What it is
The chase reserve is the part of the buy envelope held back so a planner can react in season: chase a style that is selling ahead, rather than spend every dollar before the season has told you anything. It is declared as a percentage of the envelope, with a basis, and it is a span of the envelope, never a second pot. A commitment with no envelope has no reserve, because a percentage of nothing is not a declaration. Declare and the money line call it the Buying reserve.
How Tightly decides it
The planner declares it on Declare, which opens it at Tightly's suggestion of 15%, labelled a convention: there is no measurement to ground a reserve in, so the suggestion is the house rule, said as such, and never hard-coded into the declaration. You may type over it, and the difference is recorded.
In season the reserve is spent by releasing it, never by lowering the percentage. Release the chase moves dollars out of the reserve and into open to commit against a named winner in the commitment's own scope, with a reason. Each release is a row that is never edited, joined to a version on the commitment's trail, and the reserve still held is the declared span less every release. The declared percentage is left alone: the promise is one fact and what was spent against it is another, and both are kept. A release is in dollars, not points, because a percentage of a large envelope cannot name an exact sum.
A release is refused, in words, on a commitment not yet signed off, on a closed commitment, on a channel scope, where no envelope or no reserve was declared, on a rolling commitment with no published plan covering today, where the reserve is already fully released, before the window opens, on a boxed window past its declared buy lock, or for more than is still held. A boxed window with no declared lock is allowed through: absence is unknown, never inferred. Two releases at once cannot both succeed against one reserve. Released dollars are not ring-fenced for the winner: the release widens open to commit, and the one door that consults the ladder is confirming a purchase order out of Drafted, which refuses, line by line, any line the commitment cannot fund. Every other purchase order write proceeds without consulting a commitment.
The words on the face
| Word | Where | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Buying reserve | The desk's money line | The reserve still held back, with how much has been released so far |
| Exact hold | The band cell of The five | The reserve is held exactly; it has no band |
| holding | The five | Open to commit has not eaten into the reserve |
| watch | The five | Open to commit has fallen to a fifth of the reserve; the next commit is close to eating in |
| breached | The five | Placed spend has crossed into the reserve |
| Release the chase | The room's acts | The act, and the page it opens |
What you can do about it
Release the chase, with the winning product and a reason, from the room. Amend changes the declared percentage as a new version. The Bench shows what a staged chase would draw against what the commitment can still fund.
Glossary line
The chase reserve, the Buying reserve on the face, is the share of the buy envelope held back to buy in season, a span of the envelope and never a second pot, spent by releasing dollars against a named winner while the declared percentage stands.