has to offer.

Free Texas Holdem Poker

Selecting an online card room is very similar to picking a live room. While poker players can disagree on everything under the sun they mostly look for the same thing in picking a room. Which is unusual because for every player saying never limp pocket aces there is another suggesting you do it 80% of the time. Once you start comparing the attributes of one room to another you’ll get just as vehement disagreement. Some rooms are smoke free these days and while many appreciate the opportunity to play in clean air there are a few players who yearn for the old smokey days of poker. Some rooms comp the players free drinks and while that may be the sole reason certain players prefer that card room, it likely chases away a number of players that don’t want to put up with drunks.

What live and online players can agree on is that they want to play in an honest Texas Hold em game. There is nobody as hated in live poker and online as a cheating player. Actually, that’s not true, most hated is a crooked casino and its staff, then crooked players. Card rooms that spread a random deal, have sensible floor decisions, and don’t put up with collusion or cheating players always will get a strong reaction from players. Another thing both sets of players can agree on is the option to jump right into a game. Nobody wants to show up and see incredibly long wait lists. They like to be able to get chips, real and virtual, as easily as possible. They also like to get those chips transferred back to real money as quickly as possible or if playing Free poker games to transform those virtual winnings into live money.

Saftey may be the primary concern of players whether it’s walking to their cars or protecting their hole cards they want security when the play. Successful online rooms like bwin understand that offering the best security for a player and his money is tantamount to winning the trust of the players. Live players transitioning to online poker want the best of the real poker world applied to their new online poker. They’ll also get some extras they’d never get in a casino.

When playing at home, a poker player can wear, eat, and watch whatever they want. They can play for as short as they want or for as long as they want. They can play with players from down the street or across the world. Instead of seeing the same old faces at their casino they are always a game click away from a whole new table. Live players will also enjoy the benefits of playing Free Texas Holdem Poker online.

How to play free poker at bwin

Not too many live card rooms offer free poker but bwin is one online poker room that does. Free online poker can be found in the form of freerolls all day at bwin. Nothing better than having the chance to win cold hard cash without risking anything. There is a saying that you can’t get something for nothing but that’s not true in poker at least anymore.

Signing up to play at bwin is easy and straight forward. Even players inexperienced with computers should make short work of the sign up process. If you can type an email or surf the web you can play online poker. Within minutes those players can try a hand or two at Free Online Poker. With freerolls running all day and all week there is never a long wait before the next one.

Choosing an online card room, is a lot like choosing a live card room. When you make your choice go with an industry leader, that spreads great Texas Hold em online games, and offers the security of your favorite casino. When you factor in a free poker school and constant free rolls the choice should be easy one to make.

My efforts to improve my Texas Holdem poker game never stop. I try to work on every part of my game and improve every area to hopefully make that big breakthrough to either crush the cash games or poker tournaments I play in. An important aspect of poker that is fun, but very difficult to do well, is bluffing. I have read many poker strategy articles and from my own experience these are some of the things to learn about in relation to bluffing.

Pick Spots Wisely

During a hand you may feel there is an opening to win the pot there and then. For example, during a Texas Hold ‘em hand your opponent may stop betting and after checking to you on the turn after the action went check-check on the flop you may consider betting with a weak hand. If your opponent is not a trappy player, you may win the hand at this point with a solid bet.

Note that in this case you have spotted an opportunity and made the bluff bet because of it. You have not simply bet randomly. Pick your spots wisely. Against a player that will usually showdown bottom pair, this is not the right time to make a pot sized bet with Ace high. Against a fish, bluffs have less value; the thing to do against fish is have a good hand because they will play with you. Bluff better players as a general rule, because they can fold!

Be Consistently Inconsistent

Deception is a massive part of poker. You want to make opponents as unsure as you possibly can over your motives when you bet, raise or check. Each action, in an ideal world, should be able to be interpreted in many different ways. Frankly this is all but impossible to do because you are either tight or loose generally, but try and be consistently different in how you play your hands in terms of strength. Bluffing on the flop, turn or river and betting when you have a good hand in a similar situation plants the seeds of doubt in the mind of your opponents. If they are uncertain and they have a marginal hand, it is very difficult to carry on in the hand.

Watch Tom Dwan play cash games, many of his opponents fold because they know he could be bluffing or betting a monster. He plays the same way whether strong or weak and this creates his deception. It is very effective and has made him millions of dollars.

Tell a Story

If the story developing through the hand does not fit your bluff it is likely to be called. In the following example this is explained more clearly.

You raise 3 x the big blind in late position holding 7c-7d as the first player into the hand and are called by one player in the blinds. The flop is, Kh-As-8s. The player bets half the pot and you call. The turn is a 2c. He bets half the pot and you raise as a bluff steal. This is not a good time to attempt a steal.

Why? He/she has shown action on two streets. There are overcards to your pocket pair and by betting your opponent has said “I am interested in this hand”. The turn card was a total blank given the action and yet your opponent still bet. You flat called on the flop and raise the turn. This does not appear consistent with the betting. A two could not have helped your hand. Unless your opponent thinks you are slowplaying a huge monster they must call you. Always be mindful of what the bluff looks like. If it looks like a weak bluff or a lie given the action you might be in trouble.

Go to part 2 for the concluding part of this poker bluffing feature.

By Malcolm Clarke

In Part 1 we discussed that bluffing in Texas Hold’em poker is more complicated than simply betting when your opponent checks and hoping they fold. There will be pots that your opponent has shown interest in that you can force them to fold by “announcing” that you do indeed have a very strong hand (when you do not) and there is no option but to fold for your opponent. Sensing the timing for such moves is what separates the excellent millionaire cash game players from the rest of us mere mortals. But studying good bluffs and the metagame that goes into the decisions for when good players make such moves is part of the process when you learn poker.

Bluffing in Cash Game Poker

In cash games the conditions suit well-timed bluff attempts. Bluffs are useful to take a few pots that you would otherwise lose and you get plenty of time to assess the strengths and weaknesses of your opponents. When you see a certain play by your opponent that suggests a weaker hand this is bluffing territory. A good read on a player can make bluffing in cash game poker relatively low risk. More often than not semi-bluffing is used in cash games where high draws in particular are played with strong raises.

High stakes poker professionals make semi-bluffs more than full bluffs because at least if they are called they still have 40% equity in the hand. They are more than happy to flip for big pots because often opponents will fold anyway.

Bluffing in Tournament Poker

In tournament poker there is the ongoing issue to do with the rising blinds that force you to make plays that you would otherwise prefer to avoid. Bluffing in tournaments is slightly different and you need to bet hard in certain spots to force opponents to give up hands so you can survive in the blinds. Towards the end of a poker tournament it is more about the situation and chip stack you have rather than individual reads, but if you have a read that an opponent has a good hand then you can still make a good fold. Much of the time in tournaments you need to push around the medium stacks and players you know are a little too tight and will give up the hand to a good bet.

Do not Overdo It

Bluffing is not designed to be implemented in every hand. Sometimes you can feel bored and you get a sudden desperate feeling inside that “I must win this pot no matter what” and you try a marginal raise that really you should not make. I used to fight against this feeling all of the time. I wanted action! The correct move is to look for the correct conditions for a bluff. The timing of the bluff decides its success and an ill-timed bluff can be costly. Each time you make such a move you are risking chips without the back-up of a good hand. You therefore need to be pretty sure it is going to work before you do it.

There will, of course, be times when you run into your opponent slow playing a massive hand or holding cards strong enough to raise all-in. This happens and it is part of poker. But it is another reason not to overdo it too often; your opponents get good cards too!

By Malcolm Clarke

Although there are currently legal issues being debated in the US senate about whether online poker is legal, this does not matter when it comes to dealing with any money that you earn as a result of playing poker online. As is true with any income from any source, that income is subject to normal income tax deductions. In the UK income derived from either cash game or poker tournaments is free from tax at the moment, mainly because the government does not think you can make a living from poker. This explains why many poker players try and gain UK citizenship because of the favourable financial conditions for poker players in this country.

Please note that this article is purely for information purposes and you should seek the advice of a tax professional if you need specific advice relating to your poker finances as a professional player.

For poker players outside of the UK managing your tax is very important. Recently a well-known player has fallen foul the tax system in the United States. Michael Mizrachi, known as “The Grinder”, had a lot of poker success between 2004 and 2008 and invested in property and other investment vehicles with the cash he won in prizes. Due to what he describes as bad financial advice from an incompetent advisor he is facing a $330,000 tax bill and has had to foreclose some of the properties he owns in order to cover this bill.

Calculating your taxable poker income is complicated for players. Any session that you win is counted as gross earnings whilst any gambling losses are counted as deductions in the same way certain business expenses are taken into account. The IRS considers each session separately when calculating tax. This begs the question, what is a session? There is much debate on what constitutes a poker session and there is no definitive answer given by the IRS or the poker community. Another problem for players is that the IRS limits gross winnings against net losses so if you have a losing year you cannot claim a net loss on your taxes for that year, you simply break even in the eyes of the tax system.

As an example, let’s say that Player A wins $100,000 in his first year as a poker professional but loses $200,000 in his second year before making $150,000 in the third year. His net gain is $50,000 over three years, but the IRS would tax the $250,000 in the two years he profited without taking into account the second year where he lost $200,000. As you can see this is a harsh system and one that does not take into account the realities of life as a professional poker player. Of course the IRS does not care about this because there are questions regarding the legality of poker in their eyes anyway. When you factor in medical deductions and other expenses, poker and tax are not good friends.

Poker players are advised to take an accurate diary of their winning and losing sessions allowing you to accurately declare your gross winnings then work out the itemised deductions as gambling losses. Hand histories and records from Paypal or other transactional methods can be used as supporting documentation to prove your declared amounts to satisfy the IRS your financial returns are accurate. For some reason they are sceptical about poker players! Remember that the IRS did not consider online poker and the realities of life as a professional poker player when working out their procedures so the more information you have the better.

If you do have to pay tax on your poker playing then take time to learn the rules carefully. Even if you sell a share of yourself to someone else there is a form you receive from the casino that formalises that you did not receive the full amount in winnings as advertised in the poker tournament. Failure to have this document would mean you are taxed on a $1 million prize when you only received $500,000 of it having sold a share of yourself to another player. Managing your tax is extremely important if you are subject to those deductions.

By Malcolm Clarke

The following interview is hypothetical. I never actually did an interview but I want to give the answers I believe a candid interviewee would give. This article is designed to open your eyes to the reality of life as a professional poker player. The questions I have answered for my hypothetical pro concerns playing poker online and whether poker as a career is sustainable in the long term. Perhaps these answers are similar to the ones you would give.

Question 1: “How have you made your Living from playing poker?”

There is always a pressure to win and I have always managed to come out ahead each month. I play cash games with some sit and go tournaments thrown in for variety. My position in life is that I need to make a certain amount to survive and everything else is a bonus. Sometimes it looks like I might lose but I always pull it out of the bag. I love playing poker and have even tried mobile poker to play while I am on the move. As a career it is fun, but playing for hours on end everyday does take the shine from it a little.

Question 2: “What is the best thing about being a Pro?”

The best thing about a professional poker player’s life is the freedom to get up when you want and not have a time restraint of having to work for someone else everyday. You still need a good work ethic to put in the hours playing your hands and it is easy to get lazy. The money is good but it is not guaranteed in the way normal jobs money is to a point. In many ways I work harder than a lot of guys I know that do a 9-5 normal job.

Question 3: “What is the Worst part of a pro poker player’s life?”

Losing sessions hurt more when it’s your livelihood on the line. You can get desperate quicker if you feel like the universe is trying to prove your decision to go pro wrong. I would not recommend it for everyone but if you are strong mentally then if you are good enough it is not a bad life.

Question 4: “Is there a stigma attached to being a professional gambler?”

Most people really want to talk to me about it when they find out I am a pro poker player. Some people look down on me as they think I am taking the easy way out but it is not easy earning money from poker especially these days. The games are a lot harder than they used to be and there are not that many weak players in the game now. Table selection, game selection and self-control are important factors in poker. But to many people I’m simply a gambler who is lucky enough not to have busted yet.

Question 5: “When should someone turn Pro?”

There are no steadfast rules on this. Turn pro when you have enough money to survive. Think carefully about it and always have a back-up plan. Poker is a hard way to make an easy living.

That is my hypothetical poker friend giving lots of good advice there. I would recommend you to visit the bwin poker school and read the bwin poker blog at www.bwinpokerblog.com and put in lots of practise. Keep working hard at the online poker tables and you just might be able to make the grade and become a professional poker player, if you want to.

By Malcolm Clarke

We poker writers preach variety to enhance your learning about many different forms of poker. Learning about Razz, Stud, Draw and PLO will help your overall understanding but if Texas Holdem is your best game then you are well served to continue playing it. Learning new games is great and little parts of those games can be used to enhance your overall understanding of poker in general but there is nothing wrong with being a Texas Holdem specialist and playing no other forms of Poker.

This view that you should play all forms of poker is generally a good thing I think. You get to experience a wide variety of poker and just because you play one form of poker most of the time does not mean there is another version of poker slightly better suited to you. The only way you can know if this is true is to play different games. Many blogs, like the bwin poker blog, advocate getting a full experience of poker by diversifying what you play. For me, I want to make money so whilst I enjoy variety; I stick with what works for me.

If you have one million hands of Texas holdem under your belt as a serious cash game player I think it is best if you continue to crush the online poker games whilst you still can. Never assume that poker is always going to be there. Right now in 2010 we are anticipating and predicting the full effects of the UIGEA gambling bill due for implementation into US law within a month. This could radically affect the availability of poker for American poker players but could have knock on effects for other countries if their governments observe the perceived benefits and follow suit with similar restrictive legislation.

With this in mind if you are a profitable texas holdem player my advice is to keep playing. I am not saying that our days of playing online poker are numbered but knowing you can win today means play today in my view. Remember the days when online cash games were a lot easier? Many players quit their jobs and made good money playing poker online and they thought that it would always be this way. Many of these players may be looking for work now as play has improved and only the best players can survive and the standard of modern online poker is much better than it used to be.

I am a true texas holdem player. I enjoy the game but I also enjoying playing draw poker and stud too. My strongest game is not Pot Limit Omaha which I find complicated and the large swings in both directions cause me pain. I enjoy the numbers associated with stud and find I feel comfortable in the game. Whatever game you play helps the other. Your appreciation of odds, implied odds and math are enhanced if you learn stud, you learn about handling variance and the art of playing aggressively when you play PLO and you learn about value betting in draw poker. Do not play one poker game thinking it is a different game, all of these disciplines fall under the moniker of “poker”.

But there is no reason to abandon texas holdem for the sake of learning something new. If you are good at it and make money from it, stick with it.

By Malcolm Clarke

Bankroll management is how you manage the money that you use for poker or betting. There are certain recommendations that you should follow to keep your money in order but these are not rules and everyone manages their money a little differently. The golden rule of bankroll management is that you should be comfortable with the risk and leave some room for flexibly playing poker the way you want to. When you withdraw money, how much you risk and what you do when you win and when you lose should be pre-arranged.

The only time this type of money management in poker can be ignored is when you are taking part in freerolls or free online poker. If you want to play some free online poker before you get started, visit https://www.bwin.com/free-online-poker and get familiar with the game before you start your bankroll challenge.

Gamcare and Gamblers Anonymous would not exist if people were able to manage their relationship with risk and the potentially addictive nature of poker and gambling in general. Unfortunately people get carried away and by potentially being able to earn money and by nature we human beings want to repeat things that make us feel good or work out well for us. Poker should be enjoyed, but with constant monitoring that things are as they should be and that your relationship with it has not become dependant. If you start feeling like your life is not worth living unless you are playing poker then you probably need to address whether your relationship with poker is becoming unhealthy for you.

I use bankroll management as a way of tightly managing how much I risk at any one time. Carl Sampson correctly pointed out in one of his articles I recently had the pleasure of reading that many players ”have not got the nerve, inclination or ability to play anything higher than the micro-stakes cash games. ” This need not be the case if they can alter their relationship with money and look at it in terms of bankroll and units rather than real money. This allows them to play higher whilst still operating at a certain risk exposure level to their bankroll.

Players must observe when this strategy is no longer useful. At some players will be unable to think of their bankroll as units and start thinking of it as money again. It is naïve to assume we could think of our $2 million bankroll as 20 units of $100,000 when you only earn $30,000 in your normal job, sanity must prevail. Bankroll management demands that you are very honest with yourself on what you are mentally able to gamble. The moment you start playing differently because of the money at stake in a pot, e.g. checking instead of betting, you are playing too high. This could still be at a small amount of money; some people just do not have the gamble in them and even losing a pot worth $0.50 is something they struggle to deal with.

The importance of sensible bankroll management is growing. You can now access real money poker games more easily than ever before even playing poker on the phone at bwin.com if you want to play poker on the move. It would be very easy to simply keep pumping money into your poker account just to stay involved but it is far better to set some money aside specifically for poker. This can actually be a good thing if you are prone to randomly spending money on things you do not need or impulse buy online. At least you are trying to do something with your money, but if you bust your bankroll before re-depositing I think you should always either seek a coaches advice on what went wrong or do some fairly intensive session reviews on your own.

In part 2 of this feature we are going to analyse the rules of bankroll management that will help structure your online poker play. I am following it and it is great fun. Perhaps if you follow a similar challenge you can comment on this article and update us on your bankroll management challenge progress.

By Malcolm Clarke

Note that the title says “A Solution” and not “THE Solution”. There are unlimited ways to manage your bankroll; even not following bankroll management at all is reckless bankroll management. Providing you are following the key rules then you are somewhere close to how you need to be operating your money. Even the softest poker room demands a bankroll management solution, note that this advice is relevant to online cash games and Online Sit and go poker tournaments.

Whilst I said in part 1 that there are no rules, I believe that the following four pointers are as close to rules as we can get in bankroll management. You can add your own ideas to these rules based on your own tolerance to gambling and ability to control your emotions. The key thing is to be honest with yourself and then your bankroll management plan will be very effective for you. These rules are as follows,

1. Only risk a small portion of your roll at any one time.
2. Never risk more than you can afford to lose.
3. Set a stop-loss and walk away if this is surpassed.
4. When you are winning, book the win!

Rule 1 – Risk only a Small Portion of your Roll

You should never risk more than a small portion of your bankroll at any one time. I use a thirty buy-in bankroll where the buy-in will be the maximum stack allowed at any table. Therefore, on a $2 NL table I need a $60 bankroll to be able to compete within my rules. On a $5 NL table I would need $150. You can go as high or as low as you wish but I would draw the line at anything less than ten buy-ins as this begins to get risky.

Most players have a twenty buy-in bankroll and move up limits to take a shot when their bankroll is large enough to buy-in fifteen times in the next level up in stakes. They also move down in limits and re-build if they reach less than fifteen buy-ins for the current level in which they are playing. Once you have a bankroll you should not re-deposit, the whole idea is that this money grows over time as you win, rather than consistently losing money and busting is less likely even on a bad run as you adjust stakes depending on how much money you have left.

Rule 2 – Risk Only What You Can Afford

As a one-off allocation of your net liquid worth I would suggest setting aside a conservative 10% of what you earn each month and no more. A profitable poker player must be able to win and starting with $2000 rather than $200 will not help you if you are a losing player, the money lost will be more. Gambling scares families who have your best interests at heart, being able to show them that you are responsible and acting prudently will help them adjust to your pursuit. With $200, if you win enough you will get to $2000 soon enough, be patient.

Never chase losses, never gamble more than you can afford to lose and always keep a perspective on the value of money and what else you need it for. Setting aside a bankroll sets you free from these constraints and is another reason why it is a great benefit to your poker game to manage your bankroll very carefully.

Rule 3 – Set a Stop Loss

Tilting when you are losing and playing “one more round of hands” to try and recoup what you have lost can make you feel anxious and desperate. You start calling in marginal situations where folding is best and not playing your best poker game. The poker gods know this is not the right way to play and you will suffer losses doing this apart from the rare occasions you get lucky. Many a bankroll has been lost by chasing what are rather marginal losses and getting caught in the vicious circle that is chasing losses. Most of the classic losing stories where casino players have lost everything in a matter of hours is due to chasing losses. Make sure you do not fall foul of this by setting and following a strict stop loss limit.

Combating this feeling is important to maintaining your bankroll. Set a stop loss for sessions that do not quite work out. I would recommend something like three buy-ins. Take a break if you reach this point and decide if you want to carry on or come back tomorrow. Poker is a long term game and chasing one buy-in will not be worth it when you are aiming to win many buy-ins over the year. Take a long term view and you will see maintaining your best game should help you win over time. Suffering a bad run or bad beat is just part of being a poker player.

Rule 4 – Book the Win

What we are aiming for is a healthy monthly withdrawal from our poker bankroll that bolsters and improves our lifestyle. Keeping a bankroll keeps your poker money and life money separate which should make life easier in many ways. Booking the win turns poker money into real money and you will immediately see the real term benefits from having won it and this feels very good. This should provide you will all the motivation you need to continue putting in the study, the hard work and managing your bankroll ready for next months withdrawal.

Bankroll management is like a safety valve for your poker; it keeps things in order and allows you to focus on controlling your emotions at the table and knowing you are able to play poker without worrying about busting. Taking small losses become less painful and are part of winning poker but you will not worry about them because you are in the top 5% of players who approach poker correctly by using proper bankroll management.

By Malcolm Clarke