How to Interpret Poker Stats from Poker Tracking Software and HUDs

Beginner’s Guide to Poker Tracking Software and HUDs

Poker stats software may be the biggest difference between online and live poker play. These programs help track and analyze your own leaks and other players’ behavior through the poker site’s hand histories. Then using a variety of hud stats, turn it into useful info to access and update in real-time as you play more poker hands and gain more info. Because quickly discerning what kind of player you’re up against is vital to making good decisions. If you want to improve or play for a living, then these programs are almost essential. Because they record and crunch data in ways that would be impossible otherwise.

Hold’em Manager and Pokertracker are the OG of the online poker tracking software world (trial versions available for both). Beginners may be reluctant to invest $60-$100, which equates several buy-ins. And the pace of playing poker online is faster than live play, so new online players may find the extra poker analysis software distracting. In fact, we don’t recommend using tracking software until you’ve played at least 1,000 hands of your poker game type. But even if you’re just getting started, it’s worth getting familiar with HUD poker. HEM and PT are some of the best poker tracking software around.

HUDs and poker hand tracker software are even more useful when multi-tabling, and perhaps this is why we still see waves of disapproval for these tools. As multi-tablers may drive the fish away from the game, which is bad for poker. Yet without any tools, fewer players would be able to compete successfully in today’s field. So many real poker sites, like PokerStars and 888poker, allow poker tracking software so players can analyze and adjust their games as they go. Other operators like GGPoker have a no-HUDs policy and offer their own in-house Smart HUD and PokerCraft tools. 

Poker Tracking Software: Your Poker Stats vs Opponents

How to Read Poker HUD Stats: Pre-Flop Stats

These are the most popular pre-flop stats. But it’s not just about knowing what the stats mean – you must also understand how to use them to draw useful conclusions from your opponents’ games.

VPIP % (voluntarily put money in pot)

This is the average total % of times your opponent puts money into the pot. That could mean raising preflop, cold calling and completing big blinds. The higher a VPIP, the looser the player is – and vice versa. For 6-max no-limit hold’em most regulars fall between 19-25% VPIP. See a PokerStove of 19%  VPIP to get an idea of what hands that player would play.

PFR % (Preflop Raise)

How often your opponent raises preflop. Most players’ PFR is 4-6% of their VPIP. Hence, if they play 20 VPIP, the PFR is usually 14%-19%. The bigger the gap between VPIP and PFR, the more often a player cold calls and so has a wider cold-calling range with many weak possible hands. For example, a player with a 35% VPIP and a 10% PFR has a 25% cold-calling range and is most likely a poker fish. A player with a close VPIP and PFR is also going to have a higher three-bet%, because they’re cold-calling less often. 

3b (three-bet) %

This is how often your opponent re-raises before the flop. As an example a 3% three-bettor would be AA-TT, AKs-AQS, and AQo and would have no light three-bets in its range. You can adjust from there.

Example:
Imagine you open to 3x from the cutoff with A K , and a player on the button who has a 3% three-bet range re-raises. In this spot, you might narrow their range down to strong pairs and top Broadway combos. However, if you have noticed them three-betting more frequently over the last 50 hands, you might suspect they’re including lighter holdings like [Aq] J or even smaller suited connectors.

F3 (Folds to 3-bets) % 

This stat is extremely helpful when deciding which hands to three-bet and which to call with before the flop. Obviously someone with a high fold-to-three-bet stat is a player you can three-bet light relentlessly. Someone with a low fold-to-three-bet stat is someone you can three-bet wider for value.

How to Read Poker HUD Post-Flop Stats

AG (Aggression Factor)

Most players fall between 1-3. Anything less is very passive and anything more is very aggressive. If a player with a 0.5 AG is playing back at you, they’re probably not bluffing and you would need a very good hand to continue. On the other hand, if someone with a 6 AG is playing back at you, your top pair is starting to look pretty good.

• All You Need To Know About Fold Equity

WTSD % (Went to Showdown postflop)

Most players fall between 20 and 32%. Having a low WTSD can either mean they fold often pre-showdown or they make opponents fold often before showdown. A good way to tell the difference is using WTSD % in conjunction with AG. Seeing a WTSD poker stat is helpful, but seeing a number and figuring out why they go to showdown as often as they do is invaluable.

If your opponent is passive and doesn’t go to showdown often, then they’re weak-tight. If they’re aggressive with a low WTSD, they make people fold often pre-showdown. If your opponent shows down 35% or more, they’re showdown happy. If their aggression is low, they may not be betting with the lead often enough. If, however, they’re aggressive yet still have a high WTSD, they probably call way too often with weak hands on the river. 

• The River Value Bet and You
  

CB (Continuation-bets as the preflop raiser)

Most players have 55% – 88% so look at the PFR stat too. The lower the PFR%, the higher the player’s CB%. That’s because the fewer hands the player is raising preflop, the stronger the hands they’ll have. Making them more worth betting on the flop. As a player’s PFR gets higher, they’ll miss the flop more often because they’re raising more marginal hands preflop. If the CB stat remains high, then they’re likely c-betting air often and are therefore exploitable.

2B (Second barrel as preflop raiser)

Obviously you should use this with the CB stat. If your opponent has both high flop c-bet and turn c-bet pokerstats then they’re barreling air often. And you should, in turn, call down lighter. If your opponent has a high flop c-bet and low turn c-bet then you’ve identified your opponent as a one-and-done. These guys fire one barrel at the flop and give up when called. If your opponent is a one-and-done player then floating becomes your best friend.

• Floating the Flop
  

FCB (Folds to C-bets) %

The higher a player’s FCB poker stat, the more “fit or fold” he plays. The lower the number, the more often he calls the flop with marginal hands. Used with the VPIP stat, you can really get a feel for a player’s overall game. A player that has a large VPIP and a small FC is going to be seeing lots of flops and turns. This could indicate the player is a fish, but if it’s a regular, look at their bet-when-checked-to stat. If that’s high, then you’ve found an opponent who loves to float.

F2 (Folds to Second barrel)

Some fish love to call pre-flop and love to call the flop but won’t continue past the turn without a decent hand. You can instantly tell these types of players if they have a low FC stat and a high F2 stat. Obviously you should punish these types of players by firing second barrels more often.

How to Beat Microstakes Cash Games Using HUDs

The best poker hud stats are VPIP (voluntarily put in pot), PFR (preflop raise) and AF (aggression factor). Because they tell you what type of player you’re playing against over even a small sample size, like 10 hands. Also make sure to include your opponent’s fold to cbet stat, fold to turn cbet, their cbet and turn cbet, their 3bet, fold to 3bet and steal percentage.

If somebody has a 90% VPIP (playing 90% of their hands) in an orbit or two, you can feel confident they’re a bad player. On the flip side, if their VPIP is only 10% you can be pretty confident this is a tight regular. PFR also tells you how aggressive a player is. So if the 90% VPIP player has a 10% PFR, you can discern this is a passive fish. If their PFR is 80%, then this player is a maniac fish.

A good rule to remember is that preflop aggression usually translates to postflop aggression and the reverse is also true. Preflop passiveness usually indicates postflop passiveness. But the player’s AF will also help you determine this. You’ll need a bigger sample with this stat than VPIP /PFR. However, 3 or less is a fairly passive player and 4 or more is aggressive.

An overlooked key to success in online poker is table selection. A lot of your profit comes from bad players, especially at the micros. One of the easiest ways to spot them is going through your poker tracker online database and looking at the big hands you recently won. You’ll find most of them involve bad players. However, using notes or color tags, which all sites provide, also goes a long way. When you tag a weak player, you can exploit them more easily.

• Zoom Poker Strategy and Winning Guide

How to Improve Your Redline (Non-Showdown Winnings)

Online players who use poker stat tracking tools like Hold’em Manager or online Poker Tracker software know all about the “redline.” For live players, or players just starting out, “redline” winnings are your non-showdown winnings. That is, the hands you win without having to flip over any cards. You can see non-showdown winnings in HEM or PT by going to your graph page and hitting “display showdown winnings.”

If you have an upward-sloping redline – that means you win more money than you lose in non-showdown pots. Losing more than you win in non-showdown hands is a common leak that many players have. However, you can be a successful poker player even with a negative redline, since different playing styles do different things to your graphs. Where you run into problems is if your redline looks like a sharp, downward slope.

• How to Play Hands With Showdown Value

How to Fix Your Redline 

Play Fewer Tables

One of the best things about playing online vs live poker is that you can play many tables at a time. Hundreds of hands per hour instead of a gruelling 20 hands. But almost everybody that has a sharp, downward-sloping redline plays too many tables.

Now “too many” differs from person to person. Some can play 12 tables simultaneously without rushing decisions or going on autopilot. Others may struggle with two. So notice how you feel when multi-tabling, because if you’re playing your session on auto-pilot you’re playing too many tables. 

The more tables you play, the less attention / focus you can dedicate to each. Meaning you make more mistakes. No longer are you thinking, “My opponent is tight-aggressive and will probably peel with 9-9 on 10 3 4 .” You’re just thinking, ” I raised pre-flop I c-bet, hurrrr.” So when they call, you shut down on the turn or river – and bam, money wasted.

• The Essential Guide to Proper Poker Multi-Tabling 

Example:
Picture yourself playing six tables simultaneously. You hold K Q on the button and raise preflop, only to face a 3-bet from the big blind. You call, then the flop comes J 7 3 . You glance at your other tables, quickly check your HUD, and see you’ve been 3-bet a lot, but you still fold to a single c-bet out of habit. Over time, these quick-fold decisions in multi-way or small pots create a big leak in your redline.

Better C-Betting = Better Redline

C-Bet Less and C-Bet in Better Spots. If your opponent is a calling station, you should be c-betting a lot less. C-bet when the board seems to help your range, or if you plan on firing multiple barrels. If you’re going to “one-and-done” the board, don’t c-bet at all. Double barrel cards that strengthen your perceived range and hurt your opponent’s range.

• The C-Bet for Beginners
• When Not to Continuation Bet
• When to Fire a Second Barrel on the Turn
• Make Every Bet with a Purpose

The following are some bad c-bets spots you should learn: 

1. Multi-way pots and Draw-heavy boards – because more opponents can catch a piece of the board and call. 
2. Calling stations – You can’t bluff someone who never folds. 
3. Flops that don’t help your perceived range – Plan multiple barrels or just don’t c-bet. 
4. Showdown-value hands – flopped hand with good showdown value isn’t strong enough to bet for value, but good to check through.

Play More Hands in Position

When you play out-of-position, you have to act with no information and your opponent gets the huge bonus of getting to see what you do first. What that means for your redline is that you’re going to be left guessing a ton. You’re going to peel with your second pairs and your weak top pairs, and then you’re going to fold to further action.

• How Not to Suck at Poker: Play in Position
• How to Beat Variance in Poker
• The Semi-Bluff

How to Plug Your Leaks

You may think every play you make is plus-EV, when in reality it may be a losing proposition. So even though you’re making money, you could still have leaks that cost you. Tools like Holdem Manager are great for analyzing your game, looking for leaks that cost money and hurt your winrate. Using filters, you can find non-profitable spots and why they’re non-profitable. From there it’s just plugging that leak and your win rate will see a boost in the long run. Filter to your main game and remember to use a bigger sample size (+300k hands) for more accurate findings. 

Preflop mistakes are the smallest you can make because the betting is small so you’re only risking a small portion of your stack. However, in the long run, small leaks added up lead to big losses. Meanwhile, the flop, turn and river is where the real money is made and lost because each street has bigger bets and by the river your decisions may affect your entire stack. So using filters in your tracking software, you can look at every preflop action for non-profitable situations and leaks to plug.

Preflop Leaks

1. Early Position Play. In the main filter tab click ‘early position’ which will filter all hands played UTG and under the gun +1. First look at your VPIP and PFR – they should be almost half of your overall VPIP because you should be playing tight. If your UTG VPIP and PFR are close to your regular VPIP you’ve spotted a leak and should tighten up from UTG. Filter further in the hole cards tab to see if you’re profiting with the bottom of your UTG range (ATo , Axs, T9s). 

2. Middle and Late Positions. You can do the same for all positions by changing your first filter to middle position, cut-off, button and using the hole card filter. Using the preflop action facing player box you can also look at scenarios where you isolate a preflop limper, and so on. 

3. Playing against raises. Via the Main Filters tab, select all positions and in the next box preflop action facing player you select vs. 1 raiser. Filter further, by your opponent’s position, your position, hand type etc, until you track down where you’re bleeding money.

4. Blinds vs late position steal. Select SB, BB and one raiser. In ‘position of first-raiser’, hit BU and CO, then from ‘filter by actions’, tick ‘filter by preflop actions’ and ‘call’. This shows the hands where you called a raise from the blinds against a late position steal. 

5. Blind vs blind play. Filter yourself as SB and the aggressor and select raise in the preflop actions. The real info is in your play from the big blind vs a small blind steal raise. So hit BB in the position box and 1 raiser, and set the position of the first raiser to SB. Again, set preflop action to call to find leaks.

How Accurate Are Poker Stats?

The thing about stats is that they can be extremely misleading without an accurate sample size. Hold’em is a variance packed game and in the short term stats can vary considerably. One of the biggest mistakes you can make is treating a player’s online poker stats as gospel. Especially when you have a small sample size. Only to find in real life they play in a completely different manner.

Hold off from drawing advanced conclusions about how someone plays until you have logged enough hands. What “enough hands” means varies from stat to stat. A hundred hands might be more than enough to draw conclusions from the VPIP and PFR stats. But, it’s not enough to understand WTSD, barreling frequencies, or three-bet stats. As with everything in poker, the bigger the sample size the better.

Don’t Undervalue Note Taking 

You build your poker game on information. Every hand you play with someone contains valuable insights into their playing style and betting patterns. But when playing hundreds of opponents, trying to keep mental notes is futile. So take advantage of the in-built poker note-taking software. When you add a note to a player, it sticks to them, so if you run into them on the same site later, you can still see it. 

Keep your notes short and informative. So not “IDIOT HITS GUTSHOT WTF”, instead write your opponents’ tendencies for your future self. Use abbreviations and acronyms to keep your notes clean:

• OTB: Off the button
• OOB: Out of the blinds
• UTG: Under the gun
• PFR: Pre-flop raise
• NFD: Nut-flush draw
• TPTK: Top pair, top kicker
• TPNK: Top pair, no kicker
• TPGK: Top pair, good kicker
• OOP: Out of position
• IP: In position
• 3B: Three-bet
• C/R: Check-raises
• C/C: Check-calls
• CS: Calling station
• BVB: Blind versus blind
• AI: All-in
• BB: Big blind/Big blinds
• HBL: High blind limper

Example:

You open 4BB on the button with A A and BB calls. Flop comes A 4 5 and BB checks. You bet over ⅔ pot and BB calls. Turn comes 4 , BB checks, you bet half pot and your opponent calls. River comes 8 , BB checks, you bet almost full pot and your opponent check-raises all-in. You call and they show 6 9 for the flush. Your aces-full scoops the pot.

What note would you add for the BB? You can say “Calls OOB with weak holdings vs butto

Use Poker HUDs as a Tool, Not a Crutch

The true value of hand-tracking software is underrated while poker heads-up displays (HUDs) are overvalued. It’s obvious that using a poker heads-up display backed up by a database of hands will give you more information. But having a HUD won’t instantly transform you into a winning player. Also, relying too heavily on stats leaves you playing a robotic game that will stunt your growth as a player. Or even lead to mistakes.

For example, it’s not a HUD that puts your opponent on a range. Say you pull up the Hold’em hand range visualizer and filter to just 3-bet pots and see the percentage was 9.6%. We know the opponent is 3-betting 9.6% of the time – but what’s their range? Most players will take 9.6% but that’s a self-weighted range. In reality, over 43% of all hands were possible in the range. 

• Guide to Hand Ranges in No-Limit Holdem 

To help deal with problems like this, tools like PokerTracker may allow you to custom-tweak opponents’ ranges based on what you know about their play. However, players may also deviate from their standard style for a variety of reasons. The poker player stats don’t tell the whole story. And too many players rely only on stats in a game, painting everyone with a broad, sweeping brush. When in reality, you can have three very different players with similar stats

The real power of tracking software comes from running reports and filtering to review

Adapting to Evolving Player Pools

Modern online poker environments are filled with players who have also embraced tracking technology. This means you are not just collecting information on them; they are likely doing the same with you. As a result, the meta-game has evolved. In some cases, you may find that standard exploitative strategies no longer work against certain skilled opponents. This is where advanced methods, potentially touching upon GTO (Game Theory Optimal) approaches, can come into play. You might decide to three-bet slightly more balanced ranges in positions where your stats suggest you’ve been exploitable, or mix in fewer continuation bets on certain board textures where your data shows you’ve been bluffing too frequently.

Information wars can also lead to false leveling, where each side tries to out-guess the other with minimal data. The best safeguard is consistent analysis of your opponents’ long-term numbers, combined with an awareness that short-term adjustments may mask your typical ranges. Familiarizing yourself with concepts like minimally exploitable ranges can help you make profitable decisions against savvy players who utilize software as aggressively as you do.

Related Poker Strategy Articles:

• When to Call the Flop with Less Than Top Pair
• How to Track Your Records Properly in Poker
• Grit and the Grind: How Great Poker Players Get Great
• How to Change Gears to Keeps Your Opponents Guessing