Basic HUD and Autorate Rules for Tournament Poker

Playing a larger number of tournaments lately has led me to reexamine my Heads-Up Display (HUD) and find useful autorate rules for tournament play. After all of these years of cash game play, the adjustment to smaller sample sizes and mostly pre-flop play requires a very different HUD and autorate system.

I started by hunting around online for solid tournament players and their stats and found almost nothing. Many tournament players don't use an HUD and those who use tracking software don't seem to talk stats the way that cash game players do. This is probably because these programs aren't necessary for beating tournaments like they are for serious cash games. They aren't as useful because of smaller average sample sizes and lower stack to big blind ratios, but an HUD can definitely increase your win rate in tournament play.

After doing some research, I was able to determine that the best tournament players tend to have the following stat ranges:

VPIP: 12% to 19%
PFR: 8% to 12%
3bet: 4% to 8%

Using stats like WTSD, Cbet, and anything that is tested less often than once per hand just isn't practical. You will rarely get enough hands to get an accurate 3bet stat and getting the 500-hand minimum to make a showdown stat useful is very rare in tournament situations. Even if you get the requisite number of hands, the stat won't be useful for the portion of the tournament where play usually involves the shortest stack getting all-in before the flop.

Pre-flop stats are more important because they are useful at any point in the tournament. They’re also easier to get because they are tested every hand. When you really need the stats, like when you are facing an all-in re-raise, pre-flop stats will give you a feel for who your opponent actually is.

In cash games, you can often examine the spot you are in and how your opponent has dealt with this kind of situation in the past. This is rarely possible in tournaments. In a tournament, you need to use your HUD in combination with good note-taking when you are able to understand who your opponent is and how they think. Then, you can extrapolate what their hand range is, what their calling range might be, and any other information you might need to make your decision.

This approach has led me to use a very simple HUD:

Icon: The autorate system in Holdem Manager works great and provides instant reads on many opponents if it is set up correctly. My autorate rules for tournaments are posted at the bottom of this article.

M: This is Harrington's M and I color-code it to the Harrington system so that I see a red or orange number as an alert. I remember not to raise into an opponent with a short stack unless I am willing to call their all-in push.

Hands: It's important to know how many hands are in your sample on a player. Within 20 hands, you will probably have enough accuracy to determine if a player is tight or loose and within 50 hands, your VPIP and PFR numbers will be in the right range.

I put the two items above into their own panel, which goes directly above each player's name. Below each player's name, I have another panel with the three pre-flop stats that I find most useful:

VPIP: I leave this white at all times, but many people prefer to color-code it. Anyone above 20 is a loose player and anyone above 26 is too loose for a nine-handed table.

PFR: This number should be around 70% of the VPIP number. If it's much lower, the opponent is very passive pre-flop and easy to play against.

3bet: This requires a bigger sample size, at least 50 hands, but it can be very useful. Anyone below 5% is a good target to steal from when the blinds get high enough. A player with a 3bet percentage above 9% is re-stealing a lot and it's best not to steal from them. You'll get their money when you pick up a real hand if they last that long.

If you are a cash game player, this HUD will seem incredibly simple. Reading an HUD in tournaments is much easier and takes less time, which allows you to check stack sizes on players yet to act and think about tournament payout structures and push/fold plays.

If you are playing more than a few tournament tables, especially if you are multi-tabling sit and gos, you may want to have the software show your color-coded M to make push/fold decisions quicker and make sure you don't miss profitable opportunities.



When you are using stats, you can alter your note-taking. You don't need to note whether a player is tight or loose unless you see something truly remarkable or something that stats wouldn't tell you. Use your notes in combination with your HUD stats to help you understand who your opponents are and see through their eyes.