Crush The Game.com

The Destroyer Custom HUD for PokerTracker 3

Finally, here it is. The custom HUD for Poker Tracker 3 known as ‘The Destroyer’ by CrushTheGame.com. This HUD may seem unconventionial at first to some, but it addresses many flaws found in ‘standard’ HUDs and typical opponent modeling practices. Also, this is the first and (as of now) only HUD to feature ‘clickable stats’ – meaning you can click on an individual number and retrieve a pop-up (if one is set) relevant to that number. I’ll walk you through the stats used with ‘The Destroyer.’

(Note: This entire document is provided as a user manual in a PDF format in the download of The Destroyer HUD – accessible with your password that you receive when you purchase this HUD.)

The Big Three

Your 3 most important stats are [VPIP], [Preflop Limp], and [Call PFR]. The ‘standard’ top-priority stats are [VPIP] / [PFR] / and perhaps [Aggression Factor]. These ‘standards’ have been so for 6 years or so. But the game has changed (online) in the past 6 years. Identifying fish quickly and busting them before other regs do is now the name of the game. [VPIP], [Preflop Limp], and [Call PFR] identify fish more quickly and accurately than the old standard or anything else.

For example, if a player has a [VPIP] of 40, a [PFR] of 20, and an [AF] of 2 after 20 hands we don’t know if he is a fish, a TAG, or what. But if this player (with the same [VPIP] and [PFR] stats) has a [Preflop Limp] of 30, and a [Call PFR] of 25 after 20 hands, you can be very certain this player is a fish.

A good player will have a very low [Preflop Limp] stat. Most TAGs are 3 or under. Fish have higher numbers, anywhere from 8 to 100.

A good player may vary a little more widely in [Call PFR], but generally remain under 10. Over 10 becomes pretty easily exploitable.

Sample Size is Everything: Hands

[Hands] is self-explanatory, but I do use an abbreviated notation to save on HUD space. Players with over 1000 hands are rounded to the nearest thousand (k). Players over 100k hands are simply expressed as ’99k.’ This is to keep the numbers from getting too large and spilling onto the table for those players that have large databases. This same principle is applied to all stats on The Destroyer HUD overlay: any stat with a value of 100 will instead be expressed as 99. This saves space and allows for the ‘clickable stats’ feature of this HUD as the stat never moves or shifts from its location.

First Raise Stats

The next row breaks down the player’s preflop raising tendencies. The first stat is [EP-Raise]. This is the player’s preflop raising frequency from early position. The second stat is [LP-RFI]. This is how often a player raises first in from late position. There is no [PFR] in this HUD. [PFR] is a horribly dated ‘standard’ and most players don’t even know that it accounts for ALL preflop raises, not simply ‘making the first raise.’ Therefore the stat is redundant if you have any other ‘preflop raising’ stat such as [3Bet], [4Bet], etc. Since The Destroyer has 6 stats breaking down an opponent’s preflop raising tendencies, [PFR] is uneccessary and useless.

Using [EP-Raise] and [LP-RFI] in tandem also gives you an overview of how much position matters to your opponent. The first stat represents situations where your opponent will very likely be out of position postflop. The second stat represents situations where your opponent will very likely be in position postflop. A solid TAG has stats around 16 | 50 respectively (for 6max) – favoring playing in position far more. A less-positionally-aware TAG may look more like 22 | 33 respectively.

More stats breaking down a player’s ‘opening’ or ‘first raising’ ranges preflop can be found in the First Raise Opportunity Pop-Up, which I will describe shortly below.

3Bet Stats

[LP-3Bet] describes how often a player 3Bets from late position. [BL-3Bet v BUCOs] describes how often a player 3Bets from the blinds facing a button or cutoff steal attempt. It is important to make the distinction between how often a player 3Bets in position versus how often player 3Bets out of position, which is what these stats do respectively.

More 3Betting stats can be found in the 3Bet Opportunity Pop-Up, which I will describe shortly below.

4Bet Stats

Next are [4Bet ^nATS] – which is the range with which a player 4Bets a 3Bet after preflop raising in a ‘non-attempt-to-steal’ situation – and [4Bet ^ATS] – which is the range with which a player 4Bets a 3Bet after attempting to steal the blinds. (I use the ‘carrot’ symbol to mean ‘after’ in my statistics abbreviations.)

Note that these stats are ‘range’ stats. With The Destroyer’s 4Bet ‘range’ stats, the 4Bet ‘opportunity stat’ is multiplied by the first raising range that the opponent has. Other ‘standard’ or ‘default’ 4Bet stats are ‘opportunity stats’ – meaning if a player 4Bets 50% of the time when they have the opportunity, this stat will read ’50.’ However they are likely not 4Betting 50% of hands. So if a player has a first raise stat of 4 and a 4Bet ‘non-ranged’ stat of 50, their ‘ranged’ 4Bet stat would be 2.

If you don’t understand that explanation, just know this: when you look at a stat on this HUD (not neccessarily the pop-ups, as I’ll explain later), it represents a hand range. Every stat = a hand range. If they have a [4Bet ^ATS] stat of 7, it means they are 4Betting after attempting a steal with 7% of all possible hand combinations. I hope now you can see how powerful these little numbers are! Combined with the Pop-Ups (and perhaps NoteCaddy notes), you will know what your opponents likely hold; and if you take the right actions to exploit them, you will destroy the online games!

Auto-Rate

On Auto-Rate and color-coding: I invented a (free) way to color-code every Full Tilt player in my database in less than 10 minutes. It’s easy, and anyone can do it – no special software required; only PT3, Full Tilt, and perhaps Open Office (which is free). Stay tuned to CrushTheGame.com, and I’ll post how to do it soon. For now, you can look at my Auto-Rate definitions below and recognize that the number and color preceding each definition corresponds to a color in Full Tilt’s note database. (edit: this is also possible with PokerStars)

These icons use The Destroyer’s custom statistics to auto-rate players in your Poker Tracker 3 database. The definitions themselves are ‘kind of top-secret,’ but I will say that I’ve never seen anything that so closely models an opponent’s exact exploitable tendencies such as this auto-rate profile. In another post in the near future, I’ll go over how to specifically exploit every icon. For now I’ll explain that:

Passive = Does not bet often
Aggressive = Bets often

Timid = Folds often
Stubborn = Calls often

Straightforward = Does not raise often
Tricky = Raises often

TRUE Ft3b and Ft4b Stats | Notes

To the right of the player name is [Fold To 3Bet ^PFR] and [Fold To 4Bet ^3Bet]. For what makes these stats “true,” see this post. These stats (and the BFCR stats) are color-coded. (All statistic samples used in color-coding are taken from a 10 million+ hand database at 50NL – 200NL full ring and 6max.)

A statistic in the top 25% of all observed players is GREEN.
A statistic between 50% and the top 25% of all observed players is YELLOW.
A statistic between 50% and the bottom 25% of all observed players is ORANGE.
A statistic in the bottom 25% of all observed players is RED.

The [Notes] icon is to the far right. If it is glowing gold, you have a note on this player. If you use NoteCaddy and CrushTheGame’s Flop Defense Notes, you will have some detailed and (as the developer of NoteCaddy has said) “very powerful” notes on your opponents.

[Fold To 3Bet ^PFR], [Fold To 4Bet ^3Bet], and [Notes] icon have a slightly transparent backing since there may be a little overlap over some table information (as you can see in the top picture) if you are mass-multitabling.

The BFCR Model – The Only Way to Go

The bottom row of stats, I often refer to as the BFCR model. In previous posts, I’ve detailed the failures and shortcomings of AF and AFq, as well as the benefits of the BFCR model:

Enough with confusing Aggression Factors and Aggression Frequencies. I wanted to know how often my opponent would bet when they had the opportunity to bet. I wanted to know how often they folded when facing a bet. I wanted to know how often they called when facing a bet. And I wanted to know how often they raised when facing a bet. Sounds simple, but there are no statistics like this available that paint such an accurate picture of your opponent postflop. So I created them.

Under every player’s “seat” are the letters B, F, C, R followed by numbers. These numbers are how often a player bets (when they are not facing a bet) and folds, calls, and raises respectively when they are facing a bet. These numbers accurately describe your opponents’ entire postflop play while forming and converging quickly. You can then exploit your opponents based on tendencies they may have that are outside the boundaries of good play.

Aggression Factor and Aggression Frequency run into trouble because they attempt to define (in one way or another) calling, checking, or folding as ‘passive’ actions. Their usefulness (and the difference between PT3 and HEM in regard to AFq) has been debated online for years now. No one came up with a simple solution until I put the BFCR model in my first HUD a year ago. A bet is a bet, a fold is a fold, a call is a call, and a raise is a raise. They should not be jumbled together in dated formulas that are near impossible to decipher during play – formulas that routinely make incorrect assumptions of a player’s actions or intentions.

How They See You

Lastly, let’s discuss the ‘Hero Stats.’ Here we use the old (crappy) ‘standards.’ Why? Because this is (most likely) how your opponents are viewing you at the table. They are looking at (and struggling to decipher) your [VPIP] / [PFR], your [3Bet Preflop], and your [Cbet Flop] percentages and attempting to model your tendencies based on these numbers. They are (most likely) looking at you in those terms, so you will want to get a grasp on what they may be seeing… and exploit such perceptions if you can.

The Pop-Ups: The Secret Weapons

If you click on [Preflop Limp], [EP-Raise], or [LP-RFI] the First Raise Opportunity Hand Ranges Pop-Up will appear.

The first column gives a description of all the actions a player can take when they voluntarily put money in the pot and have the opportunity to make the first raise preflop. The second column gives the total % (times/opportunities) of times the player takes such an action overall. The second column is color-coded in the same way as the HUD stats.

The rest of the columns depict all hand ranges a player can have in 12 categories. If a hand range is shown in a cell, it means a player has taken that action with that hand range and the hand itself was known, either by getting to showdown or it was voluntarily shown by the player – another reason you should never voluntarily show your cards!

Ooh, Pretty Colors! What Do They Mean?

The hand ranges have their own unique color-coding. A green hand range has shown up 21% of the time or more out of all known hand ranges for that particular action. A yellow hand range has shown up 14% – 21% of the time out of all known hand ranges. A red hand range has shown up 7% – 14% of the time. And a white hand range has shown up less than 7% of the time. You can memorize this if you’d like, but the numbers were more-or-less arbitrarily chosen based on average distribution of hand ranges by your average player taken with most actions. The exact numbers mean little. All you need to take away from the color coding is that:

Green has been shown to occur more than Yellow,
Yellow more than Red,
And Red more than White.

Or, another way of looking at it is:

Red has shown up (on average) twice as often as White, Yellow (on average) 3 times as often as White, and Green (on average) 4 times as often as White.

Yellow has shown up (on average) 1.5 times as often as Red. Green has shown up (on average) twice as often as Red.

And Green has shown up (on average) 1.5 times as often as Yellow.

But again, the easiest thing to remember is:

Green has been shown to occur more than Yellow,
Yellow more than Red,
And Red more than White.

Also, an action row with more colors is more accurate than one without. Why? Because the sample size for that action row (with a variety of colors) is showing a wider dispersion which means the sample size is larger and therefore closer to accuracy.

3Bet Opportunity Hand Ranges

Let’s look at the next pop-up. By clicking on [Call PFR], [LP-3Bet], or [BL-3Bet v BUCOs] you get the 3Bet Opportunity Hand Ranges Pop-Up.

This pop-up covers every action that you may take when facing a first raise (therefore you have a 3Bet opportunity) and voluntarily put money in the pot. It covers ColdCalling, 3Betting, and Squeezing. The expression ‘(sic)’ is used in the description of ColdCalling from the blinds because one is technically not ColdCalling when one has blind money in the pot. But many players still call that action ‘coldcalling’ without knowing the difference. So for the sake of simplicity, I call it a ‘ColdCall(sic)’. Other terminology used in this pop-up:

nvbs = not versus blind steal
BUCOs = button or cutoff steal
SBs = small blind steal

A squeeze is when one player raises, another coldcalls and then the hero (a.k.a. player the stat is about) 3bets.

5Betting after 3Betting is also included in this pop-up.

4Bet Opportunity Hand Ranges

Next, by clicking on [4Bet ^nATS] or [4Bet ^ATS] you will see the 4Bet Opportunity Hand Ranges Pop-Up.

This pop-up covers every action that you may take when facing a 3Bet (therefore you have a 4Bet opportunity) and voluntarily put money in the pot. It covers ColdCalling a 3Bet, 4Betting Cold, Flatting a 3Bet after first raising (in and out of position), and 4Betting. All the abbreviations have been covered already. To ‘flat’ simply means to call (often when your ‘expected action’ is to raise). NOTats is another way of saying ‘nATS’ or ‘not attempt to steal.’

This pop-up also has the stat [C or R 5b ^PFR & 4b] which is ‘call or raise 5Bet after first raising and 4Betting.’ Some guys are more than willing to frequently stack off with 66 or AJ preflop and this stat shows that among other things.

Postflop Actions

Finally, by clicking on any of the BFCR stats you will get the Postflop Actions Pop-Up.

Across the top row are the [Player Name], [Icon], and [VPIP-LP/VPIP] (abbreviated [VLP/V]) stats, with BFCR stats broken down over all postflop streets making up the rest of the pop-up.

[VLP/V] means VPIP of LP divided by total VPIP. It produces a statistic that tells you how well a player plays in position. A higher number (also color-coded green to yellow to orange to red) means more positional awareness and late position play. A lower number represents a less positionally aware opponent.

Position is EVERYTHING

One last thing must be addressed with The Destroyer HUD for Poker Tracker 3. This HUD uses unique position definitions that are logical, effective, and easy to understand, though (for some inane reason) they are not considered ‘standard.’ Every time Crush The Game refers to position – whether in a statistic, HUD, or strategy discussion – we will be referring to the following breakdown:

The button is ‘Position 0,’ the cutoff ‘Position 1,’ and so on – going counter-clockwise around all available positions until finally reaching the small blind.

You can see that in a 6-handed game, the first 2 positions are Early Position, the cutoff is Middle Position, and the button is Late Position. There is more differentiation of hand ranges between the button and cutoff than between first and second position, so it makes sense to catagorize positions as I’ve done. I believe the 9 and 10-handed position definitions accurately reflect how many players view position in respect to their hand ranges as well.

First to act in a 3-handed game, you are not in Early Position. You are in Late Position. Because your hand range will more closely resemble a Late Position hand range than an Early Position Hand Range. And so on.

As I said, these definitions are pretty logical and straightforward. They should be the ‘standard.’ But logic doesn’t always prevail in mass-accepted schools of thought, and it often takes a while for a new, ‘more correct’ way of thinking to be accepted, even among guys who think they’re smart. (And I’ve often fallen in the same traps as everyone else, to be sure!)

An Important Note

Before importing ‘The Destroyer’ or any custom statistics or HUD, be sure to back up your existing configuration. If you are lost on what to back up and how, simply copy your entire Poker Tracker 3 folder (from where it is installed) and paste this copy somewhere safe before making any changes. This will at least protect everything as you had it before you imported. (There are more precise instructions on how to back up on the ‘Download Poker Software Tools’ page.)

Also…

Setting up this HUD may require some time and a little bit of effort to get situated just right on the part of the user. Since almost every stat (on the HUD overlay) has its own ‘box,’ each stat will need to be positioned by the user wherever the user would like the ‘box’ to go. This is intentional to provide the user with more customization of The Destroyer HUD, though at a small sacrifice of ‘out-of-the-box’ instant ‘plug and play’ wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am usability.

The HUD overlay will not look like the very first picture shown above ‘out-of-the-box.’ You will need to move the little numbers around to your liking by clicking and dragging with ‘right-click.’ This will take about a half hour or so depending on how deft you are at moving a mouse. Once they are positioned how you’d like them, click ‘Save Layout’ under the PT3 icon on the table, and you are good to go for all future use.

PC Requirements

This HUD is POWERFUL. It (of course) requires PT3 – HEM users are unfortunately out of luck (HEM does not have the same capability as PT3 to create custom statistics) – a computer and an Online Poker Client (Full Tilt, Poker Stars, or any of the other dozen or so sites) supported by PT3.

But while CrushTheGame’s ‘old HUD’ a.k.a. ‘The Crusher’ was designed to be usable on nearly any machine (the PC it was programmed on was almost 10 years old), The Destroyer runs best on a top-of-the-line system. I personally am using an Intel Quad-Core with 8GB RAM and 2 SSDs (one for Windows 7 and one for a dedicated PT3 database) and my setup runs smooth as silk. The Destroyer has been successfully tested on Dual Core computers with 2GB RAM and better. If you have a question about the capabilities of your computer running The Destroyer, feel free to post in the forum.

Purchase The Destroyer HUD Here!

Tags: 3-betting, hold 'em, HUD, isolating, no limit, NoteCaddy, notes, opponent modeling, Poker, poker software, poker tools, Poker Tracker, PT3, statistics

2 Comments to The Destroyer Custom HUD for PokerTracker 3

1. [...] The Destroyer HUD has been released and is described here. [...]
Free Upgrade to The Destroyer HUD | Crush The Game.com on October 28th, 2010

2. [...] incorporate Auto-Rate into their game. I suggest something like the powerful rules I use in my Destroyer HUD. I’ve also outlined how I exploit players using Auto-Rate with my Crusher HUD here. My [...]
Color Code Your Full Tilt & Poker Stars Notes | Crush The Game.com on November 4th, 2010

Leave a comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.