How to Use a Poker HUD

How to Use a Head-Up Display (HUD) System

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HUD (Heads Up Display) can look a bit daunting to the first time user. However rest assure that a HUD is pretty simple to use, and understanding the various stats will become second nature with some short practice.

Firstly, the statistics hovering over each player are based on that player’s history at the table since you last sat down. For reliability you will need to have a sample size of at least 100 hands.

Top Level HUD Stats Example:

Here we are playing at Poker Stars using a Poker HUD. In this example each box contains 9 statistics for each player, divided into 2 lines which have 4 & 5 statistics respectively (you can change which statistics show up). The last number on the first line (green) indicates the number of hands played. We know that anything above 500 hands makes these statistics very reliable, and anything below 50 we shouldn’t treat too highly.

The first line for player “TracyTheNuts” shows 18/10/28/1.7k. These statistics stand for VPIP/PFR/AF and the number of hands.

The first number indicates 18% VPIP Voluntarily Put Money In The Pot (%). This poker HUD indicator shows how loose or tight a player is pre-flop. It shows how often a player will call the blinds to see the flop. A VPIP < 20% means a player is tight, while > 40% means very loose.

The second number, her PFR Pre-Flop Raise (%) shows how aggressive a player is pre-flop. The closer this is to VPIP % the more aggression it shows. Loose players tend to have a small PFR value.

The third number shows her AF Aggressive Factor (%). This indicates how aggressive she is post-flop by calculating her raising:calling ratio. The 28% figure shows she is very aggressive. This means she is a TAG (tight-aggressive player).

Bottom Level HUD Stats

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To continue using the HUD to track our opponents we can now look at the bottom line of our HUD display. These numbers represent percent of 3-bet, fold to c-bet, 3-bet and check-raise percentage. The depth of information here shows just how valuable a HUD can be for analysing an opponent.

Tracy’s bottom line HUD details read 56/52/2/44/7. 56% c-bet means she makes continuation bets over half the time after a pre-flop raise. She folds 52% of the time to c-bet, which is quite low and indicates weakness. 2% 3-bet is low indicating a regular player not bluffing too much pre-flop. Folding to 3-bet 44% of the time is very low, again confirming a regular play (a TAG would fold less). Check-raising 7% of the time is unusually high – this shows a tendency to trap and slow play big hands.

2% 3-bet is low, confirming a straightforward type of play. Folding to 3-bet only 44% of time is very low, which reinforce the doubting nature mentioned earlier. Check-raising 7% of the time is pretty high, demonstrating a tendency to trap.

This case study is a perfect example of the power of the HUD. By just glancing over the HUD‘s box, I instantaneously obtain a summary of Tracy’s playing style. This is very important as every action at online poker must depend on your opponent idiosyncrasies.

Conclusion on HUD Stats

The stats you choose to display are entirely up to you. The 9 statistics used above however already convey a wealth of information, and will be the ones most relevant to playing. In addition with most Poker HUD’s you can customise which statistics you want displayed with over 100 other options to choose from including Limp Call (%), Blind to Steal (%), Fold to Steal (%) and more…

Recommended setup for Poke Office 5′s HUD:

VPIP – Voluntarily Put Money In the Pot (the higher number the weaker are opponents)

PFR – Pre-Flop Raise (the higher number the looser and more aggressive opponent for example number 2 – he raises two times more often than calls)

AGG – Total Aggression (the higher number the more aggressive is player postflop)

STEAL – Blind Stealing (the higher number the more aggressive player in blind stealing)

3BET – Bet/Blind &Re-raise (the higher the number the more aggressive player)

FOLD 3 BET – Fold to Three Bet (the higher the number the better folding equity)

CBET – Continuation Bet (the higher the more he continues to raise on the flop)

FOLD C BET – Fold To Continuation Bet (the bigger the more raise him preflop)

TH – Total Hands (the bigger the number the more reliable are the indicators above)

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