6-max HUD stats and how I use them

I'm becoming a bit of a stats monkey so I figured I'd write a little post on them for the newer players. The recent discussion in the chat thread and other places lead me to believe some people could benefit from this.

Here's my hud layout. This particular player is a bad regular who I have a ton of hands on.

Stats are:

Voluntarily put money into pot/Preflop raise/Total postflop aggression factor/3bet/fold to 3bet
Attempt to steal/Fold to flop bet/C-bet/Went to showdown/Fold BB to steal
Limp-call %/Squeeze/Aggression frequency



And of course the popup:

[image: http://img393.imageshack.us/img393/1177/123gw3.jpg]

Last line in the hud is basically a mess of stats I'm experimenting with. LC and squeeze are staple stats for me now, AFq being something I have yet to really implement into my game. The rest of the stats are things I usually check at least once during every hand.

I'll gear this towards people who understand what the stats mean but don't necessarily know how to apply them. Please don't ask me what a stat means, or else I'll kill a kitten. You can ask SavagePenguin about that.

I guess the best way to do this is to run through some generic situations and explain what stats I look at and what thresholds change my decisions.

First thing's first. Sample size is everything. Some stats converge (meaning they become accurate to that player's actual style) much quicker than others. Some take forever, like check-raise river %. For pf decisions I think a few hundred hands can be enough for most situations. For intricate postflop decisions, usually 10k is enough. Getting that many hands on a player is something you'll have to figure out...datamining where it's legal is essential. Otherwise...figure it out.

1) Stealing: folded to me on the button:

This is obviously where we open up the most out of any other position at the table. Just how loose I go depends on how the blinds play. How tight they are, how passive they are, how sticky they are with their hands postflop, etc.

First stat I look at is 'fold BB to steal'. A good rule is if both the BB and SB add up to 150 or more, we can usually steal any two cards. VPIP/PFR is helpful, but really doesn't matter if both their fBBtS stats are like %85. In that case, we steal every single time it's folded to us on the button.

I think stealing every button until the stat gets down to about %65 or %70 is good. At that point, I still maintain a high steal %, and only adjust when they start to call/3bet me more.

Stats like 3bet%, fold to flop/turn/riv cbet%s and wtsd play a big part of how wide I'm stealing too. Someone could have a highish %74 fold BB to steal, but have a really high %12 3bet and low fold to cbet at like %55, and because of that I'll steal considerably less than against someone who calls a steal less, but gives up postflop a lot more. In that case you'd actually be making more money on the play by way of your opponent putting in more money before giving up.

Remember to watch out for shortstacks and drop your open size to 3x or 2.5x if it's not already to make sure you don't commit yourself with marginal hands. They generally don't adjust too well to the size difference.

2) Getting 3bet when we steal:

Your staple play here should be to fold. There are a ton of strategy posts about how to play really tricky in 3bet pots, but don't stress enough the fact that folding should be your priority. Against most players, their 3bet ranges will be tight enough that they don't really contain many hands that will fold to action. That in mind, there are definitely ways of exploiting people who 3bet too much.

First thing we look at is actually his username. I'm kidding, ffs. First thing we look at is obviously his 3bet%. To be more specific, we look in the popup at the "vs steal > 3bet". 3bet% changes dramatically for some players vs a stealer in comparison to their overall %.

%5ish and below is fairly tight and consists mostly of hands that are raising for value. %5-8 is where most of the good regulars are sitting at (and where you should be too). There are a considerable number of light 3bets in the %7-8 range as well as the value hands obviously. %9 and over is generally where people start getting out of line. Often times people take that first step and 3bet extremely light, but don't deal with 4bets well, or don't play their hands well postflop.

So if their 3bet% is somewhere like %5 and under, we almost always play our hand strictly for it's face value. Usually people who 3bet that low aren't giving their hands up to aggression, so there's not much for us to do other than get our money in when we're good, and fold when we're not.

When they creep into that %6-8 range, they often also become exploitable in some way since there are now hands in their range that can fold to some kind of play. Anything wider than %10 or so and we usually find some really exploitable players. The basic ways to combat people like this are 4bet bluffing, flatting and raising the flop cbet, flatting and betting the flop when checked to, and flatting pf and flatting postflop as a float.

4betting: You're either 4betting to 2.5x the 3bet amount (so as not to commit yourself but still to get fold equity), or you're shoving. It's generally best to 2.5x it. Basically the only stat we're looking at here is 'fold to 4bet %' in the popup.

In a 2/4 game, if we open for $12, SB folds and the BB re-pops to $42, our 4bet bluff will be to about $100. $100/($100+$60) = 0.625 meaning that our bluff has to work about %63 of the time to be immediately profitable. Most regulars don't have fold to 4bet stats that high (usually %50 +/-%10), but metagame plays a huge factor with 4betting. When you 4bet lots, people pin you as a spewy maniac, and they stack off light in the future.

I like to 4bet a little more often earlier in a session. When there's no history, people give you more respect. Flip it around; if you've been active and have maybe 4bet before on that same table, people will probably give you less respect.

On to flatting and raising the flop cbet. The main stat you should look at is under the popup: Flop As PFR > Fold CB to raise > 3-Bet Pot. %60+ and I happily raise the flop cbet as a bluff, anything lower and we should generally play fit or fold. Good flops to raise are basically those which are unlikely to have hit our opponent's range. Stuff like 567 monotone, flops that 'supposedly' hit your opponents range but don't actually hit that much of it like Qxx, Kxx, etc., rag flops.

I think generally when you have hands that are drawing dead, you should make small 2x-3x raises on the flop that don't commit you should villain shove. When you have something like a flush draw, OESD, overcards + gutshot, that's when you should shove. Of course all this needs to be balanced with real hands too, assuming your opponent is observant. If you make these plays with any consistency, you should often flat AA to a 3bet and shove a rag flop as well. Against those who don't pay attention, there's no need to balance.

Flatting pf and floating the flop (with the intention of betting the turn, or checking back the turn and betting the river when checked to as an even more complicated line) is a lot trickier. Similar flops to the ones I mentioned above should be floated: stuff that misses your opponents range and hits yours. I generally make this play if my opponent's fold to flop raise isn't too high, if his turn cbet is somewhat low, as is his turn check-raise %. Those last two stats in the popup don't apply that well in 3bet pots since they refer to overall stats rather than 3-bet pot-specific ones, but they still help.

The last option is betting the flop when checked to. Unless you're up against a really tricky player, when your opponent checks the flop as the PF 3bettor, he's almost always giving up. Bet it almost always. Just to make sure, check that his ch-r flop % isn't too high. %15+ and we should probably just shut down. Anything below %10 and we can fire away!

This is taking a hell of a lot longer than I anticipated. 3bet pots are extremely complicated and I promise I'll touch on simpler stuff next time. I'll wrap it up now and will come back, prob tomorrow, to post more examples.

One last point though. A ton of the nosebleed players play without a hud. The reason that I've heard from most of them is that 'stats are situational' (plus they're just monsters who don't need huds), meaning that just because someone cbets %75 of the time, doesn't mean he'll do so on a 567sss board, or a Kxx board. He'll cbet those kinds of boards with completely different frequencies. This also applies to other stats as well. Of course this is true, and the key thing about stats is that you have to understand how to apply them properly. Hopefully I'm explaining my points well and that you guys are getting something from this. Like understand that someone's 3bet% is going to be significantly tighter vs an utg raiser than it is against a button raiser.

Anyways, I'll be back tomorrow with more.

Not meaning to be a total nit Chuck, but for better discussion in this thread, giving a defination of your stats may be an idea.

VP$IP/PFR/AF/3bet/Fold to 3B
ATS/FFB/CB/WTSD/F BB to steal
Limp-call %/Squeeze/AFq

I can edit into OP if its needed. I know them all off hand apart from AFq, and im a bit of a stats nit.

edited.

LOL linkaments!

Nice post though. I think my use of stats has a lot of room for improvement. I'll re-read this again tomorrow to help digest it some.

Ha ha! Everyone knows you look at the avatar, not username. If it's a housewife or has pictures of someone's kids you fold, and if it's a your white kid with a stone cold glare you 4-bet (shoving if the avatar has sunglasses).

Yup, it's gonna take more than one read to assimilate it, and then try to think how to adjust for FR and lower levels.

But thanks Chuck.

I find this thread to be hott.

This is a great post for you guys just learning the cash games. My HUD is a bit different ... but the bread & butter of what ChuckTs has is similar to what me and a few others use. Critical things like knowing VPIP/PFR/AF isn't "enough" when your massively (7+) multitabling ... you'll need to know their 3bet range, how often the fold to cbets, etc etc. Get yourself experimenting with your HUD to see what works best for you.

Very nice post, Chuck, as usual.

I'd love to hear how you use limp-call% and post flop stats to decide which fish to isolate and how many barrels you fire at them.

I'm not Chuck, but...

If someone's limp-call% is 50% or lower it's trivially easy to raise with any two (from the button, sb or BB), because while you're often risking 4BB to win 1, there's dead money in there too - the blinds - and one more aspect working in your favour: Someone whose limp/call is relatively small is someone who doesn't psychologically marry hands. Some people hate folding in the BB because they're giving up "their" money. Someone who can limp, and then fold to a raise often, doesn't exhibit this behavior. Therefore, you can be fairly confident that even though you're immediately only winning 2.5BB while risking 4, you're going to take away the pot on the flop very often. Fold-to-c-bet% is of course interesting here as well, but isolating limpers who fold to raises often is highly profitable.

If someone has a 100% limp-call, I don't iso-raise unless it's for value. "For value" is full of grayscale, and depends largely on how awful my opponent is postflop. I can isolate T8o for value on the button if my opponent plays his hands face-up and loosely postflop.

One other comment re: combatting 3-bets. Chuck is spot on with folding being the most common weapon, even - and I can't stress this enough - even if he's 3-betting very light. Even versus someone who 3-bets 15% on the button, you can't start calling with stuff like 87s out of position. It's not profitable. You can 4-bet bluff him, but be warned that light 3-bettors are often somewhat more likely than others to 5b-rebluff. To combat someone who 3bets you light, your absolutely best bet is simply to tighten up. Open fewer hands, and he'll hang himself because the % of hands you fold to a 3-bet is going to drop dramatically.

If I have three nits on my left, my CO opening range looks something like:
A2s+, A7o+, KTo+, K7s+, Q9s+, QTo+, J9o+, T9o+, 22+.

If I have a very active 3bettor on my left, I'm tightening that up to:
A9s+, AJo+, KJo+, K9s+, QTs+, QJo+, JTo+, 22+.

... or conversely, I'm opening about 16% of my hands instead of 26%. Versus a very active 3-bettor, I'm happy to get it in with 99+ and AK, or about 4% of my hands, and I don't really need to add bluffs to exploit his light 3betting; tightening my opening range is enough. To be immediately profitable, he needs me to fold about 70% of the time that he 3-bets me, but if 25% of the hands he 3-bet are hands I'm willing to play for stacks, and we throw in a few extra hands that I bluff or am willing to see a flop with OOP (AQs, KQs and 77/88 spring to mind) then he's being exploited.

But, and this is perhaps the biggest wisdom in this particular post: He's doing something that's generally speaking profitable. He has position on us, and will force us to play differently in order to deal with him. It's not a great spot for us, and we should generally be less-than-thrilled about our table selection if we run into this kind of problem. I'll need to have a pretty big fish directly on my right if I'm going to be willing to put up with someone 3-betting me often on my left.

Expanding on the isolation spots...funny because this was actually the exact situation I was going to talk about next.

3) Isolating limpers:

Like FP said, the first stat we refer to is their limp-call %. This isn't found in the popup, so you'll have to manually add it to your layout.

4+1+.5+1=6.5
4/6.5 = .615 => %62

I've always been a little unsure I was doing these 'min. fold % for play to be profitable' math equations properly; I'm pretty sure that's correct though. If it is, then in order to raise 4BB with a limper in the pot, we would actually need him to limp call %38 (%100-%62) or less.

No limit games are more than simple 'in a vacuum' calculations though. Sometimes we'll improve to the best hand, sometimes we'll have the best hand, sometimes we'll have the worst hand but take it down on the flop...so the %38 is just a starting point.

The other stats I look at are mainly their fold to cbet per street stats, how passive they are postflop and their wtsd number. Looking at an extreme case, if someone has a %100 limp-call percentage, but also has a %100 fold to cbet percentage, then I'm isolating %100 of my range. More realistic numbers would be something like %80 and %80 for limp-call/fold to cbet.

Again, the %80 would seem bad if you isolated it, but looking at it in conjunction with other stats shows that we can still profit massively from isolating these players.

Some other points about isolation raises: for one, you prefer to be in position. Value betting, bluffing, getting cheap showdowns and playing the hand better in general are simply easier in position. Another thing to note is that you should tighten up your range based on how loose the opponents behind you are, and how light they 3bet.

This thread is seriously +EV. Just added limp/call % to my HUD and it's literally like shooting fish in a barrel.

Thanks, Chuck.

What do you do when you play live? Guess?

This is a crutch; it's an "edge," which borders on cheating but it's allowed, so I can't play the puritan here.

Robots are easy to beat at poker and if you play like a robot, you deserve to get smacked around with or without a black hat program data-mining your only moves.

Besides THAT.... AND the fact that a lot of players collude in the cash games, I only play cash games live.

HUDs.. lol.. It's like wearing a visored football helmet at a cash table.

If you need it to play, fine.. you're not getting my money at any online cash table.

Post of the year, srsly.

You do realize the HUD doesn't give you any information that I can't observe myself right? It really just allows me to play more tables. I can either play 1 table, and notice that they're limp/calling a ton, or I can play 10 tables and have my HUD tell me that some guy on table 8 limp/calls a ton. If you think any of the players here who use HUDs would be useless at a live table, you've got another thing coming.

Gogo gadget thread hijack!?

I'm not here to argue the ethics of using a hud, I'm here to share how to best use them with others. c9 is spot on - if I were one tabling, I wouldn't need to use one. With online poker - and this may be a big surprise to you! - you can play more than one table!

With more than 4 or 6 tables, most people don't have the focus to get a feel for how often your opponent sees a flop, steals the blinds, or raises your cbet in a 3bet pot. You usually need a hud for that. All a hud does is present information that's already readily available to you in an organized manner.

If you want to argue ethics, go start your own thread. Please stay out of mine. I'm sick of live players arguing about huds and software and multitabling. Burn it in your heads:

LIVE POKER =/= ONLINE POKER

You do realize that you can create your own thread to debate this issue(although I think it has already been done)?

Lots of good info here, great post chuck.

F. Paulson-"one more aspect working in your favour: Someone whose limp/call is relatively small is someone who doesn't psychologically marry hands."

I think this is a very good point, never thought about it in that way before.

LOL.. ok, I am not attempting to hijack, but I gotta ask... stakes.

Is this 3/6 or better you are multi-tabling at? If not, you're not playing poker, you're playing bingo.

Go away

Sigh. Please stop posting trash before you get labeled a troll. I've seen some of your other posts, you seem to have at least half a brain for poker, please use it.

Question answered, thanks.

I am just saying your approach to poker, Chuck, is aimed at players who do not know better. This does not help your game, but exploits the weakness of others who play poker with no intuition or inventiveness ... and therefore it dilutes YOUR game.

If you make money, great ... black hats off to you.

that's the very essence of poker. Identifying the weakness of others and exploiting those weaknesses.

EDIT: Sorry, c9, but my post is on top of yours, so I said it first!

I find this to be hilarious! Just what do you think the point of poker is?

EDIT - Screw you Belgo I said it first!

I am a donkey and know you make money by exploiting weaker players. Now let these guys have a decent discussion without thread jacking, so that us low level players can learn from them. Wow, I think you put me on life tilt with this one.

I currently play about 50:50 between 1/2 and 2/4 and have been running at 4.5 big bets/100 hands for the 320,000 hands I've been playing cash games, which include mostly 100nl and above; you can find graphs of that somewhere on this site. Good enough for you?

Well the majority of players who the people reading this thread will play against will be unimaginative, dull players who 'don't know better'. That's where the bulk of one's poker winnings come from: bad players.

It doesn't dilute your game at all. You use the same basic principles (assigning hand ranges, barreling, figuring out what hands you can bet for value against your opponent's range, etc) whether you're playing these bad players or playing the good regulars, but saying it dilutes your game is just incorrect. Sure, if you're a live player who's used to paying attention to body language and people's mental state, using a hud instead (or just plain playing online poker) will dull those skills, but if you're a %100 online player, you don't need them anyways.

Anyway, this is why I asked you to post in your own separate thread. Now someone who's looking through this thread for info on how to use a hud has to sift through all this stuff about whether or not a hud is ethical or not, or whether it harms their game or not.

edit: just got your PM. Differences put aside, good, great, we can move on.

Couple of questions before I get too deep, Chuck. Remember that I play the micro ring 6-max (1/2c and 5/10c mostly).

Question 1: My stats are set up like this...

VPIP/PFR/3bet%
Cbet/FCbet/Steal%
W$SD/FBBsteal/FSBsteal

I don't really see me using as many stats as you right now because I'm just starting to use a HUD. Is there any stats/better set up that I could use?

Question 2: Can you explain "metagame"? I've seen you use the term before and would like to know what it means.

Thanks in advance for any answers and I will have more after these are given.

1) your hud looks pretty good. You want to keep the stuff you refer to for most hands in the layout, and leave the rest in the popup if you need it for a more specific situation. W$SD could probably be removed, I personally don't use that stat that often. FSBsteal is also something that you don't really need. That svalue is often very close to the value of the FBBsteal stat, so keeping the second stat only clutters your hud.

I'd add aggression (factor or frequency, whichever you're more comfortable with), WTSD (to determine how often you should be bluffing or value betting on later streets) and fold to 3bet is also very useful. Remember that sample size is everything with stats, so keep the number of hands on your hud too.

In general if you're newer to stats then keep your layout more simple. Only add new stats when you've fully understood the ones you've already got up there. Most of the stuff can be seen in the popup if need be anyways.

2) 'Metagame' refers to the game beyond the current hand. A lot of the time when you make a play for metagame reasons, you do so because it alters your image in a way that helps you gain more money in later hands. So an example would be that 4betting spot where I used the term. A 4bet bluff may not be immediately profitable, but if it's close then we can justify making the play because our image will make us look more aggressive, and as such our big hands will have a better chance of getting payed off in the future because of it.

On question 1 I see what your saying and it makes a lot of sense. I'll delete the unused stats. I might hold on to W$SD just because that seems to me like it's a good factor to use when bluffing in lower stakes. If I'm trying to bluff a guy off a hand but his W$SD is 60%+ I might be less willing.

Also, I don't know why I didn't put the "fold to 3bet" stat in there. I used it during the trial period and forgot to add it when I bought HEM.

On question 2, that's what I thought it meant. I just wasn't sure. Thanks again and more to come.

Something to keep in mind is that stats on later streets take a hell of a lot longer to converge than early street stats do. I'm not entirely sure about W$SD, but I'd be much more comfortable looking at their street by street fold to cbet stats than W$SD, a showdown stat, if I didn't have at least like 5k hands on the guy.

That does make a little more sense.

And it's really not something you need to worry about at 2nl or 5nl as villains are not observant enough anyway.

Okay, here's how I've set up my hud now.

VPIP/PFR/3bet%/F3bet%
FlopCbet/FoldtoFlopCbet/Agg Factor/Steal%
LimpCall%/BBFoldtoSteal/WTSD

Is there a better setup that I can have.

One question though. On HEM, the stat "Agg Pct", is this the same as agression frequency? I'm asking because I would rather have that one than Agg Factor.

it's a bit weird because the lines are not arrange logically. I try to have preflop stats first, then flop stats, then wtsd.

also like to have more flop stats like raise cbet and donk bet.

So should I put Agg Factor and Steal on the top and move 3bet and Fold to 3bet down to the second line?

Edit: Chuck, I'm not meaning to hijack this thread. I'm just wanting to get a better setup before I dive in too deep.

jesus this cardsdontmatter guy is tilting my face off with his cliches and trollin

Thanks for the great post Chuck! love it... but what are some good hud's that i can find

THanks Chuck,... I always enjoy reading your posts here in the CC forum. I don't comment on them very often but am sitting here soaking them up.
Tks again.... It is appreciated!