Bankroll
Your bankroll is the pool of money dedicated to playing, kept separate from living expenses. Its size in buy-ins, not cash, sets which stakes your roll can support at the risk you choose.
In short: The money set aside only for poker.
- Category
- Bankroll
- Best use
- Session review and bankroll decisions
- Related page
- Bankroll management
Why Bankroll matters
Reconcile the balance after deposits, withdrawals and session results before assessing the next stake. Bankroll terms matter because they turn a poker opinion into a risk decision. The question is not whether you feel good enough to play bigger; it is how many buy-ins you have, how violent the game is, and what happens if the next hundred hours run badly.
Worked example
A player with £15,000 set aside for 2/5 NL (£500 buy-in) is roughly 30 buy-ins deep, a comfortable cushion for live cash. The useful part is not the label itself; it is the decision it changes. If the example changes your stake, stop-loss, review queue or next study block, write it cleanly in the log.
How to apply it
Start with the buy-in count, not the cash amount. A £10,000 roll means something completely different at £1/2, £2/5 and £5/10. Then set the rule before the session: when you move up, when you move down, and how many buy-ins a shot can cost. For Bankroll, the practical question is whether the label changes a bankroll, session or study decision. If it does not change a decision, it belongs in a note, not in the headline read.
In a session log, bankroll work lives in stake, buy-in, stop-loss and shot notes. Overshove keeps those fields tied to the actual sessions, so later you can see whether a rule protected the roll or was ignored during heat. Use the same spelling every time, then link it back to bankroll management so the page, calculator or guide beside the term does useful work.
Common mistakes
- +Sizing a roll in cash while forgetting the current buy-in.
- +Taking a shot without a fixed drop-back point.
- +Changing the rule mid-downswing because the graph feels personal.
Questions players actually ask
How should I use Bankroll in a session log?
Use Bankroll as a decision label, not decoration. Log the raw session first, then attach the term only where it explains a stake, bankroll, variance or study choice you can review later.
What is the common mistake with Bankroll?
The common mistake is reading the term without the sample and context behind it. In live cash, a clean label still needs stake, hours, stack depth, cost and result data before it tells you anything reliable.