Bankroll Management & Results Tracking

Bankroll management is one of the most important skills for becoming a successful poker player. Not the most exciting, maybe—but definitely one of the most important.

Results tracking goes hand in hand with bankroll management. The better the records you keep, the better you can manage your finances—and the better decisions you can make about which games to play.

Even if you’re not playing professionally (or aspiring to), tracking your results is incredibly important for anyone playing for more than a jar of pennies at the kitchen table.

Detailed records also make reporting your results to others much easier. Whether it’s a backer, another interested party, or for tax purposes, there are a number of people you might want—or need—to show your results to. Don’t give yourself a headache, or leave it to guesswork or vague answers, when the time comes.

What Exactly Is Bankroll Management?

Simply put, bankroll management is the practice of deciding which games to play, given the amount of money in your bankroll, in a way that best suits your goals.

The primary goal is generally “don’t go broke”. But if you’re just starting out and trying to build a bankroll—and you have a steady income or other money set aside—then your goals might be slightly different (or at least come with different risk tolerances).

Poker is a game of variance. This means that even if you play great, sometimes you will lose. That’s why we need enough bankroll to withstand the inevitable downswings. But we also want to move up in stakes when appropriate, to maximise our potential winnings.

Which stakes you should play at depends on several other factors too—your estimated win rate, the game format, whether you’re playing cash games or tournaments, your risk tolerance, your goals, and even game availability, to name just a few.

Results Tracking

Tracking your play and results is essential if you want to stay on top of your poker finances and make the best possible bankroll management decisions.

Detailed records let you see exactly how much you're winning or losing—not just overall, but also broken down by stakes, game type, or even venue.

There are many ways to track your results. You can use a spreadsheet, a notepad, post every session to social media and go back to count it all up later… whatever. Of course, we’re biased—but we recommend a dedicated tool designed specifically for the task, like our very own app, Poler, available for iPhone.

A powerful tracking tool—ready in your pocket at the tables (or in your hand, doom-scrolling when you should be watching your opponents 😤)—is the most convenient way to record every detail. Capture any rebuys or cashouts (e.g. tournament bounties) during your session, log all the little expenses you might otherwise forget, and even generate a graph of your chip count throughout a tourney by periodically entering your stack.

Recording all of this data not only allows you to accurately report your results—it also helps you make the best possible decisions going forward.

Check out Poler on the App Store and track your results like a pro.