The better players (of any strategic game) judge the relative worth of all possible information sources. As a quickie (poker) overview:

1. HUD knowledge: situations like when to 3bet based on stealing stats are some of the most routinely statistical decisions. The HUD is extremely reliable here after about 125 hands (6m) or 200 hands (fr), and worth looking at with only half that many.

2. Player Notes: these provide general knowledge of what types of "play" the opponent is capable of, for example, it's hard with a HUD to know for sure if a player is capable of 3-barreling total air postflop. We use notes to record oddities that can add to our HUD knowledge base.

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Under the heading of player notes (since that's how we recall them), there are some specific types of poker knowledge or "reads" that are particularly helpful.

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3. Tilt: knowing players who will radically alter their play based on recent unhappy events gives context for when to "throw the HUD" out the window.

4. Timing Tells: most micro players have them to some degree, but you have to pay attention at the tables. As someone said above, cutting back to less than 6 tables is a great idea. If you're not picking up any timing tells on the regs, you're likely playing too many tables at once.

5. Players who adjust: If a player can attack weak players, his overall stats will look solid, yet you will find him upon occasion showing down after some very "fishy" lines. Is he a fish? Or is he an otherwise solid player who got out of line by attacking someone else and running into the nuts? Detecting this type of "bad play" requires thoughtful analysis of not only his HUD stats, but the HUD stats of the players he plays against. Does he change lines in obvious "attacks" on weaker players? If so, what attacks does he like best?


The HUD is not the problem. The problem is an inadequate use of ALL POSSIBLE sources of poker information.