So you bought HEM/PT3, but do you use more than the HUD and maybe look through the biggest pots after the session?

I'm in no way an expert at these programs, especially HEM (just started using it myself, still on the trial period btw ). I like this CoTW thread to be a place where we can discuss how use HEM/PT3 to help us improve our game, performance/configuration tips.

I'll start of with a dilemma I had myself with PT3 when I bought a second computer, how to use PT3 on two computers against one database.

First I like to say this:
Pokey once wrote a beautiful piece on How to use Poker Tracker which I recommend you all check out if you haven't done so.

Two computers – one database (HEM/PT3)
(One HEM/PT3 license will be usable for two computers).

Postgre config:
I know many of us, including myself have more than one computer at home. You once installed PT on your stationary computer and you built up a nice database. Then you went and bought a nice new fancy laptop with your poker winnings. But what now, you want to use PT and the same database on the new computer? Sure we can copy the whole database and install postgre on the laptop and then keep copying the database back and fourth as you switch comps.

There is an easier way!

You just need to configure postgre on the main computer where you have the database, then install PT on the second computer (postgre not necessary on this one) and then connect to the other computer and to the same database. Only negative thing is that you must have both computers running.

This is how you set up postgre to allow incoming connections (it only accepts local conenctions default).

You will also have to open up for port 5432 (default port) if you have a local firewall installed.

PT Config:
After you set the postgre stuff up on the main computer you need to install PT3 on the second one. When you see the connect to database window during installation (or after, can't quite remember when it popped up ), type in the IP adress (of the main comp), port, username and password for postgre on the main comp. Try postgres/postgres if unsure.

After PT3 is installed go to Database Management and create a new database and when the window appears where you name and create the database, click on the link Browse database. This should if all is installed and working display all databases on the main computer. Select the one you want and of you go.

HEM Config:
Will post this as soon as I have figured out how to browse for existing databases from HEM. If anyone knows how, please tell.

Step one is to configure postgre to allow incoming connections as we did in the PT3 example.

PT3 on two computers with one database on an external drive
For some of you who might be on the road and like to play some poker in a hotel for instance. Here is a guide to setup PT3 on two computers with the database on an external hard drive.

Player Ranges (PT3)
People play differently when there are more or less players involved, and the Player Ranges settings allow your stats to reflect this.

If you have no ranges set, all hands will be used; but if you define one or more ranges then only hands played where there were a certain number of players involved will be used.

For example; if you set a range Min:2 - Max:2 then if you are playing heads-up, only stats from hands where your opponent was playing heads-up will be used.

1. Configure - Configure HUD - Configure HUD Cash.
2. Select HUD Options tab.
3. Start adding ranges by clicking Add in the Player Ranges section.

A start would be to use:
Min:2 - Max:2
Min:3 - Max:6
Min:7 - Max:10

Finding leaks:

Red Line:
The buzz word at the moment seems to be ”possitive red line”. Most of us will probably never see a red line like ChicagoJoey's , but one thing you should check is if that red line is due to your blind play and nothing else.

Try this:
1. Filter without the blinds, red line should go up. If this goes down you have a problem!

2. Filter only blinds, red line probably going down? Try and work on your blind play to flatten out the red line some.

Mpethybridge blind play advice
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...&postcount=489

MT2R SLOB tactic
http://archives1.twoplustwo.com/show...umber=10585749

Small PP in EP (22-66):
Filter out PP (22-66) in UTG and UTG+1 and see if you are winning or loosing with these hands in these positions. If you are negative with these hands here then you would be better of folding them until you learn how to play them profitably in EP.

As you can see I'm not the best leakfinder out there but this is a start, let's discuss and share tips!

Cheers!

pele

First

Good stuff. About external drives: Would it be practicable to have the database on a flash drive? Or would that be too slow/small?

People always review the ones they lost. One huge leak for me that I'm closing is losing value on the river by not betting.

For PT3, click on "did not bet" on the river tab and click "Won hand" and review these hands. Could the villain have called a bet? There's lots of value lost in these situations.

Would be pretty slow and you would need a nice size flash drive unless your database is small and will remain small.

I do not think your link to poeky is working.

Can some mod please edit the Pokey link to this:

Pokeys guide on how to use Poker Tracker

Thx!

Today you have pretty big flash drives, but I think it could be a little slow.

USB 3.0 is soon the new standard, and that is 10 times faster than USB 2.0 which is the standard atm.

how to filter in and out blinds using HEM?

For users of PT3, this is an excellent resource...

http://www.pokertracker.com/repository/

You can download custom stats, reports and HUD layouts that have been created by other users.

Can't remember how to do it in HEM b/c I'm a noob at HEM

I'll check tonight if you haven't got an answer before that.

I think its interesting to say what stats are the most important to leave in hud playing small stakes full ring too =]

Good point!

There is a couple of threads where this was discussed:

HUD configurations?

What stats do YOU use and why?

Filter -> Edit and then simply (un)tick the checkboxes next to the desired positions on the "Main Filters" tab

Options -> Database Management. A window will pop up where you can enter the data of the postgre server (ip, port, user id, password) and after connecting, it will list all available databases (as well as letting you create new ones).

I use the classic VP$IP/PFR/AF (Hands)
flop cbet%, fold to flop cbet% <- Gold, attempt to steal, fold to sb/bb steal, 3bet total and fold to 3bet total.

While playing I often the C/R stats also when villain checks to me and he has high AF/Cbet%.

Done.

How to do it on PT3?

Filter->Action->Post big blind/small blind. Add to filter and 'OR' them together.

OP did a good job of hitting some of the high points. Since the thread title is "How to Get the Most out of PT/HEM," I'm going to add some words about configuring the software to optimize leak finding.

As it comes to you out of the box, the tracking software is not very helpful. Both companies put minimal stats on the various report pages, so the reports you see are not really helpful in analyzing your game. To get the most out of these products, you really have to add stats to the default settings.

I'll use HEM as an example, because it is the software I am more used to, and because it is more flexible than PT3 in having more reports that you can run.

You have your choice of report screens in HEM:

1. By stakes: This report is designed to give you your results by stakes; if you mix 6 max or HU into your FR play, or if you start tables, you need to be careful with this page in its default setting, as it will mix all your HU, 6 max and FR play in each stake into one results line.

2. Winnings Summary: This is the page that breaks out your winnings by stake and by type of game--FR, 6 max or HU, so if you mix in HU and 6 max, this is the screen you want to work from. Starting tables may be fun, but this is the screen that will tell you whether it is profitable.

3. Position: This is the bread and butter page, and it should be configured to help you find leaks in your every day game.

4. Overall: This page is the broadest brush; it lumps all of your play into one report line. Frankly, if you mix game types, you should not use this page without filtering to look at a particular game.

The key to optimizing the software is to make these pages specialize in finding certain types of leaks:

1. By Stakes Page: I use this page to answer the question: Does my play change as I move up stakes? To answer this question, I add to the default stats the general play stats: AF, 3 bet% Fold to 3 bet %, ATS, CC%, Flop C-bet%, Turn Bet %, River Call Efficiency, W$SD and W$WSF.

When I use this page I am comparing my play between stakes. I have just finished a prolonged shot at NL $100, and I am looking at my play using my regular NL $50 play as a baseline, and trying to see if my play changed and whether changes appear to be leaks or not. The stats we add here are stats that show various ways in which we might change our game when moving up--did we get more passive, steal less, c-bet less, go to showdown less, etc? Any significant difference in your play is a potential leak, and you have to follow up by running filters to see if it is an actual leak or not.

2. Winnings Summary: I configure this page to give me an overall picture of my game. If I mixed stakes and HU, 6 max and FR, I would configure this page the way the by stakes page is configured, and use it instead of the by stakes page. If I didn't mix in HU or shorthanded pay, I would configure this page primarily to determine the profitability of the various games I played--so I add stats like EV adjusted win rate (to eliminate as much variance as possible from this analysis) and W$WOSD so I can analyze my red line without looking at the graphs.

3. Position Page: On this page I add stats that relate to positional adjustments--so I have some duplication from the other pages mentioned so far. I add CC%, ATS (the general stat, as on this page it will display your by position steals and N/A next to the non-stealing positions), steal success %, W$WSF, AF, Flop C-bet, 3 bet%, fold to 3 bet, raised 3 bet stats, and check/raise stats for flop turn and river.

When I use this page I am looking for position-related leaks: Does my CC% increase by position? Does my VPIP/PFR open up by position and does the 3:2 VPIP:PFR ratio hold for each position? Are my blind 3 betting stats relatively in line with my position stats. How does position affect my AF? Are my loss rates in the blinds ok? What are my win rates in other positions, and do they make sense? Things like that can clue you into potential leaks that you can use the filters to get at.

4. Overall page. Once you have configured the other pages, the overall page loses a lot of its utility. But I use it to show me aspects of my game that I have not examined in other reports. So I add to the default settings some overall stats: AF by street, betting by street, River call efficiency and river call win %.

When I use this page I am just looking at the big picture--am I staying aggressive? is there a big drop off between streets in my aggression? Am I making good river decisions? This page doesn't really tell you anything specific enough to rely on; it just points out potential problems that you can use the filters to get into in more detail.

This isn't the best way, necessarily, to configure HEM. But what it is is a system for exploiting HEM's capabilities, and pretty much any system is better than just opening it up and saying, "Oh, pretty red and blue lines." If you configure all of the report pages to specialize in showing you certain types of potential leaks, you'll be two steps ahead of the vast majority of users who use their tracking software just to tell them how much money they have won this month.

Thank you Mpethy. This was much needed and very very helpful. Awesome work as usual.

Any chance of discussion on at what point (# of hands wise) should we start trusting our hud stats? Mostly for the commonly used ones. I am trying to figure out the amount of hands I need for each stat to determine when it will be significant enough to be useful and should be considered in decisions.

Could you configure the player range thing in HEM?

Ahh sweet, I was looking for a "Browse Database" button.

Edit: Thanks Mpehty for adding the leak finding stuff

Maybe a math guy can come in here and answer this question with hard numbers, but to my way of thinking, the important point here is that the question iyou asked is the wrong one. It betrays an unreasonable desire for certainty in a game based on uncertainty.

The better way to approach HUD stats is to ask this question: When I have a small sample, how do I use my HUD stats to best advantage?

You have to start considering your HUD stats as soon as you have any sample. Using them and relying on them are two completely different things. Any information is better than no information, so even a small sample is better than nothing, provided that you are considering them, and not acting in blind reliance on them.

With that in mind, here are my rules of thumb.

VPIP: I read a post a few years ago, that I have been unable to find ever since, that proved mathematically that VPIP was reliable enough to use after 40 hands--it has to do with bell curves and confidence intervals. I am not a hard core math guy--I took a minor in stats 20 years ago, lol, so I can't replicate the math, but this makes intuitive sense. Sure, it is possible that the player is an 8/6 who just got dealt AA-JJ 14 times in the last 40 hands, but how often does that actually happen? Realistically, not very often.

Moreover, we don't really care that much whether the player is a 9/7 or an 8/6; similarly, we don't care that the player is actually a 27/10 while our HUD is showing him at 32/8. In either case, we can fairly accurately categorize and adjust to the player despite the discrepancy between what we see on our HUD and his actual VPIP.

Also, you need to use a little common sense, because VPIP is useful even before you have 40 hands on the villain. There's an example of this thinking in my well. I raised on the button first in and a 2+2er in the BB, against whom I had no hands (it was his first hand at the table) 3 bet me. Now ask yourself, what happens more often--that a 2+2er will make a play against a fairly obvious steal or that a 2+2er will will get dealt a top 5% hand his first hand at the table? the answer is obvious, so in this case, a sample size of 1 hand was sufficient information to use his VPIP.

So when you see a player who his splashing around and his vpip is 80/60 after 10 hands, ask yourself--what is more likely--that this guy is getting slapped in the face by the deck or that he is a live one just splashing around? The answer is obvious.

So this is going to be a common refrain throughout this post--mathematically, if that poster years ago was right, VPIP is fairly normalized after 40 hands; but like every other stat, it is useful long before it normalizes. And if anybody is looking for mathematical certainty at the table, they're going to be disappointed A LOT, and I suggest a different hobby.

OK, so VPIP becomes reliable fastest, because it is a stat based on every hand the player is dealt. Thus, all of the other stats will normalize more slowly, since they are not based on every hand the player is dealt.

PFR: PFR is also described as a percentage of every hand the player plays, but really it is more useful to consider as a proportion of the hands the player volunteers to put money in the pot. So after 40 hands, you're going to have a reasonable amount of confidence in this stat, too, but its relationship to vpip probably takes a while longer to stabilize. Recently, I had a player in my DB against whom I had ~800 hands and his VPIP/PFR was 14/4 in that sample. By the time he hit 1000 hands, though, he was at 14/9 or 10, so weird things do happen, and I had to mentally recategorize that player by the end of the session in which I watched his PFR skyrocket from 4 to 10 or whatever. When I have 100 or 200 hands on a payer, i feel very comfortable assuming that his VPIP and PFR in my sample are reasonably close to his actual long term VPIP and PFR. The recent example is the only one I can recall drastically changing after I had a good sample on the player (excluding players who changed their styles).

3 bet% Every time a player has the opportunity to 3 bet, it is an opportunity included in his 3 bet % in HEM. So this stat is very volatile in small samples, and must be used with caution. It probably takes a big sample to normalize--no way will I hazard a guess on just how big a sample. But there are some ways to think rigorously applying common sense, rather than math. You're faced with an unknown villain, against whom you have fewer than 200 hands. He 3 bets a raise. What do we know? Well, we know that a typical value 3 betting range is AK and QQ+; depending on the situation, it may be wider. This range is 2.6% of all hands; phrased more usefully, he will get dealt a value 3 betting hand 2.6 times in every 100 hands. So suppose you have 10 hands on this guy. We know that a sample of 10 random hands will contain .26 value 3 betting hands. So we know that this guy's 3 betting frequency is higher than random chance accounts for*. Does that mean we know he is light? No, of course not. If we get dealt a value 3 betting hand 2.6 times per 100, we are getting one every ~40 hands or so. So if a guy 3 bets once in his frst 20 hands, it's a coin flip as to whether he is value 3 betting or not. But this isn't bad; using the remainder of the situation as a tie breaker, you can easily decide which is more likely--If he is UTG+1 3 betting a 12/9 UTG, he's probably not light, but if he is in the BB facing an apparent steal from a guy with a 30% ATS, he probably is.

So we don't know that he is light, but it does make it more likely that he is light than if this was the first 3 bet you saw in 100 hands. So if you are the one he 3 bet, you factor this into your decision--then you look at the situation, your image, his vpip/pfr (if he is 90/80 at that point you'll make a different decision than if he is 10/10) you make a read and you go with it (or I suppose you could play it safe and fold and keep your eye on him, alert to the possibility that he is 3 betting light).

*3 bet % is based on the number of opportunities you have to 3 bet; thus, to determine somebody's 3 bet % who only ever value 3 bets these hands you have to do 2.6 * % of hands raised in front of him. So if we get dealt a value 3 betting hand 2.6 hands per 100 hands dealt, and, on average, 40% of hands are raised in front of us we will be value 3 betting 40% of 2.6, roughly 1% of the time (I have no idea how accurate that 40% figure is, it's just a for instance). But since we know that the percentage of hands raised in front of us is less than 100, we know that a 2.6% 3 bet % is a fairly tight 3 bettor, who is rarely 3 betting very light at all.

The lesson here is that something in the neighborhood of 2.6% is sort of a magic number. If a villain is 3 betting much more than this, he is representing getting hit in the face by the deck. You need to decide based on other factors whether you believe this representation or not. But you can start using his 3 bet % as important information the very first time you see someone 3 bet--just consider it compared to a value 3 betting range and the number of hands you have on the guy, factor in the situation and act accordingly.

If you are looking for mathematical reliability, first, don't bother. Second, if you ignore that advice, then just do some easy filtering for the stat you are studying.

For example, to figure out how many stealing opportunities you get OTB, just look in HEM on the position page to see how many hands you had OTB, then go to main filters/preflop action facing player and click off everything but "unopened." This usually runs at about 25% in my DB. So 25% of 1/9th of your total hands are opportunities to steal OTB. In a sample size of 1000 hands, then, you have maybe 27 stealing opportunities. if i want a sample size of 50 steals before I rely on the stat, I need about 2000 hands.

If you're a TAg, you raise about 12% of your hands. You see the flop about 40-45% of the time you raise (filter PFR=True, note the total hands, then add saw flop = true, note the fraction of pfr hands, easy, ldo). You will have the opportunity to c-bet maybe 85% of the time you see a flop (add filter "could c-bet = true for the actual number) as the preflop raiser. So if you want to have a sample of 40-50 c-bet opportunities before you rely on a TAg's c-bet %, you'll need to have over 1000 hands on him--120 raises, ~51 see the flop, ~40 opportunities to c-bet.

You can go through this thinking for every stat you want to, but it is a waste of time, because you should be considering these stats long before that, and you should have specific notes on players long before you have 1000 hands on them.

"HUD Options" -> "Additional HUD Filters"

You can define the ranges there, and it's a lot more flexible than PT3's option, as you set a range of player numbers to include for each number of players, if that makes sense. (If not, just open the window and you'll see what I was trying to say)