HUD stats - and how to use them

After a bit of thinking I believe i'll set up my HUD with two rows of stats. The first row will be VPIP, PFR, AFq, WTSD with the second row 3B, ATS, FBBTS, FTCbet.

I'll quickly describe the first four now and what i'm looking for and the next four in my next post. Mostly because I am too lazy to type it all out now. Please bear in mind they are all for 6max fixed limit holdem.

VPIP - volutary put in pot. This is probably one of the key stats to determine if you're up against a total fish. Anything much above 40% is pretty loose, and means they're playing a wide variety of hands. There are exceptions, say if they have a 25% PFR to go with their 40% vpip, then they might not be too bad. I like to have someone with a 50%+ vpip on my immediate right with a low PFR, and even another to their right if possible. Anyone with a 90% vpip is a dream come true. That being said I don't mind having fairly tight guys on my left that I can steal blinds from.

PFR - Preflop raise %. A decent player is normally around 20%, and I really like to have passive players on my right - less than 5% is perfect. If someone is say 2% it means they are basically only raising AA and KK, and I know to get out of their way.

AFq - Aggression frequency - How often they bet compared with check/calling. I understand that a decent player is around 40% - 60%. Anyone under that is passive, which is what i'm looking for. Anyone over that is very aggressive and is often betting fairly poor hands - I will tend to call these guys down more often with weak but winnable hands. Sure they have the good sometimes, but often they don't.

WTSD - Went to showdown - How often a player does go to showdown. A high percentage here often means they're prepared to call down with fairly weak holdings. A decent player is around 35%-40%. If someone has a high vpip and a high wtsd i'll try to get in as many pots against them as possible as I know they are likely showing down trash fairly often.

Generally I use a combination of the above statistics to work out their range of possible hands. As you can narrow their range of hands you can work out how likely your own hand is to hold up, and whether you should bet, raise or fold. That really is the key of the statistics and the HUD - using the information to better predict your opponent's range of hands.

For example if i'm on the button preflop and someone with a PFR of 40% raises before me and I have AJ, i'm going to 3 bet here every time and try to get it heads up. If i'm in the same situation and the guy doing the raise has a PFR of 3% i'm throwing my AJ in the muck as his range has my hand completely crushed.

Post flop I look to AFq to give me further information on the type of hand they might be holding compared to what is out on the board. If someone bets into me and has an AFq of say 20%, then I know unless I have a very strong hand i'm going to have to fold because he more than likely has the goods. If on the other hand he has an AFq of 65% and i'm holding second or third pair i'm calling down. If my hand is stronger i'm probably even reraising this player.

Okay that's enough theory for now. Pokertracker annoyed me again last night, and decided to creat 200Gb of log files which brought my PC to a grinding halt. I ended up having to delete files just to get my PC running properly again. I then just extracted my hand histories in smaller chunks and now have an up to date database ... I think.

I also found one of those dream players a 95%/0% (vpip/pfr) sitting on a $3/6 table with no one on his left. I sat down, and then got creamed, whilst he was then kind enough to give my money to the other players. My AA got busted by his 62o when he hit quad 2s on the river, and he also just called instead of raising my river bet. A few hands later his 75o was too good for my J9s after a flop of 789 ... obviously the river was a 6. Had a worse result on the $1/2 tables where I dropped about 25BBs in pretty quick time. The river was not my friend.

Current bankroll: $20,700
October time played: 12h
October profit / (loss): $800