The positional report is in every tracker, and it is one of the few reports that really helps you understand where your overall winrate comes from. But it has to be read with a correction: positions are unequal by definition, and a minus in the blinds is not a mistake but a property of the game. Below are the benchmarks and how to apply them.
Why positions are unequal
In the blinds you put money in before the cards are dealt and play postflop out of position. On the BTN you enter the pot voluntarily, with the best hands and the last word on every street. That is why for any player, the best included, the winrate by position lines up on the same ladder: BTN above everyone, BB below everyone. The question is not the sign but the size. A player with a positive BB winrate exists in only one place: a tracker with a 2,000-hand sample.
Benchmarks for 6-max
The numbers below refer to a winning regular at NL25–NL200 after rake. This is not a norm to chase but a corridor where the results of players with a positive overall winrate usually lie.
| Position | Usual corridor, bb/100 | What affects it most |
|---|---|---|
| BTN | +20 … +35 | steals, isolating limpers, play against 3bets |
| CO | +8 … +20 | opening range, response to 3bets from BTN and the blinds |
| HJ (MP) | +3 … +12 | opening discipline, play in multiway pots |
| UTG | 0 … +10 | opening range, postflop out of position against CO/BTN |
| SB | −25 … −12 | entry strategy (3bet or call), defense against BTN |
| BB | −45 … −28 | defense against steals, postflop in single-raised pots out of position |
The spread is wide because rake and the pool differ from stake to stake. At micro stakes the blinds are more expensive: rake in small pots is higher and the pool limps more often. At NL200 and above the corridors narrow.
How much one position weighs
To understand which position matters more for the overall result, multiply the positional number by the share of hands in it. In 6-max each position gives roughly a sixth of the hands. So a 10 bb/100 difference in the BB gives about 1.7 bb/100 to the overall winrate. The same difference at UTG also gives 1.7 bb/100, but a 10 bb/100 difference at UTG is far rarer than in the BB.
Hence a simple rule: the biggest reserves almost always lie in the BB and on the BTN. Not because people play worse there, but because the most money passes through these positions. Looking for leaks at UTG is like looking for lost keys under the streetlight: it is bright there, but the keys are not.
"BB below the norm" means nothing by itself
Suppose your BB is at −42 bb/100 with a corridor of −45 … −28. That is not a leak yet. Next, the position has to be split into spots:
- Against an open from which position is the minus largest? Usually against BTN and CO, because ranges are wider there and the postflop is longer.
- What part of the minus falls on preflop, that is on folded blinds and on calls that do worse than a fold?
- What happens in single-raised pots by street: where do you give up the pot without showdown, where do you get to showdown with a weak hand?
Only at this level does the price of a decision appear. The same −42 may mean too tight a defense against steals, too wide a defense, or a normal defense with expensive river folds. These are fixed in different ways. The pill "defend the BB wider" cures the first and cripples you in the second.
SB: the number is easy to misread
The SB winrate is the noisiest of all: it gets a sixth of your hands, and the pots out of position are big. A gap of −15 versus −22 bb/100 over 100–200 thousand hands is often variance, not a difference in play. The number also doesn't tell you where the loss comes from: folded blinds, calls out of position, or 3bets that don't pay off. Under-defending shows up in the same line — every extra fold costs 0.5 bb.
So the SB is reviewed decision by decision: against an open from which position, with which action, and how much you lose against the solver in each spot. The advice "defend wider" only helps if your out-of-position postflop doesn't eat the gain from defending.
How to use the positional report
- Check the sample: on 100,000 hands each position has about 17,000, and the interval per position is wider than ±10 bb/100. Comparing with the corridor makes sense from 200,000 hands.
- Find the position where the deviation from the corridor times the share of hands gives the most bb/100 in the overall result.
- Split that position into spots against specific opponent positions and by pot type.
- Inside the spot, look not at frequencies but at lines by street and their result at showdown and without.
The positional report is good as a map: it shows where to go. The mistakes themselves lie one level below.