Using HUD to Analyze Hands and Find My Leaks

Quick version: How can we best use HUD stats and filters to analyze our cash play and find leaks?

Longer version: I'm a new and mostly cash player (micro). I have about 6600 hands over 104 sessions and I want to stop and really take a good look at my play. I have PT3 (trial version so far) but I guess it really doesn't matter if you use HEM or PT3, I imagine the filters/stats should be about the same. Does anyone have a systematic way they use to review hands using HUD stats and filters to analyze and look for leaks in cash games? What would you recommend as good strategies for beginner/ early mid-level players?

Thanks and I hope all have a great weekend.

Links to CC posts about this

I have been searching in our forums and have found a few that discuss HUD stats and concepts. So I thought I'd add those links here so this post is more of a "one-stop-shop." I'm going to review these three this evening:

Absoluthamm's Holdem Manager Stat Guide (https://www.cardschat.com/forum/pok...-holdem-manager-stat-166475/post-1358840.html)

ChuckTs 6-max HUD stats post (https://www.cardschat.com/forum/poker-software-tools-61/6-max-hud-stats-how-i-140070/index2.html.

TPC's video on how to set up and use PT3 (http://vimeo.com/7830475).

I'm in search of something that discusses a systematic way to review your play and find your leaks using the HUD and not extra software like Leakbuster. Methods players here have used to help their play.

I'd also gladly share my PT3 stats if anyone wants to take a general look and tell me what they think. (Perhaps that could even be a separate sub-forum where people could post their stats and then we could learn from analyzing multiple players.) Just tell me what stats you want to see.

(And if anyone can tell me how to embed the links so that what readers see is hyperlinked descriptive text instead of the full URL, I'd be grateful. I used to know this in another life!)

So the first thing is that you need more hands to really make any real big conclusions. Now on to your stats that we might be able to use.

First, are you playing FR or 6Max?

Stats:
VP$IP(broken down by position)
PFR(broken down by position)
3Bet %
Steal %
Fold vs Steal %
CBet%
Limp%

That would be a good start given the limited sample size.

Essentially the stats won't mean anything to you until you get used to the different thresholds for 'high' and 'low'. Even then, stats shouldn't mean much with respect to self-analysis vs simply reviewing hands to see if you played them well. Just because your 3bet may be 'high' doesn't mean you're playing well or poorly. It could be either depending on what hands you're 3betting and in what situations. There are big winners in both categories.

A few good places to start would be:

-Simply review all your hands for a session, sorting by biggest winners/losers. Analyze each big hand to see if you could have played it better or if you find any underlying leaks. If you're unsure, post the hand in the forum for help.
-Look at spots where you're 3betting. Are the spots good to start with? Should you be flatting/folding instead? Are you spewing pre/postflop?
-Look at hands you called river. Did you have a marginal hand vs a reg and level yourself into calling? Did you make a tight fold vs a maniac thinking 'he could have anything'?

Just look through your play, mess with filters, compare with friends, post lots on the forum.

That is true. You can look at your stats and compare them to how others have played, but if you are a winning player over the long run with a certain style, switching it up to what another player might consider the best style might not suit you.

Going through your biggest winning and losing hands is a good thing to start doing, but also make sure not to neglect the hands where you're winning/losing like 10-20BBs, because those are more likely going to be some of your more common leaks. Many times your biggest winning and losing hands are going to be your premium hands either winning or getting busted when you're all-in preflop. Those hands that you lose 10-20BBs are going to be the hands that you play but usually lose postflop, so they usually contain a lot of leaks and if you can plug them, you're going to help yourself a lot more than if you're just looking at when you lost AA vs 99 when you're AIPF when you're not doing anything wrong.

How trusted is Holdem Leak buster?

In stts I have a ROI of 9% over ~2,500 games - which I thought was quite good.

But then when I used leak buster it told me I was leakier than the Titanic!!?

Leak Buster wont analyze your tournament data. It's set up for cash games only.