Win rate
A win rate is the average amount a player wins per unit of play, counted in big blinds per hundred hands in cash games and as a return on investment in tournaments.
It is the only honest measure of how a strategy is doing, and it needs far more hands than most people give it. Normal swings are large next to a normal edge, so a few thousand hands mostly measures the swing rather than the player.
Comparing win rates across formats does not work. Stake, table size and game type all change what a given figure means, so the useful comparison is a player against their own record over time.
an example
your cards
You finish 300 big blinds ahead over 20,000 hands, which is 1.5 bb/100. That is a real edge and it is small enough that a single bad week can hide it completely.
This example is made up. The real one is in your own hand history: find win rate in your own hands and see how often it came up and what it cost you.
related terms
bb/100
The bb/100 figure is a win rate counted as big blinds won per hundred hands, which is what makes results comparable betw ...
Variance
Variance is the spread of short term results around the long run average, which is why a run of winning or losing sessio ...
ROI
ROI is tournament profit expressed as a percentage of the money staked, so an ROI of 20% means every buy in returned an ...
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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.