Hand history and stats guides

18 guides on getting your hands out of your poker site and understanding what they say about your game. Written for Zayrion Analytics, useful with any tracker.

Hand histories and rooms

Where your poker site keeps your hands, how to export them, and how to get them into a tracker.

  1. 01How to Find Your Poker Hand Histories (Every Major Site)Where each poker site keeps your hand histories, the setting to switch on, and the folder to look in. PokerStars, GGPoker, America's Cardroom, Ignition, iPoker, partypoker, 888 and Winamax.5 min
  2. 02Ignition and Bovada Hand History: Download, Convert and ImportHow to download your hands from Ignition, Bovada and Ozoon, why you only get seven days, what the anonymous format looks like, and whether you still need a converter in 2026.5 min
  3. 03America's Cardroom Hand History: Where to Find It and How to Import ItWhere ACR saves your hand histories after the 2023 client redesign, why the old menu path in most guides no longer exists, and what the Winning Poker Network actually allows.4 min
  4. 04PokerStars Hand History: Save It, Find It, and Request Old HandsHow to switch on hand history saving in PokerStars, the retention setting that silently deletes your files, and how to get hands from up to seven years ago by email.4 min
  5. 05GGPoker Hand History: PokerCraft Downloads, Limits and the RulesHow to export your hands from PokerCraft, the 90-day cliff and the 9,999-hand cap, why the file has no opponent names, and what GGPoker's own rules say about third-party trackers.5 min
  6. 06How to Import Hand Histories (and Why the Import Failed)The two ways trackers read your hands, and the handful of reasons an import comes back empty: renamed files, a localised client, an unopened zip, files inside a Mac app bundle, and duplicates from two sources.5 min

Poker stats

What each number means, what a normal one looks like at your stakes, and what to do when yours is off.

  1. 01VPIP in Poker: What It Means and What a Good Number Looks LikeVPIP is how often you put money in before the flop by choice. What it counts, what a winning player's number looks like at your table size, and what the gap to your PFR says about your game.5 min
  2. 02PFR in Poker: Preflop Raise Percentage, and What Yours Should BePFR is how often you raise before the flop. What it counts, what winning players show at each table size, how it should climb across the seats, and why it matters more than VPIP.5 min
  3. 03WTSD in Poker: Went to Showdown, and What a Good Number IsWTSD is how often you reach showdown after seeing a flop. What counts, what winning players show, and how to read it next to W$SD to tell a calling station from a player who folds too much.5 min
  4. 04Red Line Poker: What Your Non-Showdown Winnings Actually MeanYour red line is falling. Before you start bluffing more, work out whether it's even unusual. What the line counts, why the blinds drag it down for everyone, and four checks to find the real leak.5 min
  5. 05C-Bet in Poker: What the Stat Means and Why One Number LiesContinuation betting, what your c-bet percentage counts, and why a single figure can't tell you whether you're doing it well. Split by board, position and how many players, with the numbers that matter.5 min
  6. 06Aggression Factor in Poker: What AF Misses, and Why AFq Beats ItHow aggression factor is calculated, the blind spot built into the formula, and why aggression frequency is the number to read instead. With the figures winning players show on each street.4 min
  7. 07WWSF in Poker: Won When Saw Flop, and Why It Beats Every Other Postflop StatWhat WWSF counts, the number winning players show, and why one outcome stat tells you more about your postflop game than any measure of how you behaved.4 min
  8. 08All-In EV in Poker: What the Adjusted Line Really ShowsWhat the all-in adjusted line on your graph measures, the small slice of luck it actually covers, and why the gap between it and your winnings explains less than most players think.4 min
  9. 093-Bet Percentage: What Yours Should Be, and Why the Old Numbers Are WrongWhat a 3-bet percentage counts, why the figure that was correct a decade ago is now too tight, the spread across seats, and the companion stat that costs more than this one.4 min
  10. 104-Bet in Poker: What It Means, and Why Your Stat Is Probably NoiseWhat a 4-bet is, what a cold 4-bet is, the frequencies winning players show, and the sample size problem that makes this the least readable number in your database.4 min

Win rate

What a good win rate is, how many hands it takes to know, and why the graph lies in the short run.

  1. 01What Is a Good Poker Win Rate? bb/100 by Stake, and the Sample You NeedHow win rate is measured in big blinds per hundred hands, what a good one looks like at each stake, and how many hands it takes before your number means anything at all.4 min
  2. 02Standard Deviation in Poker: The Number That Decides How Long You WaitWhat standard deviation measures in poker, typical figures by game and format, and how to use yours to work out how many hands your win rate actually needs.4 min