What's in Your HUD with Ryan Laplante (Protential)

We sat down with Ryan "Protential" Laplante just before he made the final table of the Hot $162 on PokerStars for $5,400.  In addition to this tournament and taking fourth place in the PokerStars Sunday Supersonic for over $18,000 over the weekend, Ryan has accumulated almost $1.5 million in online tournament cashes as tracked on PocketFives and almost $450,000 in live cashes as tracked by TheHendonMob.
 
PokerSoftware: What poker software are you currently using while playing and studying?
 
Ryan Laplante: PokerTracker 4 is without a doubt the most powerful and useful tool I use as a poker player. The HUD is useful while I play and all of the stats and built-in visualization tools and calculators are incredibly useful for studying.  It is also an incredibly powerful tool for the coaching that I do. I also am using ICMizer 2 a decent amount to check final table scenarios.
 
PokerSoftware: What are the most important stats to you in your HUD?
 
Ryan Laplante: The HUD I use is very simple, as I play tournaments for a living and thus there are only a few stats important over small sample sizes found in tournaments.  Here are the two lines:
 
Name/Hands
VPIP/PFR/3b/4b/steal
 
Due to the level of volume I play, I have more than 500 hands on almost every tournament reg on PokerStars and there are many who I have more than 1,000 hands on.  Against these guys, I will use my dropdown menu a lot to look at RFI by position, 3b by/vs position, squeeze, and C-bet. I usually only look at these if I have 200+ hands on someone and oftentimes need 500+.
 
Another tool I use extensively is a note-taking system. I use the notes built into Stars to color-code people and leave notes, but rely heavily on my color-coding to make decisions. I have a five-tiered color system to mark regs and also have a color for "fun players." It is useful to me because when I know how good a player is relative to myself in skill, I can estimate how their range will look in various situations to a higher degree of accuracy.
 
PokerSoftware:  How do you use PokerTracker 4 during your coaching sessions?
 
Ryan Laplante:  I use PT4 in my coaching sessions through reviewing hand histories my students send me as well as going over general stats of theirs. Usually over the course of a full-length MTT hand history, which usually takes two hours to go over, I can find the huge majority of a student's leaks and give them a great idea how to move forward with fixing them.
 
Another great way to use it in coaching is if a student wants to work on 3b pots only, you can quickly and easily make a report that shows only 3 bet pots and do a targeted review session. There are many other great ways to use it as well!
 
PokerSoftware: How easy is ICMIZER to use and are you thinking of using any similar analysis software?
 
Ryan Laplante:  ICMIZER is very easy to use and get used to.  I've also dabbled around with PIOSolver, Range vs Range, and HoldemResources. HoldemResources is a great program, but has a steep learning curve compared to others. I do intend to use it more and will have a lot of spare time when I'm back in the USA.  As I intend to play cash games more, using HoldemResources will be very useful for me.
 
PokerSoftware: What is your view on the crackdown of poker software taking place across a variety of sites?
 
Ryan Laplante: Banning HUDs certainly hurts me, but it hurts all regs who use them, so I don't necessarily see it as being a bad thing overall for my edge. I do think it will hurt the sites though.  I believe they underestimate the number of people who use HUDs that generate for them a strong net positive income. I also am perfectly fine with them banning seat-scripting, NoteCaddy, and graphical HUDs. These are all pretty powerful tools and are very predatory as well.
 
My only real issue with them banning HUDs in the future is enforcement of the ban. If they can't enforce it well, it will just hurt many players.
 
PokerSoftware: Where can someone watch you play or get coaching from you?
 
Ryan Laplante: My website for coaching is pokerprotential.com and anyone can watch my Twitch stream at twitch.tv/pr0tentialmn.

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