Bankroll
Your bankroll is the money set aside for poker and nothing else, kept separate from the money you live on.
The reason to keep it separate is not tidiness. Results over a short stretch swing hard even when you play well, and a bankroll is what lets you keep playing your normal game through a losing run instead of being forced to stop or to move up to win it back.
How many buy ins is enough depends on the game, the stakes and how much risk you are willing to carry, and honest sources disagree. The part that is not in dispute: the number should be large enough that a normal losing stretch does not end your play, and the stakes should follow the bankroll rather than the other way round.
an example
your cards
You hold the best starting hand in the game and get all the money in before the flop against 7c 2d, the worst. Across all 1,712,304 boards that can follow, the aces win 87.99% of the time. That still means one hand in eight is lost, and the bankroll is what carries you through the day where that keeps happening.
This example is made up. The real one is in your own hand history: find bankroll in your own hands and see how often it came up and what it cost you.
related terms
Variance
Variance is the spread of short term results around the long run average, which is why a run of winning or losing sessio ...
Tilt
Tilt is playing worse than you know how to because of how you feel, usually after a loss, a bad beat or a long stretch w ...
Rake
Rake is the fee the house takes for running the game: a share of each pot in cash games, or a part of the buy in in tour ...
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Knowing the word is not the same as seeing it.
Forty hands against a bot, no account, and your own hand history at the end.