FIRST, a guy tried to help you and you called him an idiot. Besides being rude, it's not very bright. Who do you expect will answer your question now?

Well, I will, because I'm not going to let your piss-poor attitude cloud my judgement of you. Maybe you're just temporarily being a dick. Maybe it isn't your normal "way".

SECOND, while the previous poster didn't directly answer your question, he DID at least indirectly answer it. The way you can "tell" whether you're doing "average or better" is to track your results. Besides learning what the hell you're doing, tracking your results is the most important thing you can do for your game. Obviously, if you have a complete record of your single-table tourney results, you can see if you're making money or not.

THIRD, if you're too lazy to do that (you're not much of a player if you are), the easiest way to know how you're doing is to remember your last four sit-and-go results. In general, a typical sit-and-go (hold'em) buy-in and fee amounts to one quarter of what the winner is paid. SO, if you win one in four, and you finish in the money in any of the other three, you're making money. If you can't win one in four sit-n-go tournies, you either suck or you're playing at stakes over your head with players who are better than you are.

And LAST, it's NOT "one big bet per hour". It's "one big bet per hour in a LIVE game". If you're not earning at least THREE big bets per hour online, you're not doing well (the internet game moves about three times as fast as a live game). And even that measurement is low if you play lower stakes. You can't really start using the BB/Hr. formula until you're playing at least $5/10 limit or a very sizeable no-limit game. I can win 100 big bets per hour playing .02/.04 limit holdem, and I'm still earning a lot less than the guy saying "paper or plastic" at Winn-Dixie.

Now by all means, if you'd like to insult me I MUCH prefer the term "moron". If, on the other hand, you think you've benefited from this information, perhaps you could post an apology to the previous poster. Consider it payment for the free advice you just got...twice.