What is a Poker HUD?
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Introduction to Poker HUD Software:
With the explosion of various poker software tools available, most players will now be using a poker HUD.
HUD stands for Head-Up Display. A Poker HUd is a clever peice of software which displays an overlay of statistics above or below your opponents’ icons on the table. These break down an opponent’s playing style e.g. LAG or TAG, help you narrow down hand ranges on different streets, view how agressivness they are, and generally provide a number of ways for you to make more profitable decisions.
Do I Need to Use a HUD?
First of all, I want to point out that as a regular cash game player I’m always looking for ways to gain an edge my opponents. Now, for games at NL50 or above, I recommend everyone starts using a HUD. There are multiple reasons for this, for example, you’ll be leaking too many chips and not getting enough value betting against opponents. A HUD helps you control and bluff more pots. Seeing a player with a VPIP% of 10% and a cbet/F% (fold to cbet) of 67% tells me it’s profitable to pre-flop raise and cbet that player. More specifically, the majority of regs get stuck at the $0.50/$1 stakes because there is massive gap in quality when you move up. A Poker HUD fills this gap for you and I can guarantee that everyone winning at NL100+ will be using a HUD.
If you’re aiming to make serious money in online poker, I highly recommend using this tool, it’s designed to make your more money. All the top players use it and it’ll help you move up the stakes and incease your bankroll. It’s even more useful in multi-tabling where you can’t necessarily keep an eye on each opponent’s plays. With a quick glance at the HUD statistics however, you can make extremely sharp decisions based on their HUD statistics.
Advantages Using a Poker HUD
The main advantage of a poker HUD comes with the ability to profile all players at your table effortlessly. For example, if a player is raising pre-flop 4BBs in early position, then you can use a HUD to assess their relative hand strength and looseness by looking at their VPIP% stat (if VPIP is above 30%, they will be raising with a number of marginal hands including 10J, but if it’s below 10% you can guarantee they are only raising with premium hands such as 1010+, AJ+). The information HUD reveals about opponents will be crucial to earning more profits in the long-term.
HUD’s can also be used in STTs (single-table-tournaments). For multi-table tournaments there are also specific HUD’s you can use. Poker HUD’s are extremely useful for table selection too. You can use one to instantly analyse the past results of players on each table and whether or not it will be profitable for you to play there.
Best Poker HUD? Feel free to visit the Best Poker HUD page for the best poker tracking software/HUD for 2010.
