Hi all. I am new to the forum and still trying to navigate it correctly and figure out everything so pls be patient if I'm doing things incorrectly.

I've been playing various types of poker (nl, PLO, limit, stud, etc) for the past 14 years but never had the guts or belief in my game to play a lot live or online.

In the past 2 years I've been finding great results at my local casino final tabling 12-16 tourneys and running deep in 2 big events just missing the final table.

I am now entertaining the idea of playing online at ACR and see how my skill or luck moves over into online poker. I used to play back in the day and still do now but only for play money so I'm no stranger to online play as well.

With that background now, my question is simply this, do you see a difference in success for online players when a HUD is used compared to when it isn't?

I see the point or edge in using a HUD, but I've always been a firm believer in noticing tells, betting patterns, noticing strategies, etc on my own and not relying on something doing the work for me. Also, my thought process is that if a player knows he is aggro or tight in certain spots he may use that against his opponent. So I would hate to use a HUD and have it influence my core or gut decision I have at that time.

Has anyone else had this dilemma or have thoughts on what I should do? Maybe try both? Any help or information would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance

Lol. If you play online for the first time especially acr there is almost 100 percent chance you will go broke if you don't have tracking and hud.

Even with hud you will almost certainly bust your first many deposits.

This is not even a question if you want to take it seriously. But you really misunderstand the value of a HUD. It takes a huge number of hands against any one opponent before you have a statistically significant sample for any given situation so you are probably better off mostly ignoring the HUD displays. The player you will get the best sampling of first is yourself. The analysis of your own play and identification of your own leaks will be the real value you get out of a HUD especially in the short and mid term. Because as the above pointed out you most likely will loose in the start and proper use of the HUD/tracker to focus on your game will help minimize those losses.

Thanks for the replies and input. Appreciate it

If you're playing on a site that allows them, it's probably best to use them if, and only if, you're able to correctly interpret the data that it gives you and use it to increase your edge, or decrease the edge your opponents have. Of course, there's plenty of sites that have levelled the playing field and don't allow them, allowing you to actually play poker yourself rather than be way behind in a software arms race

If you don't have much experience playing online, I would highly suggest that you avoid ACR, unless your main goal is to improve as quickly as you possibly can. With or without a HUD, you're almost certainly going to get pounded on for a while, even at the lowest stakes.

You certainly don't need a HUD to make money in poker, but you're sure as hell leaving money at the table by not using one. Having said that, the worse your opponents are, the less money you're going to be giving up.

If you are going to opt to play on softer sites and not use a HUD, it's absolutely crucial that you take detailed notes, review hands using the site's replayer, and study constantly to identify which areas you need to improve in the most. fwiw, all stuff that is much easier to do with a HUD.

Which US sites don't allow HUD? Please don't include ignition cause people use them there

Which sites don't allow huds?

Even 2NL players on ACR use HUDs. You are screwing yourself if you are not using one.

this is baffling. I didn't realize so many players think ACR is a tough site to play on, let alone the use of HUD's being so widespread. I guess it depends on the games you play. I feel that bots are more of an issue than HUD's on ACR. I've seen players 4+ tabling and making insta-decisions on each one.

Poker is a game of information albeit limited. There's no advantage in opting not to avail of the wealth of information that will be accumulated using a HUD. There's also no reason you can't pay as much attention to timing tells, betting patterns etc as you do without a HUD.

What is baffling? I would be super impressed if you could produce a giraffe from the site over a decent sample. Ya there are some fish. But on avg it is very tough and full of suuuuuper nits which in theory are easy to play against. But it doesn't make BR building very fun or easy.

That would be very, very impressive.

I have found this to be pretty spot on. I have only been playing online again for the past year, and really only seriously for the past couple months. I have found Ignition to be much softer than ACR, and I typically play there as my win rate is much higher. At Ignition though, you can't use a HUD as far as I know because of the anonymity of your opponents. You can use a tracker though to review your own play, and go back and review certain hands and see what mistakes were made.

I just recently started using a HUD on ACR, and I haven't played enough on that site to really get a large enough sample size on the opponents I play against, so it is more for improving my game, and keeping track of my results more than anything. I am still learning, but from my understanding, a HUD should not be the sole source of your decisions, but rather supplement your decisions.

Others could probably provide much better advice as far as HUD's go, because I really have only used one for about a month now. I am just about even on ACR ( Only about 1000 hands played), but have grown my original $25 deposit on Ignition into a $1,150 roll over a couple months. Taking 2nd in a 250 player MTT makes up about half of that, but the rest have been grinding micro/low stakes cash, and $10 Double Up SnG's. I definitely feel like I have an edge over a lot of players on Ignition, but I also haven't played enough hands to give me a large enough sample size to know that I am a "Winning" player. I could just be running good, and a downswing could be coming soon, but I really don't see that happening. I try to manage my bankroll as best as possible, but I am still learning more about the game every day. I haven't played much live poker in quite awhile, with the exception of a couple small tourney's when I was in Vegas with my girlfriend a few months back. I placed 4th and 5th in all 5 of them. I feel like those tournaments were mainly fish just having some fun in Vegas, but there were definitely some regs at the table, and it was very obvious. I have read though that online is typically more difficult to beat than live currently. Is that still true?

If so, and I continue beating games on Ignition, would that mean I would have a pretty good chance of winning at a live cash game at the local casino? Or even a home game full of average players?

Anyways, as far as your question, I definitely think if you can use a HUD on the site you are playing, you should. I don't think it can harm your game, but only make you better, and help you make better decisions and improve your game. It took me a couple days to fully understand all the information the HUD provides, but once you understand what all the abbreviations mean, it should help you make better decisions. As others mentioned though, to really get the full benefit, you have to play a significant amount of hands against an opponent to have a large enough sample size to use the information provided to your advantage. I still think that if you are a good player, you can be profitable without a HUD though. The problem is, pretty much everyone else is using one, so you are at a disadvantage if you're not using one too. I think bots are a pretty big issue as well, but I don't really have any concrete evidence to back up that statement.

I'm going to play more on ACR and see how things go so I can compare it to Ignition. From my experience, Ignition is definitely softer though. So if your primary goal is to build a bankroll, I'd recommend Ignition, although if you want to improve your game faster and pay for it by losing, or "Paying your tuition" then ACR is a good site to play on. I would just expect to lose in the beginning, until your game improves and you learn how to beat the kind of players on ACR.

I look at ACR as a great opportunity to learn the nitty gritty of online poker. It's true that the place has more than its fair share of nits, but don't let people tell you that you shouldn't go to ACR simply for that reason. Nits are a natural part of the poker cosmos; they should be studied, learned from, and then exploited with 3 bets and C bets. The game will feel more grindy, sure, but that's one of the hallmarks of a great poker player- they can withstand the grind. I have a great deal of fun sapping the cash away from the nits with my unpredictable style. I get called down lighter on later streets and pre-flop when I shove with my aces.

And don't for a second think that because there are some nits that you can't have amazing runs. Just today I went on a 1600bb run (yes, that is 32 dollars!) over 1500 hands at the .01/.02 full ring games. I had a similar run the other day. I will hopefully be making the leap up soon as I'm starting from scratch.

But definitely have a HUD! You're throwing money down the drain by not investing in one.

Without HUD you are basically dead.

2 NL isn't the problem. It's the higher stakes.

I'd say a HUD is essential to play online poker in 2017. Every serious player has them, and if you want to compete against them you're going to have to get as much information about the games, player tendencies, and your own statistics as well.

You don't have the memory or time to note every single play at you tables over a few thousand hands...but your HUD does.

If you learn to read the stats on your HUD not only will you learn to pick up dead money in certain spots, but you'll also be able to save money.

You'd play a spot differently if a nit 4 bets you and his stats are 11/10/0, than if a whale who is 70/50/15 does the same thing.

Any time I play w/o a HUD, things look just fine, but when I open my tracking software and the HUD is there, I see that some opponent is this loose and has raised this many or few hands. It is another level.

I just started playing on acr with the free $5 they gave me, and I'm trying the $.55 buy in tournaments. Should I be using a hud for that?

That depends on how many stats you're tracking and what the stats are. If you want to know about 4-bet frequency, yes, you need a lot of hands on that player. But how about this scenario:

You have 100 hands against villian and the stats you have are VPIP 50 and PFR 5. You can call or raise a lot of his post-flop bets, but you should fold everything except big pairs when he opens the hand.

If you're going to use a HUD, you might as well get used to using it right away, while you don't have a lot of money on the line.

I really don't know how to feel about spending that much after I make my first deposit $50-100.

Are there any free huds out there?

I can understand that. I pinched every penny when I started out. I didn't even know anyone that played poker (as far as I knew.) I just watched it on TV and knew it would be a good nerd game.

My studying was library books. It didn't take long to figure out that many of the poker books were out of date because they didn't seem to have much to do with the what the players were doing on TV.

I found about out interlibrary loan and got more free studying that way. One of the books was Theory of Poker, a 2+2 book, and that's how I found this site. I also told anyone that might be getting me a birthday or Christmas present that all I wanted was a poker book.

I started out with play money, but not just because it was free. I wanted to find out exactly how the mechanics of poker worked. Also, I put together a recordkeeping system on Open Office (free) spreadsheets and I used the play money games to give my systems a trial run.

Bottom line: It's a lot better to have a HUD, but if you can't afford one, then wait until you can. Just play the cheapest tournaments that you can find while you figure things out. ACR has an 11 cent tournament every night at 1915. You can actually win a few bucks playing that tournament because the prize pool is decent, with at least 600 players every night.

It is more important to have a hud in cash games than in tournaments. You will have fewer hands on your opponents and at different blind levels in tournaments. The increasing blinds also make more hands play themselves.

Fpdb is a free hud, but I don't know if it has support for acr.