888poker has become the latest poker site to introduce its own integrated HUD (Heads-Up Display) in a move aimed at leveling the playing field by giving all players the same basic information about their opponents.
The new HUD is available across all 888poker games and variants (cash tables, MTTs, SNAP), offering quick and easy access to essential player information, giving you important insights about your opponents’ playing style and tendencies.
Many poker sites have moved towards using integrated HUDs while banning third-party software solutions, aiming to level the playing field and provide all players, recreational and grinders alike, access to the same information. The solution tries to strike a balance between banning HUDs altogether and giving more experienced players a significant edge over their more casual opponents.
Free, Simple, and Available to All
The new 888poker Heads-Up display is now part of the software on desktop and browser platforms alike. You don’t need to go through any special steps to set it up, either. From now on, the HUD interface will appear next to every opponent at your table.
The Gameplay HUD offers a lot of important information to give you a solid idea of what your opponents’ tendencies might be. The stats shown are:
- VPIP (Voluntarily Put Money Into the Pot)
- Total number of hands played at the table
- PFR percentage
- 3-bet percentage
- Total tournament winnings
As those familiar with HUDs well know, this type of information is invaluable when figuring out the correct strategy against a particular opponent. Of course, its actual value increases with the number of hands that the sample is based on, as the data collected over a larger hand sample will be much more reliable in showing a player’s true tendencies.
Play Better Poker With 888poker Gameplay HUD
Even if you don’t have much previous experience with HUDs, it’s not hard to learn to read the basic stats like VPIP, PFR, and 3-bet. You just need to memorize what the normal or standard values are for these stats, and you’ll be able to easily notice players who fall outside of these parameters.
Ian Simpson, an 888poker ambassador, explains it nicely in the video above, but the fundamentals of it are quite simple. If you know someone is playing tight, only raising and 3-betting with very strong hands, you’ll want to avoid getting involved with marginal hands.
Another interesting piece of information included in the 888poker HUD is the player’s lifetime tournament winnings. This number alone can tell you a lot about their experience level, as someone with six-figure winnings stands to be a much more experienced (and dangerous) opponent than someone with just a few hundred to their name.
Of course, there can be exceptions to this rule, but this information will be quite reliable in over 95% of cases.
The bottom line is that 888poker now gives all players access to the same info, so you’ll never be at a disadvantage, and you’ll have a lot to go on when deciding how to proceed in a hand. This adds a fun new element to the play and gives you a chance to put your skills to work and test your ability to adjust to different types of opponents, which is one of the most important traits of a winning poker player.