The management of 888poker has just announced the release of an all new gameplay HUD (Heads-up Display) available for every player who competes at their virtual felts. The HUD contains up to five statistics categories for Texas Hold’em games, and will appear once a player hovers over the avatar of an opponent (or their own avatar).
What is VPIP?
“Voluntarily Put in Pot” is a metric defined by the percentage of hands a player contributes chips into a pot voluntarily. A high VPIP (such as 40%) means that an opponent is playing a lot of hands.
What is PFR?
“Preflop Raise” is a statistic that shows the percentage of hands in which a player is raising preflop. A higher PFR typically signals aggressive preflop play, while a lower PFR rate points to the opposite.
What is 3Bet?
A “3Bet” is represents another step of preflop aggression. It occurs when a player re-raises the action after another player has already raised the action preflop.
The 3Bet tactic can be especially useful for players who desire to either win the entire pot before the community cards arrive by “bluffing,” or to “price out” opponents when a player possesses premium hole cards.
A very low 3Bet percentage may mean that a player is playing very “tight” during preflop action, while a very high 3Bet rate could point to a player being overly aggressive by attempting to win a lot of raised preflop pots without seeing community cards.
What is Number of Hands?
The number of hands counter that you will see when hovering over a player’s avatar while competing online at 888poker simply means that number of hands for which the categorized statistics have been calculated.
If the player’s stats are derived from thousands of hands, the VPIP, PRF, and 3Bet rates tend to be a bit more reliable.
On the other hand, if the stats only represent a very limited number of hands, the categorized statistical sections may not be very representative of a player’s true preflop tendencies.
The number of hands counter will only include hands that the player who is accessing the info has actually been dealt into for each opponent.
What are Tournament Winnings?
This statistic is only available when competing in an online poker tournament.
Basically, it shows how much a player has won on 888poker through online tournament play.
While this number DOES represent total online MTT prize winnings over the course of all hands tracked, it does NOT show a player’s actual profit (or loss) after buy-in expenditures have been considered.
See Where Your Opponents are From
Using the proprietary 888poker HUD will also reveal the country from which a player is competing from.
888poker Ambassador Ian Simpson Shares His Thoughts
We reached out to 888poker Ambassador Ian Simpson, who appears in the promo video below — and who just won the 888poker LIVE Madrid Main Event, asking what aspects of the new internal HUD he thought players will like/appreciate most and which stats he thinks will help the players most with their online poker game.
“I think VPIP and 3bet are the most important stats to focus on, and will help improve players games the most If they didn’t already have a HUD,” he said. “Those two stats give a lot of insight into how tight/loose and how aggressive/passive players are. I always thought an integrated HUD is a great system for an online client to level the playing field, so I’m really happy 888poker has developed this one,” he continued.
There are plenty of online poker players out there who don’t have experience using a HUDs, so this new development in the software might come off as a little intimidating to them. So we asked Simpson what sort of advice he would impart to these players, to which he replied “The numbers can seem really daunting at first, but once you take a step back and do some reading about what they mean it isn’t so difficult.”
He went on to give an example: “Take the 3b stat for instance. This is just how often someone three bets, or re-raises pre flop. A ‘normal’ number is 9 or 10, which would indicate a healthy balance of strong hands and bluffs. If someone has a much lower number, that means they’re only 3-betting very good hands. If it is much higher than this number, your opponent is 3-betting with not just good hands, but lots of weak hands also.”
HUDs for All Players: “Evening” the Playing Field?
Granting all players access to basic Heads-up Display information could help “even” the playing field by raising the competence level of casual poker players versus pros.
In many cases, professional poker players have been using HUD info for more than a decade to view PFR, 3Bet, and VPIP information on opponents in real time through third party apps.
Making this information available by default will give less skilled players somewhat of an introduction into tendencies that can truly represent a more detailed picture of each opponent’s gameplay behavior — particularly before the flop has been dealt.
888poker HUD: A Long Time Coming?
One of the main arguments for making a default HUD available to every player at an online table is to somewhat detract from the advantage that highly skilled pros gain from their own HUD use.
From an online poker operator standpoint, this information could keep lesser skilled players “in the game” for longer periods of time while, at the same time, increasing the odds for casual players to achieve success during a specific online cash game or tournament session.
Third Party HUDs Have More Statistics
However, the third party HUD applications that some professional players have already been using typically display even more statistics, including opponents’ tendencies once the flop has been dealt in community card games like Texas Hold’em and Omaha.
What’s more, third party HUDs (whether legal or not) may actually draw from a much larger sample size for individual screen names — all the way up a player’s entire career on a particular platform which could include millions of hands.
This is one of the reasons why online poker operators routinely seek to prohibit the use of many third party HUDs, as they can grant highly skilled players an unfair advantage of having statistical information related to hands they never personally participated in.
888poker HUD can be Toggled On and Off
Players who are competing at the 888poker online tables from a small-screen mobile device (iOS or Android) may prefer less visual “clutter.”
This is why the 888poker HUD will only activate if you hover over (or tap on) a player’s avatar during gameplay.
If you do not wish to see the HUD info, you don’t have to “opt-in” or “opt-out” through a menu.
The HUD feature is toggled OFF by default but will automatically activate to the ON mode, by default, one a player’s avatar is being hovered over.
Opinion: 888poker HUD is Generally a “Good” Idea
Decreasing the learning curve for casual online poker players has been a contentious point since virtual real money poker gained mass popularity in the early 2000s.
In this author’s opinion, the introduction of a proprietary HUD — available for all players by default — coincides with the fact that the “best” poker players are no longer human.
Similar to chess, the concept and timing of poker becoming a “sport” is more viable once the case for mainstream recognition of AI’s dominance can be proven on-demand.
And once this has been recognized, statistical overlays for commentators (along with the real time use of AI for commentary teams) become more widely accepted among viewers.
Viewers can already watch poker commentators use terms such as VPIP, PFR, and 3Bet during popular live streams of competitive play.
Plus, the real time, open source chess engine Stockfish was routinely used by commentators during the 2024 FIDE chess final between Gukesh Dommaraju and Ding Liren.
Enjoy 888poker from your Mobile Device or Personal Computer
The 888poker platform is available in select jurisdictions, but can be enjoyed from the comfort of your home office (using a personal computer or MAC), or from a smart device that uses the iOS or Android operating systems.
The 888poker HUD feature is available for all users, regardless of which device or computer they are playing from.