How to Setup Your Poker Hud - Part 2

[Note: I now have a much more comprehensive and up to date blog post on how to set up your HUD which you can find here.]

Assigning colors to your HUD stats can help you quickly sort through information. As mentioned in the comments in Part 1 of this post, it is probably best to use the familiar green (go), yellow (yield) and red (stop) that we are all familiar with. And I would use something totally different like blue for number of hands.

So it might look something like this in PokerTracker.

A couple of quick points before you start playing poker with your new HUD layout:

Open up a PokerTracker replayer window and see what it looks like first. Keep tinkering with the options until you are satisfied with it.

Start playing poker on a single table and import the hands. Right click and drag each block of stats to the corresponding player.

Go to Hud Options > Table Preferences and make sure that "lock the layout" is checked. This will prevent you from accidentally moving the display around while playing.

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Interpreting the stats

Now to the important part. There is no point in having all these pretty numbers on your screen if you don't know how to apply them correctly during actual poker hands. I have probably blown through ~~hundreds~~ thousands of dollars in the misapplication of these stats over the years.

But I am not alone. You can see unfortunate conclusions being drawn all the time when hands get discussed in poker forums. And of course, people make bad judgements at the tables all the time.

Sample Size, Sample Size, Sample Size

The most important stat on your HUD is the number of hands. It is the first thing that you should look at before anything else. In fact, it might be a good idea to create a minimum sample before a stat even shows up on your display:

We want to make poker decisions based on statistically significant information. That is, information which is very unlikely to have occurred by chance. In fact, if we draw incorrect conclusions about an opponent, it could be downright dangerous and worse than having no information at all!

With regards to the stats on my HUD display, I have some rough sample size guidelines that I use before applying them to a poker hand. I should note however that I am by no means a statistician. Or even very good at math in general! These are only approximations from my experience.

VPIP and PFR converge towards their true value faster than any other stats. After just a few orbits or 15-20 hands you can be pretty sure what type of player you are up against.

For instance, somebody showing up as a 15/10 on your HUD after 20 hands is almost certainly going to be a TAG or a nit. They might actually be a 12/8 or even a 18/15 but there is very little chance that they are semi loose or a LAG. And there is almost zero chance that they are a fish.

With other stats such as steal, aggression factor, fold to cbet and cbet you need a bigger sample size. I prefer to have around 100 hands.

The reason for this is pretty simple. You have a chance to VPIP or PFR pretty much every single hand. Except for the rare walk or all in in front of you. You DO NOT have an opportunity to steal the blinds or make a cbet every hand. It might be every 6th or 7th hand. So you should adjust your minimum sample size accordingly.

And even rarer are your opportunities to do things like fold to a turn cbet, make a turn cbet or fold to a 3bet. I prefer several hundred hands before coming to any conclusions in these sorts of categories.

Lastly, stuff like river and 4bet stats require such a large sample size that they are almost not even worth looking at. A thousand hands or more on someone is probably a good rule of thumb.

One of the easiest ways to make sure that you are drawing good conclusions on your data is to see if there is a bracketed number to the right of it in the full PokerTracker popup display.

The number in brackets is the amount of opportunities that that person has had to perform the action. If it is a small number then you probably don't want to put too much stock into those stats. If it is a big number or there is no number at all (I believe PokerTracker stops displaying the number of opportunities at 99), then you can draw a lot more meaningful information.

In the above popup for instance, we probably don't want to rely much at all on this person's fold to cbet, raise cbet or donk bet stats. With his steal stats, we can be pretty sure that he doesn't do it very often. And we can be very sure that he doesn't 3bet light.

I hope this series of posts was helpful to those who aren't very familiar with using a HUD. I highly recommend using these tools if you take poker at all serious. And this doesn't just apply to cash games. SnG and MTT players should make full use them as well.

Once again, to download PokerTracker right now, click here.

Let me know what you guys think in the comments.

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How to Set Up Your Poker HUD - Part 1

Having the right HUD (heads up display) setup is very important to your success as a poker player. I only clued in to this concept a little over a year ago. I have actually played the majority of my five million+ hands without any HUD at all.

Really dumb idea.

But to my defense, pretty much everybody was a terrible calling station fish back then. So I actually only had to keep a mental note on the handful of other nits like me.

These days you need a HUD especially if you are playing more than a couple poker tables.

[Note: I now have a much more comprehensive and up to date blog post on how to set up your HUD for today's games which you can find here.]

Fish are always going to be pretty straightforward to play against. Bet, bet, bet when you have it. Don't bluff them too much etc. But they are the minority in the player pool now. You need to have the right information on hand to take profitable lines against all the different regs.

And really, the best reason of all to use a HUD is for the database program that it is built on. Having detailed information on yourself and everybody that you have ever played against is the best tool that you can have to improve your game.

The best program and HUD that I have ever used is PokerTracker. It has probably paid for itself hundreds of times over at the poker tables. It also has an unbelievable amount of information that has really helped me improve my game. I will go into many of the features within PokerTracker that I use to study and improve in future posts. So look out for that.

But back to HUD's. I have seen countless different setups over the years. Some people like a lot of information on their screen. Some like minimal. Some like lots of flashy colors and icons. I don't think it really matters too much what approach you take.

The most important thing is that the information, as displayed on your screen, makes logical sense to you and allows you to quickly and accurately make high quality poker decisions.

My Free Poker Cheat Sheet Teaches You How to Make $1000+ Per Month in Low Stakes Games

Here is my HUD setup:

And here is what it looks like on my screen (I removed the player name):

As you can see I am sort of in the minimalist camp. I don't like to have a whole lot of unnecessary clutter on my screen. I prefer to keep all the information inside a nice neat little box beside the player.

The most important stats for me by far are located on the first row: VPIP, PFR and aggression Factor. And the other important stat is the number of hands which I put down on the bottom right in blue. I don't use the color blue for any other stat so that it always stands out.

I rarely pay much attention to the entire second row to be honest. And the 3bet stats are reasonably useful but not so much at NL10 and below since there isn't a lot of light 3betting. Fold to 3bet is fairly useful at those stakes though since there are plenty of nits who fold to 3bets too much.

The biggest reason that I prefer to have just the basic stats on my screen is that I can simply make use of the popup (left click on the player name) if I need to know more. Same player as above:

With the popup I often look at things like PFR by position, 3bet by position, steal, aggression factor by street, raise cbet, donk bet and 4bet range (if the sample is huge). However, I don't look at this information often enough to warrant having it take up valuable real estate on my screen.

So my advice would be to have only the essential stats on your display but make liberal use of the full popup when you need it.

In part 2 of this post I am going to talk about the coloring system that I use as well as how to interpret some of the information.

Once again, to download PokerTracker right now and try it for yourself, click here.

What does your HUD setup look like?

If you enjoyed this article please "Like" or "Tweet" it below!

The Number #1 Skill That Every Successful Poker Player Must Have

Knowing how to separate a fish from his money with maximum efficiency

I talk a lot about the importance of playing with fish.

I also wrote the "guide" on how to find them and get on their left.

Sitting at the right tables will do far more for your winrate than any strategy advice you could possibly learn.

However, I don't want to belabour that point here. But this article will assume that you've found Joe Q. Fish, who of course wants to give you his money.

How do we best accept this gracious offer?

A couple of things:

Get on Joe Q's left if you can

Try to play as many pots as you can with him i.e., raise his limps with a wide range of reasonably playable hands

Don't be afraid to keep hammering on him even if you aren't flopping anything and he is winning all the pots

The last point is probably the most important. Build a dynamic with the fish. Make him think that you are just splashing around loosely and bluffing up a storm. And you are...in small pots.

Reads

BTN is a 55/10/2 fish

Relevant History

In the hand just previous to this one I had overbet shoved the turn on a fairly wet board (for about double pot). I had an overpair, QQ I think, and he folded.

Poker Stars, $0.01/$0.02 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 9 Players

BB: $0.80
UTG: $2.04
UTG+1: $1.84
UTG+2: $2.88
MP1: $0.53
MP2: $1.50
Hero (CO): $5.55
BTN: $2.50
SB: $2.01

Pre-Flop: T

dealt to Hero (CO)

2 folds, UTG+2 calls $0.02, MP1 calls $0.02, MP2 calls $0.02, Hero raises to $0.14, BTN calls $0.14, 2 folds, UTG+2 calls $0.12, MP1 calls $0.12, MP2 folds

Flop: ($0.61) A

(4 Players)

UTG+2 checks, MP1 checks, Hero bets $0.36, BTN calls $0.36, 2 folds

Turn: ($1.33) 6

(2 Players)

Hero bets $5.05 and is All-In, BTN calls $2 and is All-In

River: ($5.33) J

(2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Results: $5.33 Pot ($0.26 Rake)

Hero showed T

and WON $5.07 (+$2.57 NET)

BTN showed Q

and LOST (-$2.50 NET)

My Thoughts

The thing to always remember with fish is that if you win a big pot off of them (especially when it doesn't go to showdown) they will never give you any credit ever again. Well at least for a few orbits. So the history from the previous hand (as mentioned above) is the key here.

AT offsuit, a bunch of dead money limpers. Raise it up. Really I just wanted to play a pot with Mr. Q though. I probably should have made it a bit more preflop since I know that he is calling 100% and that encourages the others to come along as well. Nevertheless, I got 3 callers and flopped top pair.

I didn't provide any reads on the other two players in the hand. They seemed reasonable and my plan was to simply play the hand straight forward against them. When the fish calls on the flop and the turn comes a safe offsuit 6, I do the exact same thing that I did in the previous hand, which is overbet shove.

I do this because:

He isn't likely to have me beat so it absolutely is for value

But more importantly, as I stated above, he is going to call me incredibly wide here due to the dynamic. As wide as hands like no pair draws as the results above indicate

If I had bet a normal amount on the turn, I probably still could have gotten stacks in on the river a decent amount of the time, if it was a blank and if he had a pair. That's a lot of ifs. By shoving, I am guaranteed to get all the money in against his entire range, right now.

What kind of strategies or psychology do you use against fish? If you enjoyed this article please "Like" or "Tweet" it below!

Having a Plan for a Poker Hand

Anyone who has seen any of my videos at DragTheBar knows that I continually preach the importance of having a plan for the hand. I learned this concept primarily by watching the videos of world class players like Leatherass9

So what does having a plan for the hand actually mean?

It means that you formulate a course of action, usually on the flop, for the entire hand. And you absolutely stick to that plan, barring ridiculous turn and river cards, that completely change the complexion of the board. The two most important things to consider before determining your plan of action are the villain's stack size and player type.

Here is a hand that I played today which illustrates this point.

Reads

BTN is a 33/27/5 loose aggressive

My Plan

Check/call all 3 streets, again barring a ridiculous run out of turn and river cards.

If I cbet, this LAG villain is likely to either raise me (which puts me in a difficult spot out of position) or fold and I get nothing further from him. However, if I check he is very likely to stab at the pot with any two cards. And he will probably keep up the charade on future streets because that is what loose aggressive players do. I know this and will have to call on some ugly turn and river cards.

Poker Stars, $0.01/$0.02 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 5 Players

BB: $1.80
UTG: $2.21
Hero (CO): $5
BTN: $2.35
SB: $0.98

Pre-Flop: J

dealt to Hero (CO)

UTG folds, Hero raises to $0.06, BTN calls $0.06, 2 folds

Flop: ($0.15) J

(2 Players)

Hero checks, BTN bets $0.10, Hero calls $0.10

Turn: ($0.35) T

(2 Players)

Hero checks, BTN checks

River: ($0.35) 5

(2 Players)

Hero bets $0.16, BTN calls $0.16

Results: $0.67 Pot ($0.03 Rake)

Hero showed J

and WON $0.64 (+$0.32 NET)

BTN mucked Q

and LOST (-$0.32 NET)

The hand didn't play out completely according to plan and I should have bet a bit more on the river. But I think I still managed to get the maximum out of him while keeping the pot at a manageable size out of position.

How do you go about planning out a hand? If you enjoyed this article please "Like" or "Tweet" it below!

Playing Long Poker Sessions

I had a commenter awhile back who talked about losing more frequently when playing longer sessions. He went on to say that he wish he had the ability to grind out more hands.

Finding the right session length for YOU

Like most things in poker there really isn't a definitive answer that I can give to this kind of question. It really depends on the person. But I think there are a couple of main points that apply in almost all situations.

Firstly, its important to remember, even if its obvious, that a long term winning poker player is really just a person who has made a series of quality decisions in poker hands over time. Therefore, everybody's goal during any individual poker session should be to make as many high quality decisions as possible. This is also often referred to as playing your "A" game.

Playing your A game at all times

So assuming that we sit down ready to play our A game (this is a topic for another article so I am not going to elucidate this point) what signs can we look out for that our play is starting to deteriorate?

loss of concentration or focus
irritation
hunger
tiredness
boredom

If you are having any of these types of feelings while playing then it is likely that you have been playing too long and should quit.

It is important to keep track of your session lengths over a short period of time like a week in order to find that sweet spot for you. I prefer to go by number of hands instead of actual time as its generally easier to keep track of.

But the important point is to find out what that x number of hands or time is when you play your best and to play roughly that exact amount each time. This gives you a clear cut plan going into your session and allows you to hopefully cut out that time spent at the tables when you know that you will start slipping into your B game or worse.

A couple of last thoughts

I will finish up by stating a couple of guidelines that work for me personally but probably apply to a lot of others as well. I don't eat or snack while playing poker. Therefore my sessions are never more than about 3 hours in length.

I ~~absolutely don't~~ try not to allow any distractions while playing. This includes the phone, the internet, IM's, and even music (if I'm running really bad). I try to apply a business-like approach to each session and give it my 100% undivided attention.

Lastly, I try not to look at my account balance during the session. I do occasionally glance at my Hold'em Manager stats but I have the winnings and winrate columns removed.

I am never going to play a statistically significant amount of hands during a single session or even day so the fluctuations to my bankroll are completely meaningless. If you enjoyed this article please "Like" or "Tweet" it below!

How To...Reinstall Holdem Manager?

A couple of months ago I decided to try and figure out what my lifetime earnings were in Hold'em Manager. I had to request a couple million hands from Stars lol. They were amazing with it as expected though. Within about 30 minutes they sent me a link to a password protected FTP server to download everything that I had asked for. Reason #871 why they are the best in the business.

So that was all great. I never did get a graph unfortunately though. HEM (and my computer - which is a pretty good one) just weren't having it. That is until recently, when I noticed that my primary hard drive with the Windows install was almost at capacity and my computer was slowly grinding to a halt. PostgreSQL, the database system that Holdem Manager uses, was responsible for pretty much all of it.

After trying various "vacuum" and analysis methods in HEM and searching through countless nerd threads in the HEM forums and elsewhere I decided to just take the ~~screw this~~ easy route and uninstall the entire thing! Computer out the window was plan B of course.

I have since reinstalled PostgreSQL and HEM, and am importing only my hands from this year. My computer is happy again.

I have been familiar with PostgreSQL for several years as it was the database system primarily used with Pokertracker2 as well. It works great but it is still un-user-friendly as all hell.

I really hope that in the next version of HEM, they finally just have all that stuff automated. The end user should not have to deal with techy stuff like this and the headaches that come along with it. And hopefully they figure out a way to control the file size as well. Some of us are sickos who like to play 5 million hands of poker!

Using Position to Win Poker Pots

This is actually going to be two hands. Both are from NL2 again. And both illustrate a similar point.

Take advantage of weak play

Things to note:

All villains are nits.

I am in position in both hands.

Nobody has shown any interest in the pot by the turn (read: nobody checks twice with a good hand).
I take down both pots with a very small bet.

I profit a not insignificant 21.5 big blinds in total.

This kinda stuff can really help your winrate in the long run.

Poker Stars, $0.01/$0.02 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 8 Players

BB: $0.98
UTG: $0.81
UTG+1: $2.13
MP1: $4.94
MP2: $1.77
CO: $2
Hero (BTN): $5.05
SB: $2.01

Pre-flop: 3

dealt to Hero (BTN)

UTG folds, UTG+1 calls $0.02, 2 folds, CO calls $0.02, Hero raises to $0.12, 2 folds, UTG+1 calls $0.10, CO calls $0.10

Flop: ($0.39) 6

(3 Players)

UTG+1 checks, CO checks, Hero checks

Turn: ($0.39) J

(3 Players)

UTG+1 checks, CO checks, Hero bets $0.20, 2 folds

Results: $0.39 Pot ($0.01 Rake)

Hero WON $0.38 (+$0.26 NET)

Poker Stars, $0.01/$0.02 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 7 Players

Hero (BTN): $10.33
SB: $3.24
BB: $2
UTG: $1.40
UTG+1: $1.66
MP: $0.71
CO: $4.05

Pre-Flop: A

dealt to Hero (BTN)

4 folds, Hero raises to $0.06, SB raises to $0.16, BB folds, Hero calls $0.10

Flop: ($0.34) T

(2 Players)

SB checks, Hero checks

Turn: ($0.34) 4

(2 Players)

SB checks, Hero bets $0.20, SB folds

Results: $0.34 Pot ($0.01 Rake)

Hero WON $0.33 (+$0.17 NET)

BlackRain79 - Elite Poker Strategy

Pages

How to Setup Your Poker Hud - Part 2

My Free Poker Cheat Sheet Teaches You How to Make $1000+ Per Month in Low Stakes Games

How to Set Up Your Poker HUD - Part 1

My Free Poker Cheat Sheet Teaches You How to Make $1000+ Per Month in Low Stakes Games

The Number #1 Skill That Every Successful Poker Player Must Have

Having a Plan for a Poker Hand

Playing Long Poker Sessions

How To...Reinstall Holdem Manager?

Using Position to Win Poker Pots