We strongly advise you to set your personal limits as to how much cash you are prepared to put down, before you start playing a game. If you decide before the game, rather than during play, you will keep a clearer idea of how much you can afford to lose and will be better able to stop playing once you reach this point. We offer two suggestions on how much to invest in a game, see below for more information.

If you’re playing “just for fun”, then you shouldn’t invest any more than you think it would be okay to lose. If losing $100 isn’t a big deal to you, put in this amount and enjoy the game. There’s a fair chance that you’ll end up with more money than when you started – maybe even a lot more than the original $100 you started with, but, should things not go to plan, know when to call it a day and leave the game. Once you’ve passed the limit you feel you can comfortably afford to lose, things will only get more difficult.

On the other hand, if you are playing poker because you want to make money, you should aim to have the means to finance about 200 big bets at the limit you play. So if you’re at a $2-$4 table, you should have $800 to invest in the game ($4 big bet x 200). If it’s a $5-$10 table, your target range should be $2,000, etc. If you keep this in mind, it should prevent you from betting too much in one go.

Whereas other experts or websites might claim that 200 big bets is too low, we advocate a strategy of moderation. If you feel comfortable investing more, than of course that’s fine, but we strongly advise you to hold off until you’ve had several successes at the lower limit first. A more cautious attitude is less likely to lead to regrets later!

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