Poker Winrates — All Ways to Measure Your Profit

09 Feb 2026

Intermediate

This material is for medium-skilled players

The amount of money you win over a certain period of time is called your winrate. In poker, winrates are a very popular topic among players, because the higher your winrate, the more money you earn.

In this article, I will give you the basic information about poker winrates and also explain several related concepts that are important to understand.

In poker, winrates are usually divided into four main types:

• bb/100 — the number of big blinds won per 100 hands
• bb/hour — the number of big blinds won per hour
• $/100 — the amount of money won per 100 hands
• $/hour — the amount of money won per hour

The most common winrate used in tracking software and on poker forums is bb/100.

For example, if your winrate is 5 bb/100 at $1/$2 NL, this means you win $10 on average (5bb × $2) for every 100 hands played.

This is the most common question when discussing winrates, and the answer is always the same:

A positive winrate means you are a winning player, and that alone is already an achievement. Around 95% of online poker players lose money, so if you are profitable, you belong to the top 5%.

That said, this answer often feels too vague. Most players want to see actual numbers.

• 1-4 bb/100 — Good. A solid winrate if you can sustain it.
• 5-9 bb/100 — Excellent. A very strong winrate at any stakes. Consider moving up.
• 10+ bb/100 — Outstanding. Very few players achieve this. You may simply have a small sample size.

These numbers are only rough guidelines. If your winrate is higher, congratulations — and hopefully it stays that way. Still, anything above 0 bb/100 is worth appreciating.

A graph showing the distribution of online players who played 1,000+ hands.

Main takeaways:

• The vast majority of players are losing players
• Most winning players have winrates of 4 bb/100 or lower

While winrates above 4 bb/100 are absolutely possible, very few players manage to achieve them compared to those below that threshold. This is why you should genuinely be happy to be on the profitable side of the graph.

Most players determine their winrate by checking the stats in their databases using programs such as:

• Hand2Note
• Holdem Manager 3
• PokerTracker 4

These programs calculate your winrate automatically.

If you do not use tracking software, things become much harder. You would need to know the exact number of hands played and the exact amount of money won, and even then this only works cleanly if you played a single stake level.

In other words, when does your winrate start to reflect your true long-term skill?

The short answer: you need a very large sample size. Poker has extremely high variance. One month you might run at 10 bb/100, and the next month at 1 bb/100.

Some players even argue that your winrate does not approach your true skill level until you have played at least one million hands.

Because of this, you should not overreact to short-term swings, especially over samples smaller than 10,000 hands.

So far, we have focused on bb/100, which is useful, but most players are more interested in their hourly income.

To calculate time-based winrates, we need to know how many hands are played per hour:

• 60 hands/hour — full ring
• 85 hands/hour — 6-max

To calculate your $/hour, follow these steps:

• Convert bb/100 into $/100 by multiplying by the big blind size
• Multiply by the number of tables you play
• Multiply by 0.85 (6-max) or 0.60 (full ring)

The result is your hourly winrate.

To calculate daily, weekly, or monthly winrates, simply multiply your hourly winrate by the number of hours played.

Hourly Winrate Example

You play 4 tables of 25NL 6-max with a winrate of 6 bb/100.

• 6 bb/100 = $1.50 per 100 hands per table
• $1.50 × 4 tables = $6 per 400 hands
• $6 × 0.85 = $5.10 per hour

Daily Winrate Example

You play 1 table of 200NL full ring with a winrate of 2 bb/100, playing 3 hours per day.

• 2 bb/100 = $4 per 100 hands
• $4 × 0.60 = $2.40 per hour
• $2.40 × 3 hours = $7.20 per day

Monthly Winrate Example

You play 2 tables of 400NL 6-max with a winrate of 3 bb/100, playing 5 hours per day, 5 days per week.

• 3 bb/100 = $12 per 100 hands per table
• $12 × 2 tables = $24
• $24 × 0.85 = $20.40 per hour
• $20.40 × 5 hours = $102 per day
• $102 × ~20 days = $2040 per month

Besides learning how to calculate your winrate correctly, there are two key takeaways from this article:

• Any winrate above 0 is already good
• Focus on improving your decision-making, not chasing a specific winrate

Do not fall into the trap of trying to force a certain winrate. Poker variance makes this pointless and often harmful.

• Important note: having a negative winrate from the blinds is completely normal. Even winning regulars usually have losing winrates in the blind positions.

Tracking your winrate can be interesting — especially when it is positive — but your true goal should always be playing well, not hitting a specific number.