[pzhon]

The idea of a confidence interval is well worth learning.

When you add together the outcomes of many hands, the result is close to a normal distribution, a bell corve. Just over 95% of the normal distribution is within 2 standard deviations of the mean. About 95% of the time, your observed result will be within 2 standard deviations of your true win rate. That's not a certainty, but you can say it is "quite likely."

Computing a confidence interval is simple algebra, evaluating a formula. The standard deviation of your win rate aftern n * 100 hands is (SD per 100)/sqrt(n). If you play with a LAG style, 6-max, you might have a standard deviation per 100 hands of 120-150 big blinds; let's assume it is 150.

After 10,000 hands, the standard deviation of your win rate would be 150/sqrt(100) = 15 big blinds/100. If your observed win rate was 20 big blinds/100, then you can say it is quite likely that your win rate is between 20-30 and 20+30 big blinds/100. As you play more hands, the confidence interval gradually shrinks due to the 1/sqrt(n) factor.

If your win rate is high, you probably are not as concerned about knowing your win rate as precisely as if your win rate is low. The difference between winning 18 versus 22 big blinds/100 is not as important as the difference between winning 2 versus 6 big blinds/100.