This question has always been really funny to me. After having played poker for 14+ years, and discussed this topic with live and online players over the years, I’ve made some conclusions about the people who are in the HUD’s should be illegal camp.

  1.  They tend to be pretty set in their ways about thinking… about A LOT of things. Not just HUDs.
  2.  They seem like they don’t want to bother to try and figure out what HUD stats really are.
  3.  Most of them, not all, tend to be less mathematically inclined.

 

So are HUDs an unfair advantage?

My answer to “Are HUD’s an unfair advantage?” is this: YES, they are an unfair advantage.

I recently expanded on this in an online interview, which I said:

Poker HUD’s gives an unfair advantage the same way that if you were playing tennis against someone, and your opponent spent the time to get their racket strung properly before the match, had the best tennis shoes on, had their rackets gripped properly and spent time analyzing and studying their game on film.

The advantage in any game and in life in general, is going to go to the person who does their due diligence, puts in the work, and gives their best effort. It’s always been a silly argument to me that people want to say HUDs are somehow unfair.

It’s a tool, and an amazing tool that every poker player should have, and I’m not saying that just because I sell one. J It’s honestly the way I improved the most as a poker player, which was tracking my results, running filters, reviewing my hands in re-players, exporting and posting them on poker forums.

But it’s a tool. It’s not going to magically make you a better poker player, just like having the best tennis racket isn’t going to make you the best tennis player.

Online poker is NOT live poker. Anyone who is trying to make online poker live poker is just selling you a gimmick. The sites that want to ban HUDs to have the appearance of being fairer are doing themselves a disservice because it will just push the software into the black market where good mid and high stakes players will pay a lot of money to have custom developed personal HUDs that no one else will have access to.

You can’t stop HUDs on any site. It’s not possible. Sites like Pokerstars did the intelligent thing, which was regulating the use of HUDs. That’s the more reasonable position, but people generally tend to sway from one extreme to another extreme in a lot of areas of life.

Common sense regulation is the better way to approach things so that all groups’ needs are met and satisfied and you eliminate creating unfair advantages for small groups that can afford to pay extreme amounts of money.

 

Final words

Everyone is entitled to their opinion on this topic. I sell a HUD, so I have an invested stake in how they are perceived. But I genuinely think that poker HUDs and databases are the absolute BEST tool you can invest in as a poker player, of any level.

They are amazing tools that personally helped me to become a good player I am today. If you don’t have one… get one. Most importantly, use it. Review all of your sessions. Post hands, and run equity calculations. You’ll be glad you did, as you’ll always have something to reference and learn from… which is your own play. Of course, I recommend DriveHUD. But there are many good HUDs out there today.

 

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What we’re all about at

Ace Poker Solutions

We offer the highest EV poker software, and training tools available on the net. These are recommended and used by today’s top poker players from the world. We’ve been doing this since 2009 with the emphasis on offering unique and creative poker software that will help any level of poker player be a more thoughtful and successful player at the table. We’d invite you to check these titles out:

 

PokerZion – Get Started with PokerZion’s Proven Poker Training for $7! From over 12+ years of playing poker, combined with techniques and tactics used to win over $500k+ in cash games, this the most comprehensive structured learning course on no-limit holdem. And it’s only7$! All lessons include a combination of poker training videos, written and audio modules, quizzes and articles.

 

leak busterLeak Buster Software – Leak Buster is a poker software that interfaces with your Holdem Manager or PokerTracker database, and extracts key statistics about your play in order to find your largest poker leaks. Its unique scoring algorithm weighs the impact of your leak against average win-rates. And it suggests ways to correct those leaks through the use of videos (over 50) and written modules.

 

DriveHUD – DriveHUD is a poker database and HUD for your online poker play. It overlays a HUD on your online poker tables, and display vital stats about each opponent on your table. It tracks and records all of the hands that you play online. This allows you to review, re-play, filter, graph and analyze all of the hands you’ve played. So you can improve your poker game.

 

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Ace Poker Drills – Ace Poker Drills is a poker training software that gives you a “flash card” style training for Odds and Outs, Equity, and Pre-Flop play. The Pre-Flop trainer will help you to easily recognize which hands to play in different positions. Odds and Outs trainer will get you to quickly calculate your odds and outs in various situations. Equity Trainer will quiz you on equity calculations for different hands. Then you can know your equity in any given scenario.