If you regularly visit poker forums and read topics on online poker strategy, you’ve probably come across the term bb/100. Most poker room tracking programs contain a lot of statistics, and this stat is one of the most important ones for players who track their results. However, many poker players don’t understand the significance of this poker metric.
Reliable information that increases your poker room winnings
Most offline poker players and some online players prefer to track their results in terms of income, using parameters like money per hour. Usually, bb/100 is an incomprehensible stat for such players. It’s impossible to improve what isn’t measured, so you must know how to correctly track the percentage of wins. In this article, we’ll explain the meaning of the term bb/100 and go over popular winrate related questions.
The value of bb/100
BB/100, or Big Blinds won per 100 hands, is a metric that poker tracking tools use to display the outcome of a game. Most popular applications, such as Holdem Manager 3, use this indicator to measure a poker player’s winrate. This is one of the most important statistics that players check when viewing the results of the previous session. If you play Pot Limit Omaha or Texas Hold’em, then there are small and big blinds in the game, and it’s possible to measure profit in the big blinds.
To better understand what bb/100 means, let’s use a $1/2 ring game with a $2 big blind as an example:
You sit down at the $1/2 table and take 100 blinds for $200 into the game.
After 100 hands, your stack is $280, which means that the profit was 40 big blinds ($2 per blind x 40 = $80).
In this case, the winrate is 40bb/100. Note that the sample is too small to draw statistical conclusions, but you will get closer to the exact winrate as more hands are played.
There’s a common misconception among poker players about the reliability of the winrate at online games. To figure out the correct winrate in poker games, you need a large sample of hands. If you’re new to poker or playing at the micro limits, you can benefit and earn some extra cash by reading our poker tips material to hone your strategy.
What’s the difference between bb/100 and BB/100 in capital letters
BB/100 refers to big bets won over 100 hands. Some poker tracking apps (other than PokerTracker) also use the number of big bets won to measure the winrate.
Like bb/100, 100 big bets measures the winrate per 100 hands. Say a player is grinding at a $2/$4 limit Hold’em cash table. If the tracker shows a winrate of 14bb/100, it means the player wins seven big bets for every 100 hands played, or 7BB/100. If you play Pot-Limit Omaha for $1/$2 and lose $10 per 1000 hands, the winrate for this sample will be minus 0.25bb/100.
Typically, BB/100 is used to measure winrate in fixed-limit games. In such games, big stakes are more of a focus for tracker users rather than blinds.
What’s PTBB/100?
There’s no difference between BB/100 and PTBB/100. The PTBB/100 metric measures the amount of money you win at big stakes per 100 hands. But the term PTBB/100 is found only in Pokertracker 4.
Some players prefer this term no matter what tracking app they use. To calculate bb/100, you would need to double PTBB/100 (for example, 4 PTBB/100 = 8bb/100).
Big Bets/100, bb/100, and PTBB/100 – what’s the most popular indicator?
The terms used in various programs are slightly different. When it comes to the most popular term, tracker users are more likely to use bb/100. Most tracking apps use bb/100 when calculating winrate. PTBB/100 is only used in Poker Tracker.
No Limit Hold’em (NLHE) and Pot Limit Omaha (PLO) with Big Stakes
Some poker formats are tagged as BB to avoid confusion. No-Limit Texas Hold’em (NLHE) and Pot-Limit Omaha (PLO) are sometimes also referred to as high stakes games. Don’t confuse high stakes games with HORSE formats like Omaha8, Razz and others. Also, don’t confuse NLHE and PLO with limit games, as they have a much lower betting limit on each street.
There where did the term big-stakes games come from? In most NLHE and PLO games, the stakes increase on the later streets, with the biggest bets landing on the turn and river, hence the term big bet.
The effect of luck on poker winrate
In the short term, poker is a type of gambling. So, if you play 1000 poker hands, you can win many buy-ins at once or lose every big pot. This doesn’t mean that you’ll become the next Phil Ivey or a terrible player; analyse the game to see if the wins or losses were the results of pure luck or skilful play. As a rule of thumb, only evaluate your winrate after fifty thousand hands.
Although it’s difficult for poker players to come to terms with dispersion, you should do it in order to succeed at the poker table. There’s no better weapon in a poker player’s arsenal than being calm on a poker losing streak.
What a good bb/100 in poker?
There’s no simple answer in the poker community as to what a good winrate is. In online games, it’s difficult to determine the perfect winrate. The competition and the game flow are constantly changing, as is the winrate.
A lucky player can have a winrate of 3-6 big blinds per 100 hands. According to the Hold’em Manager charts, the best players in NLHE have an amazing winrate of +10bb/100 over large samples in 6-max cash games. For heads-ups, the winrate is even higher. Should you be worried if you don’t see that many big blinds per 100 in your tracking software? Definitely not!
The advantages at the poker tables are determined by the game limits, the number of opponents, the size of the rake, the Rakeback in the poker room, and the level of skill. In poker, no two games or limits are the same. When determining a great winrate in a particular game, many factors are taken into account. It’s important not to reach negative numbers! If you can’t maintain a positive winrate, you won’t be able to move to higher poker room limits.
Players tend to compare winning percentages with their buddies. While comparing yourself to others is unhealthy, you can learn some strategies you don’t know about.
Obsessing over high bb/100 won’t increase your winrate if you don’t take the right steps. Firstly, don’t forget that poker is not a one-day game. It’s more of a marathon than a sprint. Play tens of thousands of hands before analysing bb/100.
If you’re aiming for an insanely high positive bb/100 winrate, take your time to study poker strategies and analyse the game. A great way to do that is to sign up for poker training sites.
Finally, control your emotions, stick to the right decisions, and choose games that are right for your bankroll and skill level. Then everything will work out. If you play optimal strategy and work on your game, your bb/100 winrate will continue to rise as you win more money in poker. Good luck at the tables!
