Enter what you have. You get the limit your roll supports, the exact number where a shot at the next limit starts to make sense, and the number that sends you back down.
| Limit | Blinds | Buy-in | Shot from | Rolled at | You hold | Status |
|---|
A bankroll is not there to win faster. It is there to survive the stretches where you play fine and lose anyway. Even winning players run through 20 buy-in downswings. The number of buy-ins you keep is how many of those you can absorb before you are out.
One buy-in is 100 big blinds, so NL5 is $5 and NL25 is $25. Fifty of them is the common middle ground for micro and low stakes: 20 to 30 is the aggressive end and only works with income from outside poker, 100 is what you keep when the roll has to survive on its own. The calculator uses 50.
Waiting for the full 50 of the next limit is slow. A shot goes up earlier, with a rule decided in advance: you take it once you hold 30 buy-ins of the next limit and you are beating your current one. If the roll falls below 25 buy-ins of the new limit, the shot is over and you go back down. Rolled but losing is not a reason to move up, it is a reason to fix the leak.
The part everyone skips. When your roll drops below 30 buy-ins of the limit you are playing, you move down. Dropping a level is not a demotion, it is what keeps the rest of the money alive.
Only money you can lose without changing your life: what sits on the site plus what you would move there without a second thought. Rakeback and bonuses count once they are paid out. Rent does not count, and neither does money you might need next month.
Most rolls do not die from variance. They die from the same three leaks, repeated: paying off raises with one pair, calling out of the blinds with hands that look playable, and c-betting into players who never fold. GrinderDojo finds yours in your own hand history and trains them.
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