Poker HUDs

Poker tracking programs such as PokerTracker and Hold’em Manager are now widely used by online players to gain an edge over their opponents, and can be a hugely valuable addition to your game, if used correctly. I’m seeking to give an overview of tracking software, how it works and the advantages it can offer.

This time, I want to focus more on the Heads-Up Display (HUD) of these programs, what you need to consider when creating a display and which stats may be beneficial while actually playing.
For the uninitiated, a HUD takes your opponents’ statistics from a database and overlays them on your poker tables, with the relevant stats for each player under their username. Deciding how many stats you want to display and how you want them laid out is purely down to personal preference. Your layout must be tailored to suit your needs, the game you play, how many tables you play at once, your playing style, and many other factors. For example, a heads-up player will want different information from someone playing full-ring, while someone playing two tables could well want more stats than someone playing 12.

Above all, the display should be clean, concise and readable. Spend some time making sure it’s laid out just as you want it. You only have a few seconds to make a decision, and you don’t want to be wasting time searching for the right stat.

The Right Stuff

The content should include all stats that you want access to. Normally this would include VPIP, PFR and AF as your core details, but you can add as many or as few stats as you feel fit. Beware of overload though. Some people have far too many stats and simply can’t process all the information quickly enough.

There is a trade-off. The less detailed your HUD, the easier it is to process the information. This means, however, that you may not have all the information you want to make your decision.
It’s important to prioritise the stats you need, and a good way of analysing them is in terms of frequency used, and impact when called upon. For example, AF is a stat that can influence almost every single decision you make against a player, but it doesn’t often influence changes in decision on its own (it usually acts as supporting evidence for other stats). AF therefore is a high-frequency, low-impact figure. Compare that to a stat such as continuation bet percentage, which is low-frequency, high-impact. It is only usually useful when seeing a flop (and turn) against a pre-flop aggressor, but it will strongly affect your post-flop decisions in such a situation.

There are hundreds of stats available. The question is, which ones are essential, which are useful and which are expendable?

Continuation betting stats

There are a whole host of different continuation betting stats available. The main ones to consider are ‘C-Bet Flop’ and ‘Fold to Flop C-Bet’, both of which are fairly self-explanatory and have pretty clear implications. In addition to these, we can add the same stats applied to the turn. These stats are only applicable occasionally, but can be very useful. A player who c-bets the flop 90% but only c-bets the turn 35% of the time is far more exploitable to floating in position than someone who c-bets 60% flops and 60% turns.

Three-betting stats

Three-betting is now widely used and it’s handy to have some three-bet stats on your HUD. The obvious two are ‘3-bet’ and ‘Fold to 3-bet.’ Anything over 10% for three-bet stats is very aggressive and may be exploitable depending on the player. A very low three-bet stat of 3% or less signifies someone who may normally re-raise only the tightest of ranges. Note-taking is important as this seemingly tight player may well be three-betting lots of suited-connector type hands and flat-calling with premiums looking to trap you.

Stealing stats

This figure shows how many times someone raises pre-flop from the cut-off, button or small blind when the action is folded to them. Generally, a figure of 25-30% is standard but many good LAGs can profitably steal over 40% of the time. This stat combines with PFR to tell you how positionally aware your opponents are.

‘Fold big blind to steal’ is a very useful stat to have displayed. For obvious reasons it is handy to know if your opponents defend their blind with vigour, or if they are happy to let it go without too much of a fight.

Other stats

There are far too many to explain here. I suggest you play around with your HUD settings and have a look for yourself. You may for instance like to know how often someone folds to a donk bet, or how often someone check-raises the river, or how often someone squeezes from the big blind. All of this information is available to you plus much more. It’s up to you what you think is important and how much information you can efficiently use.

Deciding which stats are useful takes a lot of trial and error. You should generally start with a simple HUD layout and add and remove stats as experience dictates.

Pitfalls

Beware of falling into the trap of playing like a stat robot. People sometimes look at stats and use them solely to make decisions which is a huge mistake. Stats should be used only as an aid to making good decisions in conjunction with all the information available to you. It’s all too easy to automatically c-bet a flop because your opponent has a 75% Fold to C-Bet stat, without actually looking at the board texture, stack sizes, or thinking about the current table dynamic. Remember, the HUD is there to help you understand how your opponents play their hands, not to tell you how you should play yours!

The main things to remember are:

1 Use a layout that works for you
2 Keep the display as clear and concise as possible
3 Don’t become a stat robot
4 Don’t overload your HUD with info
5 Use the pop-ups for more detail

Once you’ve set up your HUD you now want to use it to your advantage. There’s no better way to improve than to use it and study it while actually playing. Everything is open to interpretation so there are no hard and fast rules. Just try to optimise how you use the data by knowing what each stat means in relation to all the other stats, and also in relation to other factors affecting your table. If you can do that, you will hopefully see an increased win-rate and a better overall understanding of your opponents and the way they play in different situations.