DriveHUD Review 2024 – Just How Good Is This Poker HUD?

Although less well known than the more illustrious (and more expensive rivals) Holdem Manager and PokerTracker, DriveHUD has a loyal band of supporters and is an excellent entry point into the world of poker databases and HUDs.

As its name suggests Drive HUD is essentially a Heads-Up Display (HUD) driven by a database collected from the hands played by a poker player and their opponents.

For the uninitiated, a HUD has its origins in aviation. 

They were designed so a pilot would have access to critical information without having to deviate from looking forward. 

They are also becoming increasingly popular in motor vehicles.

A poker HUD relays all the on-screen information by accessing its constantly improving database of information. 

It can draw a multitude of data on your play and your opponent’s play in both cash games, Zoom (on Pokerstars), and tournament events.

Used correctly, a poker HUD can give vital information about your opponent’s style, bet frequency, tilt level and help you become a better online poker player.

So is DriveHUD any good and is it worth taking for a 30-day trial spin?

We’ve tested DriveHUD as well as many other poker HUDs that are on the market. If you just want the real meat and bones on what one we recommend, here it is:

In terms of its full capabilities, there are better poker HUDs on the market. 

However, in terms of its price and unique features, it is certainly worth downloading the free 30-day trial – especially if you are new to poker tracking software and want a gentle introduction to what they do, how to set them up, and ultimately how to improve your win-rate.

Besides being an important tool when making decisions in real-time, Drive HUD helps players improve their overall gameplay by indicating possible review hands and situations. 

The stats produced by the software are fully customizable to your level, stakes, and specific online poker room e.g BetOnline, Ignition, etc.

Poker is a game of marginal gains and any advantage you have over your opponents should edge you towards more profitable online poker.

Drive Heads-up display dashboard

The dashboard is the first thing you encounter when you fire up the software and its simplicity and ease on the eye is pleasing. 

We’ll run through the tabs later but the first thing you encounter on the left-hand side is your current playing statistics.

It shows a summary of your current cash games stats only but does not include any tournament data. 

Also shown is the total hands you’ve played, the amount of money you’ve won or lost and your bb/100 figure (big blinds per 100 hands).

The most important stats are listed here and shown in a gauge format. 

VPIP (voluntarily put money into pot) – A higher figure would suggest an obvious leak in your game from playing too many of your hole cards before a flop, for instance.

PFR (pre-flop raise) – A high PFR, is seen as a sign of aggression. The bigger the gap between VPIP and PFR  the player is seen as more passive.

3-Bet (percentage of the time you re-raised pre-flop)

AF (aggression factor), 

AGG% (Total aggression percent), 

WTSD (went to showdown), 

W$SD (won dollars at showdown), 

W$WSF (won dollars when seen flop percent).

The main section on the right is where you can drill down into your cash game performance. 

You can filter stats based on poker room eg Ignition, Pokerstars, etc. 

Individual opponents can be analysed to note their tendencies for future play. 

You can have the analysis presented by money or by BBs. 

There is a function to have the graphs displayed as a pop-out. 

Toggle buttons located near the top of the software allow you to drill down further into showdown hands (SD) non-showdown hands (NSD) and expected value (EV).

In this section, you can further filter performance based on time either pre-set or include your custom range.

At the bottom of the dashboard, you get to drill down even further to analyse your play. 

Reports Tabs where you can click on any of the report tabs to show stats for that aspect of your poker game. 

They are listed below:

Overall (all stats combined to give you a simple view of your progress), 

Position (how successful or unsuccessful you are from different positions), 

Sessions (Displays your results based on sessions), 

Stakes (separates the various buy-in level you play and pinpoints the most profitable), 

Hole Cards (analyse your game by each hole card type you played), 

Time (check what time of the day you play your best poker), 

Showdown hands (showdown stats and where you won and lost money), 

Poker Site (separate stats for each poker site be that Ignition, Pokerstars, Betonline or Bovada), 

Opponents (dial down and reveal stats about playing against named opponents) 

Population (see your stats by the type of opponent you played with).

It is unlikely you will use all of these options but depending on your online poker playing style, there will be something to aid your game.

Back to the dashboard and towards the bottom are more filtering options including tag functionality for keeping track and specific hands you nominate to review after a session. 

The usual session review tools are also stored here.

Once you have the hand tagged you have plenty of options including loading it in the hand replayer, adding notes, and your equity calculator.

While nothing groundbreaking in these options they are nicely laid out and offer some great ways to explore your opponents and hands played to improve as a player.

The dashboard is also fully customizable to suit your requirements and visual experience.

A feature I particularly like and one that may be needed in the early days is the Support tab. 

From here you can connect with support but it also has useful links to the support forums and the knowledge base and FAQs. 

By default, if you send a message to support it will attach your logs.

Another important point to note about support is the excellent thread on the 2+2 forums hosted by a representative of the company. 

You can find information here about new builds usually caused by poker sites updating their software.

Graphical Heads-up Display

Aside from using the software to spot leaks and review play in the hand replayer, one of the most important aspects of Drive HUD is the graphical HUD itself which overlays on the poker sites you play on.

The overlay is simple and what you would expect, offering statistical clues to the playing style of your opponent. 

As ever though, you must have a solid amount of playing experience and data about a villain before taking the visual clues seriously. 

See the image below of how bare the information is for a Zoom game on Pokerstars.

Bumper stickers and tilt meter

One obvious feature which makes Drive HUD different from the best HUD providers is their easy-to-use bumpers stickers and their tilt meter. 

Stickers allow players to label any particular opponent or group of opponents in a particular style and make recognition much easier. 

The tilt meter indicates if a player has suffered recent bad beats and be about to go ‘on tilt’.

Apps to use on DriveHUD

While the software has some useful built-in apps such as the bumper stickers above, 3rd party integration of apps is allowed and there are many with useful functionality.

Leak Buster 2

The software claims to check for over 450 potential leaks in your online poker game by analysing your play.

Leak Buster 2 compares millions of poker hands from its database and offers suggestions based on your particular playing style.

It uses stat ranges and hundreds of post-flop filters to identify blind spot areas of your game where you may be losing money unnecessarily and unknowingly.

This add-on tracking software also works with PokerTracker 4 and Holdem Manager 3 using their powerful databases.

Player X-Ray

Player X-ray is an automated note-taking application that not only saves you time but also allows you to get a better handle on a player’s tendencies. 

This add-on can be particularly useful when multi-tabling.

You can use the pre-defined notes in the software and adjust them to which buy-in you are sitting. 

Notes are revealed when mousing over a player’s stats in the HUD.

Asian Hand Converter

The Asian hand converter is a 3rd party app that writes hand histories on all of the most popular Asian rooms.

It supports Red Dragon HUD, Poker King HUD, Upoker HUD, PokerTime and PokerBros amongst others. 

This can give you a huge advantage given the Asian market is one of the fastest-growing in the world and hand histories would otherwise be unavailable.

PPPoker Card Catcher

As the name suggests, this app works specifically with PP Poker. 

Although it is a Windows app, it can be used on ios and android using an emulator such as LDplayer or Nox.

The PPPoker HUD Catcher will track all observed tables, as well as collect data from your own games. All table types, cash and tournaments are tracked.

Icmizer 3

Icmizer is a neat tool to help you evaluate your push/fold strategy in SNG tournaments. 

Load hands into the software and it will begin to train you in the situations where you need to improve your MTT strategy.

Prices 

DriveHUD offers a variety of price points that depend on the stakes you are planning on using. There are also different versions for Holdem and Omaha, if you want both it will cost you more.

For a full rundown of the prices click here.

DriveHUD Strengths

• Easy to use
• Great looking user interface
• Good user manual and learning materials 
• Easy to create HUDs

DriveHUD Weaknesses 

• Not fully Mac compatible

Our Verdict on DriveHUD

DriveHUD is not the best poker HUD but worth it’s certainly worth a test drive.

On reviewing Drive HUD, the most interesting factor is the price. 

It is much cheaper than the more well-known rivals. 

This is because it has fewer features than the others on the market.

However, this does not mean it is not worth purchasing. 

It is an excellent starter HUD.  

Much like you would not buy an expensive car as your first vehicle, Drive HUD is a serious option to consider to gain a basic understanding of how they work, which add-ons work best for your particular playing style.

One minor gripe is the problems caused when a poker site updates its software. 

Sometimes you will need to wait until a patch is released to deal with any issues thrown up.

However, the support is excellent and there are plenty of Youtube video walkthroughs about how to get the most out of this useful piece of poker software.

The hand replayer and equity calculator are two solid parts of the offering that would not look out of place against the best HUD on the market.

There are few arguments against trying DriveHUD especially if it will be your first HUD or if you don’t want to spend too heavily before fully understanding how this type of software can improve your poker game.