Since I discussed color-coding your Holdem Manager HUD, I kept reminding myself to also post the color ranges for individual poker stats. A couple of readers who are new to poker contacted me for the same reason as well and today I finally decided to publish the optimal range of each statistic.
You see, when I began playing online poker and studied about VPIP, PFR and W$SD% stats I had trouble finding the correct numbers for each of those. We all read that having a high VPIP is a no-no and a quick way to the poor house, but what does “high VPIP” exactly mean? Granted if you have been doing your homework, you already know that optimal VPIP percentage is between 18 and 22 at 6-max tables. But what about 3bet percentage, or steal, or even Fold to Turn Continuation Bet?
Reading a bunch of stats in your poker HUD doesn’t help much unless you know what those figures actually mean.
For the impatient poker players out there, you can download my personal Holdem Manager HUD including all the color coding you’ll read further below and import it in your poker software.
First I need to make a reference to the LeakBuster application of Holdem Manager.
LeakBuster is a small add-on of HEM 2 which promises to find your leaks when it scans your poker hands. Unfortunately you have to pay to grab it but several players have found it extremely helpful. Obviously, the more experienced player you are, the less use you’ll find of the software.
All that LeakBuster does is compare your personal statistics to the optimal ranges and point out the stats that deviate from the average expected figures.
Still it’s packed with many analysis’ pages and sophisticated filters that will definitely make an impact in your game, especially if you are a losing player. You could manually create these kinds of filters, but what you pay for is the time and effort to do all that.
But enough with LeakBuster. Let’s move on to the HUD and the optimal ranges of the stats.
Open Holdem Manager 2, go to HUD options and then select Stat Appearance from the left vertical menu. Default 2.0 HUD should have already been chosen, so you already have some stats to work with.
First, an example with VPIP statistic:
TOT VPIP: 14/18/25/31/inf
Alright, what does that mean? TOT VPIP is of course Voluntarily Put (money $) In Pot %. If that percentage is low you are playing tight, if it’s high you are playing very loose – and probably losing money. Clicking on that VPIP, you’ll notice three colors on the right, red for less than 15, orange for 15-30 and green for more than 30. These are called color ranges.
However this range is a very general one, as you can’t adapt your play whether the villain has a 16% VPIP or 28% VPIP.
What you need to do is create two additional ranges and change the ones found already. Set red for Less than 14, orange for between 14 and 18, blue for 18-25, yellow for 25-31 and green for more than 31%. Now each time you meet a player with a red VPIP stat in your HUD, treat that person as a super tight player.
Note again, I’m talking about 6-max games. When another player’s VPIP stat is colored green, you instantly know he is playing very loose; go for value against him.
The colors I have used in all of my HUD’s stats follow the same pattern, red-orange-blue-yellow-green going from low’s to high’s. Depending on the stat in question, red may lead to a different strategy.
For instance, a red VPIP means villain plays few hands but a low SB Fold to Steal (also red) means they are playing a lot of hands from the small blind. Therefore we have to continue with only premium hands against this opponent, except when he is defending from the small blind!
Here are all the stats and their color ranges in my Holdem Manager HUD:
TOT PFR: 10/14/20/25/inf
TOT 3bet: 4/5.8/9/12/inf
TOT 4bet Range: 1.6/2.8/inf (3 ranges)
EP RFI: 9/13/19/23/inf
MP RFI: 11/17/22/26/inf
PostFlop AggFactor: 1.8/2.3/4.1/5/inf
PostFlop Agg%: 28/34/40/47/inf
Turn Agg%: 22/27/37/44/inf
River Agg%: 19/22/30/36/inf
TOT Fold to 3bet: 45/67/80/86/inf
Flop Cbet: 53/62/75/80/inf
Flop Fold to Cbet: 40/48/63/68/inf
Turn Cbet: 31/39/53/58/inf
Turn Fold to Cbet: 30/36/48/56/inf
WonSD%: 49/51/58.6/61/inf
TOT Steal: 28.5/31.28/40.2/41.8/inf
SB Fold to Steal: 75/89/inf (3 ranges)
BB Resteal: 7.6/13.6/inf (3 ranges)
TOT Squeeze: 4.5/7.6/inf (3 ranges)
Regarding the poker stats with just 3 color ranges, I would choose red – blue – green to define them.
In conclusion, when a villain’s stat is shown in blue, they are playing optimally on that particular section of the game. This means when you play against a player with blue TOT Steal%, you need to pay close attention to their game each time they try stealing the blinds, since they are stealing at the optimal frequency percentage!
