Unfortunately, win rate is a poor measure of poker skills.
As many people know, variance implicit in poker can take a winning player and make them look like a losing player for an extended period of time.
Similarly, a losing player may falsely think that they are a winning player because of good luck.
Many players are amazed to know that this can continue for 10's of thousands of hands.
The only way to objectively compare yourself to other players is to take a test with defined correct plays, with these correct plays defined based on The Theory of Poker, as described by noted author and professional David Sklansky.
According to the theory of poker, you make money when you get your opponents to play in a way that would not be correct if they could see your cards.
Thus, the difficulty in testing a person's poker ability is that play is dependent not only on your cards, but also on your opponent's cards, and what cards your opponent thinks you have.
In a nutshell, it is practically impossible to accurately analyze a person's poker IQ with 100% accuracy.
However, several online tools and sites have begun to make tremendous advances in this area.
The first was the Donkey Test, a test of approximately 50 questions with specific situations given.
Many online players have claimed that this test gives a strong approximation of a person's true ability at no limit holdem.
The test analyzes a player's ability in several different categories, and a complete analysis is available for purchase.
Another site that tackles the subject of Poker IQ is Test Your Poker.
They take the approach that play should only be analyzed in conjunction with defined hands.
Basically, they conclude that it is impossible to analyze a person's ability based on situations that they may have never gotten themselves into in the first place.
So Test Your Poker provides separate tests in NL Holdem cash games, 6-max games, and tournaments.
Each test consists of 50 hands that a person plays from start to finish.
By analyzing play on a controlled set of hands, a player would be able to, in a short period of time, get a strong assessment of their skills in many different areas such as:
- Correct hand selection
- Correct actions (bet/raise/check/fold)
- Correct bet/raise size
- Play from the Blinds
- Play from different positions
- Pot odds
- Aggressiveness/Passive Play
- Blind stealing
- Adjusting for previous action in the hand
- Adjusting for previous action at the table
- Using your play on prior streets to your advantage
- Playing in raised pots
- Slowplaying
- Check-raising
- Bluffing
- Defending against aggressive play
- Knowing when to push All-in
- Understanding opponent's tendencies
- Understanding opponent's stack size
- Pot control
- Playing too "fancy"
- Pre-flop play
- Flop play
- Turn play
- River play
- Many other subcategories of the above skills