If you want to play poker to have a bit of fun and you don’t care about making money, (or perhaps you are independently wealthy) look away now. Maybe sing a little song to yourself or go and play a bit of poker.

Right now the monkeys are out of the way you can focus. One of the key things about actually making money online is bankroll management. To build your bankroll so you can play with big boys can take a lot of hard work. However if you set yourself some guidelines you can become one of those players that actually make money and not one that is endlessly reloading.

Firstly keep records. Know for certain whether you are a winning player. You can get software to do this for you, pokeroffice or pokertracker, or you can set yourself up a little spreadsheet in Excel. Record wins, losses, rakes, hours played as a minimum.

Secondly implement some rules. If you play cash NLH then roughly 300 times the big blind is adequate (so for 50C/$1 games you need about $300). If you play SnG or MTT then 20 or 30 time the buy in should be adequate. If you suffer three or four bad beats (or losses through stupidity – yes we all do it) the get up from the computer and do something different. Whatever you do don’t double up to cover your losses.

Lastly play at a level you win at. If you make some money and move up a level but find you start to loose don’t be afraid to drop down a level. Being a winning player at a lower level that your bankroll suggest is better that blowing all your bankroll in one session.

Poker rooms often have promotions as a sweetener to sign up with them and stay loyal. They are looking to keep you playing at their site and will offer play as you earn bonuses. You can use this to your advantage to help you build you bankroll. Hey if you are playing anyway you might as well be getting a little extra. Even players who usually end up even can boost their bankroll by playing a lot at one particular site.

Most poker rooms offer a sign up bonus for new customers. If you are new to online poker resist the urges to open accounts all over the web as you can move sites to build your bankroll. It is possible to build a bankroll of a few thousand dollars from $50 just buy coming out even, but working the bonuses to your advantage. Just be aware that some bonuses are better than others. A small signup bonus can be better than a large one if the large one is going to take too long to clear. When you have cleared your bonus, look for a new site to make some more free cash.

Another bankroll boost is the freeroll. Many sites have freerolls to enter in exchange for loyalty points. Buy using freerolls to your advantage you can sharpen your poker skills and add to your bankroll at the same time. Freerolls can be very lucrative as shown by the current story of Annette_15. Annette_15 claims to have never loaded money into a casino site, she started off winning a freeroll and now makes six figure sums playing poker online.