Do you consider HUDs a form of cheating ? (2 Viewers)

What if you print the ranges you came up with and use them during the tournament ? And even if you memorize them my question is still unanswered. What significant edge does the hud give me ?
WTF, are you serious?

So let's say you go to a poker game at someone's house. Everybody is drinking a beer and chatting with your buddy. Then, you whip out a range chart and start consulting it before you decide your move. You think you arent going to get kicked out of that game?

A HUD tells you exactly what frequency you and your opponents have on MULTIPLE stats without you having to pay attention to them. It is a MASSIVE advantage if you are the only one using it (assuming you know what you are looking at).
 
Original post is in the edited first post. Wasn’t deleted. I’m not talking about using effective GTO, just preparing an opening hand range using a solver.
Okay. You’re definitely looking for an advantage. Is it an unfair advantage? Maybe? Is it cheating? I’ll say no, unless there are some rules against it, which you haven’t mentioned.
I just have to defer to my first statement - I assume everybody playing online is using a HUD. (I don’t like it though)
 
Okay. You’re definitely looking for an advantage. Is it an unfair advantage? Maybe? Is it cheating? I’ll say no, unless there are some rules against it, which you haven’t mentioned.
I just have to defer to my first statement - I assume everybody playing online is using a HUD. (I don’t like it though)
I don't use a HUD...probably to my detriment. I only play on Ignition though, where it's all anonymous. I also assume most players are using HUDs. I am a life-nit though and don't want to pay for it.

Also, huge difference between using a HUD on Ignition or ACR and using one in a private game among friends.
 
It's not cheating if it's not available to anyone.
It's not cheating if it's just available to everyone, among strangers.
It's not cheating if it has been made sure that everybody has it, among friends.
 
If you are playing online and think your opponents aren't using HUDs or whatever other software, you are seriously just kidding yourself (unless you play with friends and it has been discussed and agreed on that no one will use any).
 
I don’t consider HUDs cheating per se. I just consider it lame.

Half the edge one can get in of poker is being more observant than your opponents.

HUDs allow any idiot to be observant.

With a HUD, you no longer have to pay attention to how often your opponents raise preflop, whether they are playing too many hands, etc.

Sure, it’s a very handy tool. But it takes a lot of the fun and challenge out of poker.

NOTE: My only experience of HUDs was on a site which would sometimes give you “Platinum” status or whatever for free for a few days (if you played enough), as a way to try to induce you to pay for more goodies. This included a HUD. Every regular in the tourney got this status at some point I suppose. There were a couple who paid $100 for it per month.

I did not learn that much, as I’d played live with almost all of this crew for years. The HUD mainly just confirmed what I knew about their habits. A few guys played looser online than live, was the only difference, but I’d already noticed that.

There was one guy for example who I knew as an incredibly tight and passive nit, who would not raise preflop with anything but ultra premium hands. Sure enough, the HUD showed him with a ridiculously low PFR rate, and *** 0% *** 3bet range. Even tighter than live. Further observation after the free HUD disappeared confirmed that he was only opening pre with AA / KK, and never 3betting. He was often the first out, would rebuy multiple times, and almost never cashed.
 
What you wrote after NOTES is pretty much exactly what I had in mind after thinking of using one for these games. Except your think it’s lame and I think it’s fun . I guess it’s the nostalgia factor.
 
A HUD is a relic of exploitative game theories wich have been wich have been rendered obsolete by GTO poker.

At the very most competitive levels, where everyone is essentially studying and deploying GTO, playing pure GTO with zero exploits makes sense.

However, against such opponents it does not guarantee more than marginal profit… since the essence of GTO is that if everyone in the game plays perfectly long enough, everyone’s results regress to even. There will still be variance over the short term but eventually you will get a stalemate.

Anyone know of any games like that? I don’t. There may only be a few in the world, and it is probably mainly groups of pros training each other (to then go out and exploit the untrained).

GTO by definition is only going to be profitable in the long run if your opponents are deviating from the ideal. And that profit will be capped if you never take advantage of obvious exploits that you spot.

The books I’ve read on applying GTO to poker (e.g. by sharp minds such as Andrew Brokos), all say the same thing: Study GTO so that you understand better what the equilibrium play might be… then adjust to your opponents.

In other words, a combination of GTO and exploit, based in an awareness of “perfect” play, to then maximize profit by exploiting opponents’ non-GTO habits, while minimizing the possibility of you being exploited.

This is very different than pure GTO—when your opponents’ actual holdings become irrelevant, and decisions are based mathematically in factors like precise ranges based on position, board textures, bet sizes, and then perfectly randomized deployment of correct frequencies to fit the situation exactly.

No one can memorize and execute that perfectly live, and most people want to maximize profit not just minimize losses. So GTO is still just a lens for winning players, not a perfect solution for 99.9% of players and games.

Even the best GTO players are using shorthands and groupings of similar situations to approximate GTO, since there are just too many possible iterations in multiplayer NLHE. (Unless they are cheating by using AI to get answers, and even then it is unlikely their database has more than a very good idea of what the general right answer is.)
 
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Great post. I’m aware of my oversimplification. The first book I read that truly improved greatly my game back then was Ryan fee s book on nl6max CG. Clearly a game changer for me. What I was trying to say in what you quoted from me is that even thought the opening ranges he promoted in his book are perfectly playable in most games and still make sense today, I’m sur that some of them if you ask a modern simul would be considered EV-.
 
Online poker sucks.
I guess this is something to keep in mind, @wask - this is a poker chip site. We LOVE poker chips. So, we LOVE live poker. That’s where most of us are coming from. I think this skews our opinions about online poker and HUDs. I’ll freely admit, I think online poker sucks, and HUDs are a fine example of everything that’s wrong with that “game.”
 
I would not consider a HUD cheating. It is a tool that many online players use, and it pretty much ruined online poker, to be honest. It has a stigma.
I love this comment so much!

It's pretty much why I almost never play online. Though I did avail myself of some of my friends online "clubs" during the pandemic, but I knew who most of those people were and how they played so it was more like live than anonymous strangers.

Either way I think HUDs ruined online poker. And it is a cheat if the site has a rule against it. If not, then fair game, but realize you are a sucker if you play on such a site without one.
 
How do you guys believe it ruin online poker ? If I had a better player than myself on my table I’d much rather have him play on 6 tables with a hud than just on mine without one.
 
Let's take a minute to recap a little what a HUD is and tell me if you agree or not.

A HUD is most of the time a tool provided by a poker tracker. A tracker is a software used to monitor your own results and provide data you can use to improve your game. By digesting your hand histories the software will also track your opponents results when they were sitting at your table, but unless you're playing heads up, the hands sample for deep analysis on them is just too small to be usable.

Now the HUD in itself will provide live information at the poker table in the form of stats displayed next to your oppenents. Theorically you can display any stats you wish, and I've seen some ridiculous HUD with multiple stats displayed for every action on every street. Why ridiculous you may ask ? Well simply because the sample of hand will almost always be waaay to small for these information the be relevant. So usually the stats being displayed will be simply: VP$IP (volontary put $ in pot) / PFR (preflop raise) and maybe a couple of other basic preflop stats.

Now why bother displaying just these stats when you can just look at what the players are doing ? Because it will allow you to multitable more effectively, as the hud will provide basic information about the players you're against. Is it as effective as playing one table and paying attention at every hand played ? Hell no! Numbers don't say it all. The thing is when multitabling you will simply rarely pay attention to hands you're not part of and will miss most of your opponents showdowns, wich is arguably the most valuable information you can get a table. Exemple: on a 6 handed CG table you're looking at A4ss, UTG opens and it folds to you. You're in a good spot to 3bet bluff with this holding BUT you see on your HUD he plays 15/12 and decide not to 3bet. Problem is you're multitabling and you've not been paying attention at a earlier hand where he went to showdown UTG with a loose open. You think he's a 15/12 player because that's what the hud says, truth is way looser but went through a run of bad cards during the 300 hands sample you got on him.




I'll give you that I came off like by saying "making my life easier." The thing is I don't believe it will at all. Because I tried my best to define a HUD but what is it really ?

A HUD is a relic of exploitative game theories wich have been wich have been rendered obsolete by GTO poker.



Please tell me, or anyone reading this tell me how, by what witchcraft you can turn informations provided by a HUD into such a massive advantage. I mean that's quite the analogy here. Because I don't know the answer. If you're willing to ban me from your hypotetical club you should be able to answer this question.

Talking about GTO. There is no doubt it is superior to exploitative theories. Because the computer is right and there is no debate there. I remember a post Phil Galfond made years ago where, if I remember correctly, he asked a bunch of top level pro what to do with KJo on the CO to a MP open. Most of them had a diffrent answer. Now it settled I guess, just ask the computer. Similar thing happened to chess; before computers you could fill a room with Grandmsters arguing about wich is the better defense against e5 opening : Kings Indian or Sicilian ? well now the computer clearly says Kings indian is losing. No one can argue about this.

What troubles me here is that I noticed in this thread: https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/pocket-10s-utg-am-i-a-nitty-nit.75277/
you're are using a solver to analyse the opening.

Let's go hypotetical here: a player from your private room tells you he prepared his opening ranges using a solver. Would you consider that cheating ? obviously not. How about he printed the ranges he came up with on spread sheets he's using during the tournaments. Cheating ? I assume a theory book openend on his desk would be ok so I don't think so no. Yet I believe all of this is closer to: "why not let a computer do some of the legwork for you, right?"

So now tell me what kind of crazy advantage displaying VPIP PFR can I gain over my opponents compared to my hypotetical exemple ? Because if a hud is "grenades in the fish pond" a printed opening range prepared on a solver is stuffing the tuna with a nuke for me.

Why use a HUD then ? I'll admit my original reason sounded shady. I just like it, I think it's fun because I used it all the time back then. Because I thought I was a genius for over 3betting a villain with a high fold to t3bet stat not thinking a second it made my range completely unbalanced. But really it's just fun looking at stats. That's it. Now you may believe I full of s*** and that I really just finding excuse for cheating, but that would be beside the point.

I certainly don't want to have bad blood with anyone around here and I hope I did not come across as agressif or shady here. Post is a tad TLDR but it sucks being called a cheater (a first)! I've been cheated on online once and I wish that on nobody.

EDIT: Another question I would like to ask you. You're asking me if I'm willing to tell everyone I'm using a hud when the vast majority of them have no clue what it is. It certainly not fair and you know it. Even if we agree that it is not cheating there certainly will be blowback. Justified ? well think about it: would you tell the members of your recrationnal club that you're using a solver to generate the most effective PF handrange against a loose crowd ? you know some of them will immediatly assimilate this as cheating. That beeing said I'll try to talk about it during the next live event.

Wow. Pretty funny that you went to a whole other post to try to attack my character. Let's address this right off the bat. Here's the quote you're choosing to take out of context, suggesting that I used a solver to come up with a preflop raise size.

With regard to all your prior actions: The initial raise is a little larger than the Hold'em Solver Standard Preflop Raise Recommendation™, but whatever.

This sentence is 100% sarcastic. I was taking a jab at (a) solvers and (b) a bunch of people in that thread who were harping on the large raise size OP made, telling him it should have been 2.5x or 2.25x or whatever. Hence the ™ symbol. There is no "Hold'em Solver Standard Preflop Raise Recommendation" to my knowledge. It was all tongue-in-cheek.

If you were to dig a little more, you'd find my real, non-sarcastic opinion on solvers, which is that they're just one more nail in NLHE's coffin. As if the game isn't over-studied to the point that rec players have no chance, now we have software that calculates GTO moves (or tries) for you.

Is it cheating to use a solver to study the game and later employ what you've learned at the table? I don't think so. Not any more than it's cheating to read a poker book or run hands through a simulator away from the table. What you do away from the table to improve your game is all fair game.

But I still don't like solvers. And TBH I don't really like NLHE anymore, for a variety of reasons, but the culture of trackers and HUDs and solvers is a major part of it. Skilled players have gone so deep into figuring out how to maximize their wins that they've lost sight of the fact that the game is supposed to be fun for the losers too. There's nothing fun about sitting at a table full of software-enhanced players crushing your soul orbit after orbit.

As to the rest of your post, I don't buy a word of it. Just you trying to explain away HUDs as if you only want one because it's fun and you're a stats geek, and it not only won't give you an advantage but may make you play worse. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

Particularly over a small, consistent field, knowing that Player A is VPIP/PFR/3bet = 15/12/1.8 or whatever your chosen stats is a massive advantage. Maybe your sample size will be small at first, but it will grow and become representative over time, since you're tracking all the same players.

And it's absurd to suggest that exploitative poker is dead and GTO poker is king. GTO concepts have their place, but at the end of the day, you're playing poker against flawed human beings. If you notice a guy folds the river every time he checks out of position, or routinely PFR/folds to a 3-bet, you're not going to default to a GTO strategy. You're going to exploit, as you should.

As poker enthusiasts, we should be grateful for this. If NLHE ever truly devolves into such a state that GTO is the only viable game in town, it will kill NLHE as a recreational game.
 
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I love this comment so much!

It's pretty much why I almost never play online. Though I did avail myself of some of my friends online "clubs" during the pandemic, but I knew who most of those people were and how they played so it was more like live than anonymous strangers.

Either way I think HUDs ruined online poker. And it is a cheat if the site has a rule against it. If not, then fair game, but realize you are a sucker if you play on such a site without one.
I'd say whether it's cheating depends on the context.

Using a HUD on ACR or some other big public site? Probably everyone is, so it's a level playing field.

Using a HUD in your friend's private 30-man online site with a bunch of random casual players looking to have fun? That's cheating.

But either way, I agree wholeheartedly that HUDs have ruined online poker. I refuse to play online anymore outside of small, private clubs for mainly this reason (and the fact that collusion is so easy).
 
Could you use a HUD in a casino? I think the answer is a huge NO. Why, unfair advantage. So I would not allow it at my game either. Like Coyote said, one player per hand, whether that player takes advice from a buddy or a machine.
 
I guess this is something to keep in mind, @wask - this is a poker chip site. We LOVE poker chips. So, we LOVE live poker. That’s where most of us are coming from. I think this skews our opinions about online poker and HUDs. I’ll freely admit, I think online poker sucks, and HUDs are a fine example of everything that’s wrong with that “game.”
Agree...

How do you guys believe it ruin online poker ? If I had a better player than myself on my table I’d much rather have him play on 6 tables with a hud than just on mine without one.
Online poker sucks because tools like solvers and HUDs give those that use those tools too big of an advantage. For a game to be good, everyone has to have a chance to win some of the time otherwise they stop playing.

Poker in general is very unhealthy right now. Games that favor the better player too much (like nl), very few new players, banning internet poker etc all have contributed to this.
 
What if you print the ranges you came up with and use them during the tournament ? And even if you memorize them my question is still unanswered. What significant edge does the hud give me ?
WTF, are you serious?

So you're saying this is a bad thing? :ROFL: :ROFLMAO:

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https://www.pokertube.com/article/mcconnons-main-event-cheat-sheet
 
HUDs aren't cheating, but sites and by extension anyone running an online home game certainly has the right to ban them.

In a large online player pool where all you really care about is making the most profit, I consider them almost essential. Most other "good" players are using them too. You can still win without them, but they make it easier. Just knowing how tight or loose your opponents raise and 3 bet is a massive help.

In a online home game though, I consider them a bit scummy. I view online home games the same as playing a live home game or casino game. I can't use a HUD in those, so I wouldn't use them in an online home game either. Especially against a small pool of players that likely aren't using them nor even know they exist.
 
Original thread title: Free poker HUD for mac

Original post:
Hi guys, I recently started playing weekly online MTTs with a group of about 30 people. I’d like to use a basic hud to simplify my life a little.

Anything to recommend for OSX ?


Edit: I'm editing this after Jimulacrum second post because it's getting interesting and I'd like to have more opinions about this subject from other members. Is this necessary to discuss ? well I guess not but let's be clear; I know how to use google and back in my days I've been a user of pokertracker and hold em manager. I do not need anyone to find what I was requesting. That being said I'm new here and it's my first time joining a poker related forum for about 15 years ....so I figured let's ask the community, they seem nice and they're very knowledgable about chips. They might come up with something I didn't think of!

Well that was a pretty bad call from myself considering I end up being called a cheater after my very first post in the strategy section.

But I don't want to react too defensively and get pissed about it, I'm too old now for being mad on the internet. But I'll try to build a case for myself nonetheless and let you guys be judges.
Nah.... Nah... That's not cool man.
 
Huds are allowed at enough online sites that, if there isn’t a rule against it, it’s fine. If there is a rule against it, it’s cheating. Most ethical thing to do is to clear it with the host first
 
Poker in general is very unhealthy right now. Games that favor the better player too much (like nl), very few new players, banning internet poker etc all have contributed to this.
Total tangent here, but NLHE is a double edged sword in this regard. It’s such a simple game to learn, that competence can be achieved with very little effort. When I started playing, at a low stakes home game, I went from total novice to one of the better players at the table in about 4 sessions.
So in that regard, NLHE can be good for poker, because it really is that easy to learn the basics.
But my god, take that home game competence to a cash game online or in the casino, and you know just enough to get sheared or skinned. Because the people willing to put in the extra work, to come close to mastering this solvable game, will crush people who’s mere competence gives them misplaced confidence.
I really hate cash NLHE, because (and I’ll freely admit it) I’m merely competent. For NLHE, I’ll only play tournaments. And it’s not because tournaments are easier - they’re not. It’s because you’re playing two games at once - you’re playing NLHE and you’re playing a tournament. The extra skill set required, and the added variance, makes NLHE possibly profitable for people who haven’t dedicated the time to solving NLHE.
Of course, the more interesting solution is just to play different poker games. But casinos won’t facilitate this because they don’t need to - as long as they can keep filling those NLHE tables with 9 player and keep raking, what do they care? And your average players don’t seem to want to learn those other games, because they already know NLHE. But the industry continues to embrace it - god knows why. The recent US Poler open had 12 events, 7 of which were exclusively NLHE. The guy who won played only NLHE events.
So there we are - NLHE drives the poker economy because it’s easy to learn and possible to master with a lot of effort. Blah.

Sorry for the rant that has nothing to do with HUDs.
 
My group plays- if you look at your cards, you’re cheating. Real players go in blind :cool
This is funny....
Just the other day live I was playing 2-100 spread limit in the card room. I hate the game, but sometimes I play just to play something different. We have mostly limit and then this awful 2-100 sl as we have a max $100 bet rule in our state. Anyway, the game was not good and the weaker players busted. There were only 4 of us left and one guy suggested we each min raise blind up to a max of 4 raises so $2 bb, $4, $6, $8, $10 and then no more betting & run it out and flip cards one at a time until you can beat what is out there. They wanted to do this for 2 orbits until someone else sat down. I have to admit, it was kind of fun for a little bit....

Of course during these 8 hands I am dealt AQhh vs AcKh and the board comes out KQ rag with 1 heart & runs out raggety heart heart against a very agressive player. I probably get $500 from him in this one hand.... Arg.
 
The problem with HUDs is that they are so easy to install. It's even easier to set one up for browser sites like pokernow because they're free... there are free browser extensions and applications anyone can download on Github. I'm sure its also easy to add a custom script to scrape pokernow logs and pull that data into PokerTracker.

I only use a HUD (PT4) on PokerStars public cash games or tournaments. I have never and will never use a HUD in any of my online home games, but I wouldn't be surprised if someone in my group uses one.

Likewise, I wouldn't be surprised if at least two or three players in your group are already using a HUD. Be the better person and take the high road.
 
“But everybody’s using it.”

OK Jose Canseco, whatever you say. :LOL: :laugh:

1) HUD provides an advantage. Anyone stating otherwise may not be a cheat, but they are a liar.

2) Whether or not HUD provides an unfair advantage is easily solved by clearing it first with the host. If you don’t feel comfortable doing so, well, then, you have your answer.
 
Regardless of your feelings about HUDs:

GL to anyone trying to multi table on any major site and make decent profit without using a HUD. It's probably doable if you are GTO enough. But it's MUCH harder.
 
The problem with HUDs is that they are so easy to install. It's even easier to set one up for browser sites like pokernow because they're free... there are free browser extensions and applications anyone can download on Github. I'm sure its also easy to add a custom script to scrape pokernow logs and pull that data into PokerTracker.

I only use a HUD (PT4) on PokerStars public cash games or tournaments. I have never and will never use a HUD in any of my online home games, but I wouldn't be surprised if someone in my group uses one.

Likewise, I wouldn't be surprised if at least two or three players in your group are already using a HUD. Be the better person and take the high road.
Lol free internet programs that track your data. What could go wrong?
 

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