Not everybody who joins a poker site has a large amount of money to spend on their hobby. While there are a skilled (or fortunate) few who do have hundreds or even thousands of pounds to deposit in their account immediately, the vast majority of poker players at sites like Bet365 Poker often play with more modest means initially.

One of the key skills a player with a small bankroll, or a novice player, has to learn is the importance of bankroll management, the key to making your money last you a long time. This means that through your improving play, you have a chance to increase it, rather than busting out and having to add more money to your account to continue playing.

Central to this strategy should be selecting the right poker games to play. It is a somewhat romantic, though foolhardy, notion to believe that you can add £30 to your account, enter a £30 buy in tournament and take home a prize of several hundred pounds on your first attempt. The realistic situation is that 99,999 out of 100,000 that person will end up bust out.

So if you are a beginner, or a player with a relatively small bankroll, what are the best games on Bet365 Poker to play?

What you are looking for are games that give you a genuine chance of cashing out and fortunately, you do have a wealth of options to choose from on the site. Beginners will also want to give their bankrolls a starting boost with a Bet365 Poker bonus referrer code.

5. Sit & Go > Double Up (10c to €2 games)

I always advise any beginner player, or player with a smaller bankroll, to focus their early play in the Double Up rooms (also sometimes known as Double Your Money). The reason for this is simple; statistically you have a 50% chance of finishing in the cash each time you play.

In a Double Up game on Bet365, you pay an entry fee and then you play at a table of either four or six players. If you finish in the top 50% at your table (that is to say, two or three players (depending on the number at your table) are eliminated before you, you win double your money.

The great news is that Bet365 offer some of the lowest priced Double Up games on the Internet with games available from just 10c.

As a player with a lower bankroll, I’d focus on games from 10c up to around €2 initially, and then move onto the €5 Double Up rooms when you have increased your initial bankroll sufficiently.  

4. Twister Poker

A relatively new addition to the Bet365 Poker range and a very welcome one. Twister Poker is a Sit & Go game, although it is very different to traditional Sit & Go type games which is perhaps it occupies its own section of the Bet365 Poker site.

In Twister Poker, you can select a buy in level ($1, $2, $5 and $10) and for beginners I’d suggest the $1 or $2 range is ample. You are then placed at a table with two other players in a winner-takes-all game of Texas Hold’em.

However, before the game starts, a wheel is spun to decide how much you are playing for. This can be as little as double your initial stake (so if you paid $1, you would be playing for $2) however you can also play for up to 1,000 times your original stake, so if you get a lucky spin on the wheel, you could stand a chance of winning $1,000.

How much you play for and your opponents are randomly decided, so you could be facing off against two poker experts for $2, or facing off against two complete novices for a $1,000 prize or anywhere in between these two extremes.

Twister Poker games are cheap, quick, and fun to play and they offer a player even with just rudimentary poker skills a decent chance of a payout.

 3. Cash Tables or More Cash Tables > No Limit Hold’em (€0.02/€0.04)

Playing Cash Table games is very different to playing poker to eliminate other players and it is a very different mindset. As such, players often learn a different set of skills at the cash tables and if you can master these skills quickly, you can find cash table play a profitable way to play.

On Bet365, we’d advise you to start on the lowest stakes cash tables, which are a buy in of a maximum of €4, for blinds of €0.02/€0.04 initially.

Cash tables are not ‘easy’ money by any means. Many top players feel that the cash table game is the real essence of poker rather than sit & go or tournament games. You’ll learn a whole new range of skills as you develop your play on these tables and start to turn a profit more regularly.

By playing on the smaller stakes cash table, you limit your losses to €4 at a time, while you can win a, in theory, limitless amount. 

2. Knock Out > $1.50 or $5 Knockout

Knock out games on Bet365 are known as “Bounty Hunter” games on other sites and they differ to usual poker games in that for each players buy in, a proportion is donated towards the prize pool but a smaller amount is kept and placed on the ‘head’ of the player as their bounty.

If you manage to eliminate that player from the tournament then you win their bounty. Part of which is added to your account, part of which is added to your own bounty, thus increasing it.

There are several different Knock Out games on Bet365 and they do offer a more attacking form of poker, where the player focuses less on preservation and more on trying to take others down when the opportunities arise. This does give beginners a new experience from playing a tighter game, to a more looser, faster paced game.

You can play Knock Out games on Bet365 for Omaha as well as Texas Hold’em and for low bankroll players, I would suggest that they start playing on the $1.50 games first and only when they have managed to increase their bankroll consistently, should they start trying their hands at the $ games.

At quieter times of the day, these tables are a little sparse when it comes to players, so it is definitely worthwhile timing your play for busier times when there are likely to be more tables available to play at.

5. Sit & Go > Jackpot Sit & Go > Dirty Dozen Jackpot Sit N Go (€2)

Once you are confident in your skills and fancy a real challenge of your abilities as a poker player, I would suggest that beginners and low bankroll players have a stab at the excellent Dirty Dozen Jackpot Sit N Go games.

In the Dirty Dozen, 12 players on two tables face off against each other to find the eventual winner (though cash prizes are paid out for the final four players in the event).

The cash prizes are not huge for winning the event (€9.97) but a victory in this event means you are one step closer to a jackpot bonus of €2,000.

To win that jackpot you need to compete in FOUR Dirty Dozen Jackpot Sit & Go events and win each one consecutively. Win four in a row, and you submit your claim to Bet365 who will verify it and then award you the jackpot of £2,000.

It sounds very easy but in actual fact, winning the jackpot is a difficult task, however you can still maintain or improve your bankroll even if you don’t win by finishing in the cash places in the event (the top 1/3 of players earn a payout).

The Jackpot Sit & Go is a fantastic idea and as your bankroll increases, you can try different Jackpot games such as Maui and then onto Rio and finally Fort Knox.