January is typically a month for yearly recaps, New Year’s resolutions, and big decisions that may make or break the year ahead of you.
For poker players, taking the time to reflect on the previous year and seriously consider what comes next is an important part of the process, especially in their formative years.
With more and more poker players taking to YouTube and other social platforms to share their poker journeys, we now have a better insight into what a professional poker player’s career actually looks like.
Now that we are a few weeks into January, and quite a few poker pros and vloggers have published their 2025 poker results videos, we examined the numbers to find out the answer to the biggest question of all – can I still win at poker in 2026?
Mariano Grandoli Boasts a 7-Figure Year
In recent years, Mariano Grandoli has become one of the most popular poker vloggers thanks to his high-quality videos that showcase his life as a live tournament pro, but also his regular appearances on popular poker streams.
Mariano has been a regular on Hustler Casino Live for a while now and has also appeared on shows like Poker at the Lodge and others. Beyond this, the Argentine has also played in a number of private and public cash games throughout 2025.
In early 2025, Mariano posted his 2024 poker results in a similar video. In about 485 hours, he had won $486,000, good for about $1,000 per hour.
This time around, his results were even more impressive, as he posted a $1.25 million win on the year, having played a limited 557 hours over 92 sessions.
Mariano’s incredible results came in part thanks to his game selection, which continues to be one of the strongest parts of his game, combined with a calm demeanor and the ability to avoid tilt even on the days when things aren’t going his way.
The massive 7-figure win did not include any income from his popular YouTube channel or other streams; it was limited to the live cash games he played throughout the year.
Mid Stakes Grinder Wins $110k in a Year
Another interesting 2025 poker results video came from Mateos, an up-and-coming poker vlogger who spends most of his time grinding the mid-stakes.
Unlike Mariano, who recorded most of his results in streamed games at stakes of $100/$200 and higher, Mateos spent much of his 2025 playing games with stakes from $2/$5 to $20/$40, and buyins not exceeding a couple of thousand dollars.
Matoes had plenty of success in these games as well, as he won over $186,000 over 1,125 hours of play, a more significant sample size than Mariano’s.
This was good for a win-rate of about $165 per hour, which amounted to nearly 6 big blinds per hour on average. While this is not the highest win-rate ever recorded, it is a nice indication of what’s possible in the live games these days.
Matoes also showed that most of his hours were spent playing in public games during daytime hours, which is clearly not the optimal setting to be printing money.
Yet, even in these conditions, and with a limited amount of experience, Matoes was able to win more than a solid yearly salary playing the mid-stakes.
The vlogger also showed his results in the few limited high-stakes poker sessions that he played in 2025, where he lost about $70,000 over just 55 hours of play.
With stakes of over $100/$100, the loss amounted to only a few buyins, and could easily be attributed to variance, but possibly also to Matoes playing outside of his comfort zone.
Overall, he won about $110,000 playing some 1,180 hours of poker in 2025, demonstrating that a young up-and-comer can be very profitable at the tables in modern poker.
Online Crusher Shows His Tournament Results
The third yearly poker results video we included in this rundown comes from Benjamin “Bencb” Rolle, one of the best tournament poker players in the world.
In 2025, Bencb played a very limited volume of tournaments, as he has been doing recently, but recorded his best year at the virtual tables ever.
In September, Rolle won the WSOP Online Main Event for over $4,000,000, which saw his win rate soar.
Yet, Ben also included his online tournament results without the big win, and showed that he had actually won about $424,000 even without the Main Event win.
Rolle paid about $1.2 million in tournament buyins over the year, playing in some of the toughest online fields, with the majority of his volume coming from GGPoker.
Yet, even facing off against the best poker players in the world and playing up to 20 tables at the same time, Rolle was able to win with an ROI of about 25% over the course of 2025, excluding the Main Event score.
For the sake of transparency, it is worth noting that Bencb is one of the most accomplished online tournament players of all time, but also that the tournaments he plays in are not the average tournaments a low to mid-stakes player would be grinding on a regular basis.
Is Poker Still Beatable in 2026?
In recent years, there has been a ton of talk about poker being a “dead game” and the games being unbeatable because everyone is so much better than they used to be.
While it is definitely true that the average quality of play at both live and online poker tables has improved significantly, it’s also clear that there is a lot of money still left to be made.
Mariano, Marteos, and Ben are just a few of the many players who have had a very successful 2025 playing poker, and their results are a clear indicator that poker can still be beaten at all stakes and stages.
Whether you are looking to win in private cash games like Mariano, public live games like Matoes, or high-stakes online tournaments like Ben, it’s all about training, consistency, and discipline.
Even if you are just starting your poker journey in 2026 and taking your first steps, there is no reason poker can’t become your career if you stick with the program and approach the game as seriously as you would any other project.
