A friend of mine who I talk a little strategy/life with over emails asked me for some specific tips on how to use a HUD. I felt everyone could learn from what I had to write to him…
One stat that’s really helpful in MTTs is Fold To Steal. If you raise to three times the big blind from the small blind, and the big blind is not defending with roughly 40% of his hands, then your raise is instantly profitable. You can fold if you flop quad aces on the flop, and still be profitable. It has to work even less with antes involved. So if you see someone who is folding more than 60% of the time to a steal, this is a person you should consider attacking with a very wide range.
Remember however, a player might fold less to a small blind raise than to a button or cutoff raise, also classified as a steal. There is a specific statistic in the HUD options of Hold’em Manager to see how often they fold to a SB raise. I like checking this statistic even better, but Fold To Steal is a very useful statistic to start getting used to.
Another stat that is really helpful is Fold To Continuation Bet. A continuation bet of half the size of the pot has to work 33% of the time in order to be profitable. So, if you see someone with a large sample size of hands, who folds more than 33%, than you can bet. If someone folds less than that percentage of the time to a continuation bet, you can check.
That is the basic idea. Of course, you have to adjust according to table dynamics, your image, and most importantly the texture of the board.
Looks can be deceiving. 40% fold to continuation bet might seem like enough, but in my experience this tends to be a dishonest player. Leave yourself a cushion. Look for a person who folds 50-60% of the time. This tends to be an honest player, because you hit the flop roughly one out of three times, and that’s about how often this player is continuing.