High Stakes Limit Hold'em HUDs Revealed

We’ve seen that most of the high-stakes No Limit Hold’em players enjoy a “less is more” attitude with their Heads-Up Displays (HUDs).  With so many stats in play against players that do nothing but meta-game against others, the HUD is more often than not a misleading guide in a hostile jungle.  This time around, we’ll take a look at the Limit Hold’em players and see what they use in their HUDs.

Our first high-stakes Limit Hold’em player we found was StoxPoker instructor Ijay Palansky.  We found a video he did about a year ago playing $100-$200 against noted pro Tuan Lam.  The video actually showed Palansky playing one table of Limit Six-Max and playing Tuan heads-up.  His HUD is quite robust and includes VPIP, Won at Showdown, Pre-Flop Raise, 3bet, Aggression Factor, Steal, Flop Bet, Check-Raise the Turn, Check-Raise the River, Fold Versus Turn Cbet, and Fold River.  This is the kind of HUD that poker stat junkies will absolutely love and gets into some interesting figures that are of value to the Limit Hold’em game.

Bryce Paradis is one of the most accomplished online professional Limit Hold’em players and has won millions in only a few years’ time.  His mathematical approach to the game revolutionized how players approached Limit games in general.  He uses an HUD with a more basic layout than we saw with Palansky.  In his HUD, we see VPIP, PFR, Steal, AF, Fold to Steal, and number of hands.  It’s a slimmer and less informative HUD that acts more as a general guide than a true table assistant.

Brian Townsend is an instructor at CardRunners and a very well-known pro both online and live.  He’s done a few videos in conjunction with Paradis for both CardRunners and StoxPoker.  In his videos, he also has a slimmed-down HUD with basic stats like VPIP, PFR, AF, 3bet, and number of hands.  It seems that Paradis and Townsend both subscribe to the more minimal side of the HUD and it should be noted that both are heads-up specialists.

Brian Aleska typically plays Six-Max Limit and has gained a bit of a reputation for taking some surly notes on opponents.  He also uses an HUD and includes stats such as VPIP, PFR, AF, Went to Showdown, Attempt to Steal, Folds the Big Blind, and Check-Raises the Turn.  There were many times in Aleska’s $15-$30 coaching videos on StoxPoker that he consults with the HUD and uses it, while mainly relying on his table reads.

StoxPoker produced a video in the French language by Renaud123, who played $50-$100 Limit.  The interesting thing here is that he used no HUD at all.

For the most part with the high-stakes Limit online poker players, we’re seeing that they usually employ an HUD with basic stats.  It seems that Went to Showdown and Check-Raise stats are much more important to Limit players than their No Limit counterparts.  Clearly, the micro- and small-stakes Limit games populated by a majority of the poker playing public will have vastly different needs HUD-wise than these high-stakes hotshots.