Using Poker Tracker and PA HUD
It occurred to me recently that everyone advices you to use Poker tracker and PAHUD but no one tells you how.
I remember when I first started using them all these pretty numbers appeared on the screen telling me god knows what about the opposition.
Well I will go through a few of the main statistics and how I use them and would be really grateful if any other experienced users would share there thoughts and how they use to statistics to help them win.
PAHUD allows you to define exactly which numbers you see on screen through the layout manager but I will just cover the default numbers and how I use them.
Firstly the most important number you will see is VP$IP this is short for Voluntarily placed money in pot and gives an indication of how loose (or tight the player is.This will let you know whether you can even attempt to place this player on a hand, if the number is below 25 then the opponent has some idea of hand value preflop and if below 15 then they are very tight, you should be looking for players with VPIP of 40 or more if you really want to swim with the fish.
Be aware though that if a player has a high VPIP then they are very difficult to put on a hand and you will only make money of these players by consistently starting with good cards and showing down.
Next the PFR stands for Pre flop raise and is very useful when deciding whether to limp with speculative hands, that is if the players still to act behind you have a low number here then you can regard them as passive preflop and a limp has a high chance of not being raised.If someone has a high stat for PFR and for VPIP then you can consider them a LAG ( Loose aggressive ) and you should tighten up and showdown with premium hands.
Next we have The overall aggression figure. This is very useful as it lets you know how likely a player is to continue raising postflop, low figures here indicate weak tights and loose passives which are your prey at the tables.
Next we have how many hands played and this should not be taken lightly, if this figure too low then you cannot really rely on the other stats as you haven't seen enough hands to really rate them.
On top of that I also like to add the won at showdown figure to the screen, and I look for people with stats of 80+ as these people tend to be weak at the river, that is you can float them and bluff them at the river.
When looking at all these these figures we should perform a sort of somatyping and decide what mistakes this player is likely to make and then we would look to take advantage of that.For example someone with low vpip, low PFR, low total aggression and high win at showdown can be seen as a weak tight and we beat these people by simply betting into them post flop.
People with High VPIP , High PFR and High total aggression are maniacs and we should tighten up and play back at them when we have a premium hand.
People with high VPIP , Low PFR and low total aggression are loose passives and we should see more flops against these people and use position as a hammer to punish there weak play.
There are as many player types as there are people though so prepare to be surprised and always learn.
One other thing I do is set PAHUD to only look at the latest 2000 hands as we may run into the mistake of underestimating an improved player, remember people do learn.
Hope this helps and I look forward to any insights any of you have on this. I am after all just learning myself.
Peter
