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Statistics to use in your HUD


The statistics you use during play can significantly affect your perception of the opponent you are playing against. This article will focus on the statistics to use when you are playing cash games.

The use of a HUD (heads-up-display) is of enormous importance to give you more information on the type of player your against.

You should base your opinion of a player by their stats when you have at least 50 hands on them. So this is the first piece of information you should have in your HUD. Data mining and hand history providers can dramatically boost your database quickly.

Secondly you should show their VPIP (Voluntarily Put Money in the Pot). This statistic allows you to categorize your opponent as loose or tight, and it gives you a clear indication of their hand ranges. The higher a players VPIP the looser they are and the more likely you will profit from them.

The third must have stat is PFR (Pre-flop Raise)this tells you the percentage of time they enter a pot with a raise. Players with a very low PFR are usually only raising with premium pairs (AA's, KK's, QQ's) so you can safely fold your speculator hand to them, on the other hand, if all the players following you have low PFR percentages you can usually limp into a pot and see a flop cheaply.

The fourth statistic you should use is Total Aggression Factor-this is a measure of how aggressive or passive the player is across all streets. This will give you a general idea of how aggressive the player will be post-flop.

These are the key statistics that every player should have in there HUD. The arrangement and number of additional stats you have is actually just personal preference and your playing style, for example, multi-tablers may be restricted with the amount of space they have available. Most HUD's are fully customizable with everything from layout, colour ranges to position and most HUD's also have more statistics in a 'pop-up' that gives you a variety of stats that are just one click away.


Some other statistics that you should include in your HUD are WTSD and W$SD.

WTSD(Went to Showdown)-this will tell you if your opponent is a call station who will take Ace high or bottom pair to showdown. If your opponent has a low WTSD% your more likely to get away with a bluff as they are likely to be only taking strong hands to showdown, on the other hand, if their WTSD% is high your better off not to bluff as they are likely to call you.

W%SD (Won money at showdown) works hand in hand with WTSD%. If a players WTSD is low but their W$SD% is high, this tells me that they do not go to showdown often but when they do they have the goods.

As you get use to using a HUD, you will want to add more statistics. Most programs with a HUD allow you to create custom 'profiles' (different sets of stats/ layouts etc for different situations) for example, if you are multi-tabling space may be an issue- you may need to just have the basics displayed. Also, you may want different statistics displayed for tournaments or heads-up situations (we are currently working on an article with this info).

Some other stats I personally like to use include-

3Bet pre-flop- This is the percentage of times the player made a 3Bet (re-raised a raiser) pre-flop also Fold to 3Bet PF- this tells me the percentage of times a player folded when facing a three bet pre-flop.

I also find it useful to know if a player plays position, here you can use a steal success statistic which will tell you the percentage of times the player won the pot immediately when making a steal raise (a steal raise is an open raise by the cutoff, button or small blind). You may also find it useful to display a fold steal to re-raise statistic which tells us the percentage of times the player folded after making a steal raise when one of the blinds re-raised.

You will also be surprised to find if you use statistics such as bet flop/turn/river how often you will know what a player is about to do (bet or check) and how predictable some players are (always betting the flop and turn then checking the river) and how easy it is for you to call their flop and turn bets with the plan to bet at them on the river, you can even have a call river bet statistic so you know the likelihood of them calling you.

There is a wide array of statistics you can use in your poker tracking software that will give you an advantage over your opponents.

I suggest you start with the basics (hands, VPIP, PFR, AF) and then work from there what statistics you find useful to make decisions in game.

The most powerful HUD on the market today is by far PokerTracker- read our review HERE.


 

PokerEdge 5 HUD