You just finished a 6-hour tournament. You know you played well. You think you were up around hand 30, then bled chips from the blinds, then doubled up late. But you can’t prove any of it. Your memory is a blur of bad beats and cold decks.
Sound familiar? You need a poker session tracker.
The problem is: there are a dozen apps out there, most of them designed for online grinders, and the ones that work for live poker range from great to abandoned. I tested the most popular ones so you don’t have to. Here’s what’s actually worth your time in 2026.
What to look for in a live poker session tracker
Before the list, let’s be clear about what matters for live tournament players specifically. Online tracking is a different game (literally). For live sessions, you need:
- Hand-by-hand logging from the table, not just session summaries after you leave
- Stack tracking over time, so you can see the shape of your session, not just the final number
- Mobile-first design, because you’re logging from your phone at the felt
- Speed. If it takes more than 10 seconds to log a hand, you won’t do it
- Position and card tracking, not just win/loss amounts
Most bankroll trackers only care about that last number: how much did you win or lose. That’s bookkeeping, not improvement. The best tools help you figure out why.
The 6 best poker session trackers in 2026
1. PokerTracker (pokertracker.diguardia.org)
Best for: live tournament players who want hand-level detail
Full disclosure: this is our product. But here’s why it’s on this list.
PokerTracker is a web app built specifically for live poker sessions. Not online HUDs, not bankroll spreadsheets. You open it on your phone, create a session, and start logging hands. Each hand records your hole cards, opponent cards, board, position, pot size, result, and notes. Your stack is plotted in real time on a chart, hand by hand.
That last part is the killer feature. After a session, you don’t just see “+$400.” You see the exact moment you doubled up, the slow bleed in the middle, and that questionable call from UTG on hand 23. It’s the difference between a receipt and a medical chart.
Pricing: Free tier gives you 3 sessions/month with full hand logging and the stack chart. Pro is $9/month for unlimited sessions, AI hand analysis, CSV export, and priority support. The AI analysis spots patterns in your play (like “you’re losing 73% of hands from the small blind”) and generates post-session reports.
Pros:
- Hand-level logging with cards, position, pot, notes
- Real-time stack chart (the visual history of your session)
- Works on any device (web app, no install needed)
- AI insights find leaks in your game (Pro)
- Session sharing with a single link
Cons:
- No native mobile app (yet), just the web app
- Free tier limited to 3 sessions/month
- No bankroll management across sessions (coming in a future update)
2. Poker Bankroll Tracker (PBT)
Best for: players who want a full bankroll management suite
Poker Bankroll Tracker is the most downloaded poker tracker on both iOS and Android, and for good reason. It’s been around for years, it’s polished, and it covers a lot of ground: session logging, bankroll graphs, an ICM calculator, a chip-chop calculator, and a hand odds calculator.
The free version is generous. You get unlimited session logging and basic stats. The Pro subscription unlocks deeper analytics, backup, and removes ads.
Where PBT excels is the bankroll management side. If you play across multiple casinos and stakes, it’s great at showing you which games are profitable and which are costing you money. Where it’s weaker: individual hand tracking. You log sessions as a whole (buy-in, cash-out, duration), not hand by hand. So you know that you lost, but not where you lost.
Pricing: Free with ads. Pro is a yearly subscription (varies by platform).
3. Pokerbase
Best for: Android users who want modern design + social features
Pokerbase is a newer entrant that’s been gaining traction fast. It has a clean, modern UI (no small thing in a category full of apps that look like they were designed in 2014), and it adds some features you don’t see elsewhere: receipt scanning for buy-ins, a Focus Mode that minimizes distractions during play, and the ability to import data from other trackers like PBT and Poker Income.
The social features are solid too. You can share live updates, chip graphs, and results with friends or followers. It’s Android-only for now, which limits the audience.
Pricing: Free with optional premium features.
4. Poker Stack
Best for: casual players who want something simple and free
Poker Stack is 100% free for all basic stats. It tracks sessions across Texas Hold’em, Omaha, tournaments, cash games, Stud, and more. The location-based tracking is a nice touch: enable Location Services and it auto-tags your session with the casino name.
The app has 40+ statistics in the free version, which is more than most paid apps offer. The Pro upgrade adds advanced filtering and deeper analytics. It’s a solid pick if you want a no-cost bankroll tracker that just works.
Pricing: Free. Pro subscription available for advanced stats.
5. Poker Analytics 6
Best for: iOS power users who want deep performance metrics
Poker Analytics has been a trusted name on iOS for years. It offers comprehensive tracking from bankroll management to performance breakdowns by game type, stake, location, and time of day. The automatic reports that flag when you’re overperforming (or underperforming) in certain spots are genuinely useful.
The downside: it’s iOS-only, and the full feature set requires an annual subscription. But if you’re an iPhone user who takes their game seriously, it’s one of the most complete options out there.
Pricing: Free trial, then annual subscription for full features.
6. Bankroll Buddy
Best for: privacy-conscious players and tournament grinders
Bankroll Buddy stores everything locally on your device. No accounts, no cloud sync, no data leaving your phone. For players who don’t want their poker results sitting on someone else’s server, that’s a genuine selling point.
It handles tournament specifics well: field size, finish position, bounties, rebuys, add-ons. The trade-off is that local-only storage means no cross-device sync and no recovery if you lose your phone.
Pricing: Free with in-app purchases.
Comparison table
| App | Hand-by-hand logging | Stack chart | AI analysis | Platform | Free tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PokerTracker | Yes (cards, position, pot, notes) | Yes, real-time | Yes (Pro) | Web (any device) | 3 sessions/mo |
| PBT | No (session-level only) | Bankroll graph | No | iOS, Android | Unlimited sessions |
| Pokerbase | No | Chip graph | No | Android | Yes |
| Poker Stack | No | Bankroll graph | No | iOS, Android | Full (40+ stats) |
| Poker Analytics | No | Performance charts | No | iOS | Trial |
| Bankroll Buddy | No | Basic | No | Android | Yes |
The real difference: session summaries vs. hand-level data
Here’s the thing most comparison posts won’t tell you: almost every poker tracker on the market does the same thing. You enter a buy-in, you enter a cash-out, and it draws a graph. That’s bankroll tracking. It tells you if you’re winning or losing over time.
But it doesn’t tell you why.
If you’re serious about improving, you need hand-level data. Which positions are you bleeding chips from? Are you calling too wide from the blinds? Do you play differently in the first hour vs. the fifth? You can only answer those questions if you’re logging individual hands with cards, position, and results.
That’s the gap PokerTracker fills. The other apps on this list are excellent bankroll trackers. PokerTracker is a session analysis tool. They solve different problems, and ideally you’d use both: a bankroll tracker for the big picture, and PokerTracker for the session-level detail that actually makes you a better player.
Which one should you pick?
- You want to track individual hands and see where you win/lose: PokerTracker
- You want a full bankroll manager across stakes and casinos: Poker Bankroll Tracker
- You’re on Android and want a modern, social experience: Pokerbase
- You want something 100% free with no strings: Poker Stack
- You’re an iOS power user who wants deep analytics: Poker Analytics 6
- Privacy matters more than cloud sync: Bankroll Buddy
Try a couple. Most are free to start. The best tracker is the one you’ll actually use at the table.
Leave a Reply