“I think I’m up this year” is not a result. Serious players know exactly how they’re doing — by format, by stake and by hour. Tracking your results tells you whether you’re winning, whether you’re ready to move up, which games suit you, and whether poker still makes sense for your time and budget. It also cuts through memory’s biggest bias: we remember our big wins and our bad beats, not the slow leaks in between.
Key takeaways
- Record every session: date, format, stake, duration, buy-ins, cash-out and notes.
- Cash-game win rates are measured in bb/100 hands (online) or bb per hour (live).
- Tournament results are measured by ROI: profit ÷ total buy-ins.
- Small samples are unreliable — cash results need tens of thousands of hands, tournaments hundreds of events.
- Rake and time are real costs: include them when judging whether a game is worth playing.
What to record
For every session, write down:
| Field | Why |
|---|---|
| Date and duration | Hourly rate, and when you play best |
| Format and stake | Compare cash vs tournaments, NL10 vs NL25 |
| Buy-ins and cash-out | Your profit or loss |
| Hands played (online) | Win rate in bb/100 |
| Notes | Tilt, fatigue, table quality, big hands to review |
The free bankroll tracker handles all of this and syncs to your account. If you play online, most tracking software records hands automatically.
Cash games: bb/100 and bb per hour
bb/100 is your profit measured in big blinds per 100 hands. It lets you compare stakes directly:
bb/100 = (profit ÷ big blind) ÷ (hands ÷ 100)
Example: you’ve played 20,000 hands of NL10 (big blind 0.10) and won 120.
- 120 ÷ 0.10 = 1,200bb won.
- 20,000 ÷ 100 = 200 hundreds of hands.
- 1,200 ÷ 200 = 6bb/100.
Live, hand counts are lower (about 25–35 hands an hour), so players usually track bb per hour instead. Rough, hedged benchmarks — they vary a lot by game and rake:
| Format | A solid winner might make… |
|---|---|
| Online 6-max cash, micro/low stakes | 3–8bb/100 after rake |
| Online 6-max cash, mid stakes | 1–4bb/100 |
| Live cash, low stakes | 5–15bb per hour |
Tournaments: ROI
Tournament players measure return on investment:
ROI = (total winnings − total buy-ins) ÷ total buy-ins
If you’ve played 200 tournaments at 10 each (2,000 in buy-ins) and cashed for 2,400, your profit is 400 and your ROI is 20%. Also track your cash rate (how often you finish in the money) and your average buy-in, because a big score at a higher buy-in can make results look better than they are.
How much data do you need?
This is where most players go wrong. Because of variance, results over a small sample tell you very little:
| Format | Sample for a rough idea | Sample for confidence |
|---|---|---|
| Cash games (online) | 20,000–50,000 hands | 100,000+ hands |
| Live cash | 300+ hours | 1,000+ hours |
| Multi-table tournaments | 300+ events | 1,000+ events |
Until then, combine results with decision quality: are your reviews finding fewer mistakes? Are your trainer scores improving? Those are faster, more reliable signals.
The variance calculator shows why these samples need to be so large: enter your win rate and hands played, and it tells you the range your true win rate could be in — and how many hands you need to be 95% sure you’re a winner.
Rake and hourly rate
Two numbers often get ignored:
- Rake. At the lowest stakes, rake can be a large share of the pots. A 2bb/100 winner might be a 7bb/100 player before rake. Compare games, clubs and rakeback deals — lower rake can make a bigger difference to your results than a new strategy.
- Hourly rate. Divide profit by hours played. It helps you decide whether poker is worth your time compared with other things you could do — and whether a format suits you. Remember to count study time if you’re treating poker seriously.
Honest records
The point of tracking is truth. Record losing sessions immediately — they’re the ones people “forget”. If you notice you’re avoiding looking at the numbers, that’s a signal worth taking seriously; our responsible gambling page has help if poker has stopped being fun.
Next up: turning study time into real improvement — Study Routines.
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Tracking Results: Win Rate, bb/100 and Sample Size
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