Do you think huds for Online Poker have ruined the essence of poker or made it better?

Even though I use a HUD I would prefer that nobody were allowed them. I think poker would be better without them.

I kinda see it as like if steroids were legal in sports, even if you were against them on principle, if you wanted to compete against everyone else you'd have no choice but to take em or be insanely disadvantaged.

Originally posted by Metamorphis
Do you think these tools in a way bastardized the game, or made it better by perfecting the essence of perfect poker play?

The HUD is unnecessary if you are playing one or two tables, and have the leisure to take frequent accurate notes.

What HUDs have done is enable mass multi-table poker.

When playing 12-16 tables simultaneously in live casinos, I greatly appreciate the stats floating over the heads of the other players

Sorry, I couldn't resist that.

HUDs can even cause problems if you make decisions based on them when the sample size is very small. Very small can be < 1000 hands if you are looking at things like "fold to river CBet".

I'm curious as to what other members will have to say.

Best of luck,
--VS

good for zoom pokers

Reads and paying attention > hud for me any day at micros. I suspect it may be needed more higher up. I remember reading somewhere one high stakes player stating categorically that anyone who plays online without a hud could never beat him, can't think offhand who that was though.

I only play micros and can multi-table up to 12 without one on standard tables. I find it distracting and most of the information is either irrelevant, surplus to requirements, or has little bearing on the player pool.

And you would be amazed at how many posts I've seen in the forums where people have put 'Villain is a X type and plays blah blah stats this and stats that...but over 39 hands...should I go all in, he folds 85% to 4bet push.
No he doesn't, he has up to now, but he doesn't necessarily; not the same. I think relying on the hud and misinterpreting the data it supplies is a huge mistake at micros and so huds should be discouraged until our heros really understand what it's telling them, really understand.
#rantover

But then I don't often need to know when the villain last 3 bet bluffed the turn on a monotone board in a min 4bet pot multiway on a rainy Wednesday between 2pm and 3:45pm.

Regards,

Mal.

it shifts things from a feel-based approach to a more math-oriented, frequency-based approach, which is good for people who are strong at math i guess.

I would prefer that HUDs did not exist, although I use a HUD myself, I believe it takes out a lot from the game and turns it into a stat based decision making game, that is, the person that knows how to use the overwhelming amount of info best and knows which stat is more reliable/relevant for a certain villain wins. That sucks

Also players nowadays analyze stats, improve the display of their huds, ask other players what stats they use, etc instead of thinking about the game.

I think allowing HUD it makes easier to average players make profit in long term, mostly it's good fore semipro players, were poker is just for alternative income. Without hud players have to invest enormous amount of time analyzing, taking notes and of course forget about multitabling. It would give a much bigger edge for pro players and I believe there would be also a huge different for average pro and top pro's. Your profit would heavily depend on time you spend learning and analyzing your's and others game.

That just my thought's. For me allowing HUD is great thing, playing in micros part of the players don't use any apps and it give me much bigger edge against them, without it, I just won't spent time after my daily job on hard thinking ♦ I most likely multi table like furniture.

ps. Myb someone has some facts or knowledge about this - what could be average % of players that use hud in micros?

about previous post, I am thinking about micros limits...

Originally posted by Paakjis
I think allowing HUD it makes easier to average players make profit in long term, mostly it's good fore semipro players, were poker is just for alternative income. Without hud players have to invest enormous amount of time analyzing, taking notes and of course forget about multitabling. It would give a much bigger edge for pro players and I believe there would be also a huge different for average pro and top pro's. Your profit would heavily depend on time you spend learning and analyzing your's and others game.

Well, this wasn't really what I was getting at, I apologize for not being able to converse that well enough in my first post. I understand what it's for, how it's used and why it's great. My question was based more towards the ethical/moral question about the tools because I'm interested in what the poker community really thinks about it when we're looking at it from a moral standpoint and the gentleman's game known as poker.

Shouldn't enormous amount of time analyzing, taking personal notes and depending on personal learning and experience from playing poker be the main essence rather than getting most/a lot of data ''handed to you''?

Originally posted by mbml
it shifts things from a feel-based approach to a more math-oriented, frequency-based approach, which is good for people who are strong at math i guess.

No doubt about it being great for certain players or players that knows how to use them, but do you think it takes a little bit away from actually playing the game from how it's intended to be played?

HUDs are bad m'kay
I would be happy if they were unavailable to everyone. It definately saps he joy out of playing like a spazz monkey if you start getting light calldowns. I agree that it is really a tool to allow multitabling, which allows marginal winning players to scrape a living. I think there would be way more recreational players if it wasn't inevitable that they would lose whatever limit they play.
If you believe poker folklore then that there Viktor Blom plays without a hud and was pwning all and sundry until ?Hastings played vs. him using hud and data mined hands and busted him. IDK how much truth there is in this story but part of me wants to believe that you should be able to rise to the top without using a hard statistical analysis of your opponent's game.
I should state for the record that I have a huge man-crush on Blom. he's on my gay laminate

I play on a site that does not allow HUD's and I like that fact.

If you are playing live, not like you can use a HUD:)

I did try the freetrial (off this site) for Holdem Manager, or something like that.

I ended up using it for 2 days (just trying it out on ipoker), but didn't like it tbh. I spoke to a couple of my mates about it, who are top notch players, they never have or want to use a HUD.

The only way i'd ever want to use a HUD would be if I was playing Zoom, cause quite simply there is no other way of getting reads. But overall I dislike the idea of huds.

It's unfair on rec players who will most likely not have a HUD. It is detrimental to poker overall imo.

And gives certain players an unfair advantage, if more sites banned HUD's it would make for a more even playing field. Anything that can be done to protect recreational players is a big positive in my opinion.

I wonder if a savvy player could defeat a HUD by switching from LAG to Nit style fairly frequently.

I play like a LAG if I have two or three nits at the table, and like a nit if I have a couple of LAGs, but I don't switch back and forth in a session.

Hmmmm,
--VS

I am looking at it in different way, if you are talking about essence of the poker and gentelmans game as you called it, you need to go play live, look at online poker as a different game, there is poker and than there is an online poker.

I believe poker in general was never intended to be played online as back in the day there were no pc or internet, as the game and technology evolved it, people saw the opportunity to EARN money by providing online poker to other people, i guess there was a time when there were no hem or pt, but as everyone wanted to get an edge over other players, pt and hem got invented and poker sites saw that as a great way to EARN MORE money than before, because with these programs people are able to play more tables and that means more rake to them, that is the main reason why these programs always will be available And i think its win-win situation for sites and players because it helps to maximize profits for both.

But it really comes down to what is your definition of "poker essence"

Originally posted by Rufus433
I am looking at it in different way, if you are talking about essence of the poker and gentelmans game as you called it, you need to go play live, look at online poker as a different game, there is poker and than there is an online poker.

I believe poker in general was never intended to be played online as back in the day there were no pc or internet, as the game and technology evolved it, people saw the opportunity to EARN money by providing online poker to other people, i guess there was a time when there were no hem or pt, but as everyone wanted to get an edge over other players, pt and hem got invented and poker sites saw that as a great way to EARN MORE money than before, because with these programs people are able to play more tables and that means more rake to them, that is the main reason why these programs always will be available And i think its win-win situation for sites and players because it helps to maximize profits for both.

But it really comes down to what is your definition of "poker essence"

Very good post which I agree with completely.

Originally posted by Rufus433
I am looking at it in different way, if you are talking about essence of the poker and gentelmans game as you called it, you need to go play live, look at online poker as a different game, there is poker and than there is an online poker.

Now we're getting conversations going. (I read the entirety of your post and will adress them). My initial thought was that poker is illegal where I live and the only games I know of is steep stakes for me with shady albanians. The lowest BI being about 200$ so I'd guess 400$ BI or more would be expected. The only way I can play live is with people I probably wouldn't even want to know knew how my face looks like, and this is coming from someone with an albanian background as well. Those I know of doesn't play poker for cash even though I've tried to get some games going. But I realized that's besides the point, poker was illegal for quite some time and it didn't stop them. My inability to find games in my range is my problem, not poker in general.

However, when I think more about it online poker is supposed to be a simulation of the real thing. With huds it drifts away from that, and seeing how online poker play gains recognition from the likes of Doyle Brunson even though he doesn't play online himself I feel personally that when something is somewhat or completely accepted by legends and those being among the firsts in many things it gets a pass even though it may be in the grey area. Sure development of the game will always be made, but I feel like a line must be drawn somewhere and that's at HUD's.

I would say the main essence is the actual playing for cash, two cards versus one or more opponents without any outside help, you and your brain only.

might be biased as a zoom player, but i think the line is drawn at datamining and multiaccounting.
that said, when even the top players do it and not much really happens, can we really talk about there being any kind of line anywhere?

Huds are good. Without them if you lets say take notes by mind, you would never be able to get some of stats like fold to river cbet because this needs big sample.

Unless you would work exactly like holdem manager - track each hand, write it somewhere like excell or database and then process this data you self, excel can calculate statistics. Would be same as HEM but would it be much more interesting? It probably would not be worth to invest time.

But the thing is - the less info you know - the more gambling is involved. We want more strategy, not more gambling.

Nice conversation and some really interesting thoughts being well presented.
For my part, I have decided to refine my initial opposition to the HUD somewhat, in which I inferred the visible information is too easily misinterpreted and/or applied.
I was mostly referring to newer, or less competent players, of course, I have no experience of advanced competence!

Others have put forward the argument that it's better to use your brain, levelling the playing field so to speak, and that a HUD have disadvantages, even negatively discriminates against, a HUD have not.

Even given this was my knee-jerk opinion I cannot agree with it anymore, it seems a very it's blinkered and possibly even elitist attitude and here is why I think this.

Most people can have a HUD if they want one, you can even get one for just depositing and playing, or you can get one through some sort of promotion, that sort of thing. I think there are even free ones but I suggest that without substantiation.
The obvious counter that new players don't know about HUDs doesn't hold water in my opinion, because there is enough information available to find out. For those who don't know what a HUD is, ask or research poker before you play, or don't and gamble.
I likely wouldn't try to do something without finding out what equipment and skills I needed first, especially if it was going to cost me money to do it. Yes, it is a little facetious, but the point my clear I think.

My main point however, is that a HUD can be very beneficial to people who are playing now, or would like to play, but who may have some sort of disability or incapacity that prevents them from assimilating the vast array of data a poker player is presented with even during one session on just one table.

Furthermore, how many times have we sat in frustration at how long it takes a villain to click a damned button! Did we consider they may be disabled?
Playing with a physical disability offers further disadvantages - and possibly some advantages - in that it may inhibit note taking (suggest in an earlier post) in the timespan available. I have used voice activated software often enough as an educational tool to have experienced some of the limitations on offer there (perhaps some I.T. super hero has further insight). A HUD in such instances could be of valuable assistance.

I really do try to play without a HUD but have weak retention which does make it difficult, which is why I try to play without one.

So would the detractors ( myself included initially) discriminate against such people, intentionally or otherwise?

My arguments may not be succinctly presented or even correct, but I am available for education!

tl;dr my drivel:

A HUD could in itself be a ' field leveller.'

HUDs ruined poker. Gave all the severe fan boys an upperhand and has made the game worse.