Cash Game HUD Configuration

If you’re anything like me, you’ll have spent weeks on end configuring your HUD. The best HUD setup is being able to using it quickly, effectively and without fuss. With so much data available though it’s hard to know which HUD stats to choose. We’ve all needed Poker HUD help from time to time so here’s my contribution in helping you understand your poker HUD.

I presume most people reading this are either HEM2 or PT4 users. However, I still use some stats you may not have come across before. The definitions for all are here: Hem2Definitions and PT4Defintions.

Primary Stats

The only stats I want on display are the ones that:-

a)      Are used frequently and/or

b)      Converge quickly

There’s no point displaying a stat you’ll use once a week or takes forever to get a meaningful sample. A stat like 5bet for example, which should go in a pop-up.

Grouping stats

With my primary stats, I like to group the ones that follow on from each other and are in direct correlation. This is my steal panel:

S CO steal / BTN Steal / SB Steal B BB fold vs BTN steal – BB fold vs SB steal

 

So in any steal situation I know exactly where I need to look. No fuss. And like I said before, they come up all the time and are direct, situational stats.

Vague stats

I stay away from overly vague stats for my HUD, such as Aggression Factor, Attempt To Steal and Cold-Call, etc. What do they tell me exactly? ‘yeah, he’s aggressive and when’s he’s not he calls a lot’. They just aren’t direct enough to make them at all usable and are a waste of valuable space. They are fine broken down by street in a pop-up (more on this next week), but they are far too generalized to go in the HUD IMO.

Layout

Different sites have different software quirks (especially the smaller sites), and generally make it challenging to use our HUD’s the way we’d ideally like. You’ve likely left a site at some point because the table layout just interfered with the HUD too much. That’s why I use split panels.

By splitting the HUD into different sections or panels (as with the ‘steal’ one above) we are able to maneuver them around awkward avatars and table data making the layout not only versatile but clean an organised too. In HEM2 instead of adding a ‘New Line’, select ‘New Panel’ when you want to break up the HUD into another section.

 

Colour coding

It’s a good idea to colour code the stats for different ranges. Again this just speeds up the process of use. If you keep numbers white for normal ranges and other colours for numbers outside the range, it will be much more useful to you in game play.

This is a HEM2 screenshot for our 3bet colour coding:

 

When a 3bet % is greater than 9% it catches my eye and would alert me possibly sooner than I’d realized. Use whatever colours you prefer, just keep them consistent for all your stats. So to define the above colour range:

• Red = danger (a low 3bet)
• White = normal/balanced
• Green = ‘green light’ as in to take advantage of, in this case a high 3bet%.

Sample Sizes

Of course stats don’t mean a thing without sufficient sample sizes. I like to have a minimum sample inserted before the stat will be displayed. A ‘Cbet – 100%’ for example is very misleading and could easily be 1/1 so not only will short samples make your HUD cluttered (and bigger), it could potentially cause you to misinterpret your HUD and subsequently make a huge mistake. I like a minimum of 10 samples for most things as a starting point, but as always just use your gameflow intuition as your guide for these short samples.

Putting it all together – HUD Example

So to summarise: As long as you make your HUD easy to reference with sample sized primary stats, quick to interpret with colour coding and have associated stats grouped together, you’ll enjoy a smoother, sleeker, more reliable HUD. Here is mine (I’m still tinkering lol):

• HANDS / NAME
• VPIP / PFR / SHOWDOWN / STAB
• STEAL: CO/BTN/SB – BB FOLD TO BTN – BB FOLD TO SB 

• CBET [FOLD VS RAISE] CB TURN / CB RIV / BET RIVER
• FCBET [RAISE FLOP] FCB TRN / FCB RIV / FOLD RIVER BET 

• 3B [BB VS BTN 3B:SB VS BTN 3B] FOLD 3B / 4B / FB4
• 3BPOT CBET [FOLD VS RAISE] TURN CBET / FCBET 3BP

Getting to know your HUD

As you can see and will likely know, getting used to a big HUD takes probably  50k+ hands to learn it instinctively (depending on its size). Just add a few stats at a time because just like strategies, if you add too many you’ll end up overwhelmed and frustrated.

Hope this article helped you out and feel free to leave a comment good or bad. I’d love to know what you consider primary HUD use : )

Be sure to check out the newly released Exploitive No Limit Holdem 20% off (if you ask :)) exclusively at ThePokerCapitalist, or full price at Amazon.

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Up Next… Comprehensive Pop up Config

 

 

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