VPIP tells you how many hands a player enters voluntarily, PFR how often they raise preflop, 3-bet how often they re-raise a raise, and fold to 3-bet how often they give up when re-raised. Read them together, by position and with enough hands behind them. A stat on a handful of hands is noise.
1. VPIP: how many hands they play
VPIP (Voluntarily Put money In Pot) is the percentage of hands where a player puts chips in the pot by choice, by calling or raising, excluding the forced blinds. In 3-handed games, ranges are naturally wider than in 6-max because each player only has two opponents, so a "normal" VPIP is much higher than in cash games. A very high VPIP usually signals a loose, recreational player; a very low one, a tight player who gives you folds.
2. PFR: how often they raise
PFR (Preflop Raise) is the percentage of hands where the player raises preflop. The key information is the gap between VPIP and PFR:
- Small gap: the player raises most of the hands they play. This is an aggressive profile.
- Large gap: the player calls and limps a lot. This is a passive profile, often a "calling station" who pays too many bets.
3. 3-bet: how often they re-raise
A 3-bet is a re-raise over an opening raise. The 3-bet percentage measures how often a player re-raises when they had the chance. A high 3-bet means pressure on openers; a low one means they usually flat or fold. Because this stat only counts opportunities (spots where there was a raise to respond to), the number of opportunities matters more than the number of hands.
4. Fold to 3-bet: how they react to pressure
Fold to 3-bet is how often a player folds after opening and facing a re-raise. It is one of the most exploitable stats:
| Fold to 3-bet | What it suggests | Typical adjustment |
|---|---|---|
| High | Gives up easily against re-raises | 3-bet more often, including as a bluff |
| Average | No clear leak | Stick to a balanced 3-bet range |
| Low | Calls or 4-bets frequently | 3-bet for value, reduce bluffs |
5. Always check the sample size
Every percentage has a margin of error that shrinks as the number of observations grows. For a proportion, the 95% margin of error is about 1.96 × √(p × (1 − p) / n). A VPIP of 30% measured on 100 hands could easily correspond to a true value anywhere between about 21% and 39%; on 1,000 hands, between about 27% and 33%. For 3-bet and fold to 3-bet, count the opportunities, not the hands: 200 hands might contain only 15 opportunities, which is too few to conclude. The general rule is to trust a stat only when its margin of error is smaller than the difference you want to exploit.
6. Read stats by position
In 3-handed play, button, small blind and big blind use different ranges, so a "global" VPIP mixes unrelated situations. Compare players position by position and look at stack depth too: a VPIP at 25 BB does not mean the same as one at 8 BB. This is why a positional HUD helps; our Winamax Expresso HUD guide shows how to set one up.
7. From numbers to decisions
Reading four numbers per opponent on several tables is slow. Automatic player tags combine those stats into one badge so you can read a profile in half a second: see automated player tagging in a Spin & Go HUD. For the effect of these profiles on your results, check how to calculate and increase chip EV.
Frequently Asked Questions
SpinCrusher shows VPIP, PFR, 3-bet and fold to 3-bet by position, and its automatic player tags summarize each profile at a glance. Free 48-hour trial on your own hand histories.