MDA Poker: How to use Mass Data Analysis to crush games

In modern online poker, professional players use advanced tools and techniques to stay ahead of the opponents. One of those techniques is MDA — Mass Data Analysis, which allows you to thoroughly investigate your opponents’ game tendencies.

What is poker MDA?

Mass Data Analysis is a way to analyze a game using a large collection of data (that is, hand histories). You load a huge number of hands into your tracker, and then use special functions to visualize the data so that you can work with it and draw important conclusions about your opponents’ game.

What is Range Research?

This used to be the name of a special section in Hand2Note 3 software, where you could implement the research of the pool. In Hand2Note 4, you can perform MDA right from the Statistic or Reports tabs. Many players still call this process Range Research.

Why include MDA in your regular out-of-table work?

You can spend hundreds of hours on solvers, but eventually you play against humans, and all the money in poker is made by exploiting their mistakes. GTO gives you the understanding how to be break-even against GTO opponents, and MDA will show you in what scenarios and to what extent your opponents deviate from GTO.

Getting started with MDA

First, you need Hand2Note

This is the most advanced poker tracker software on the market, and the only tracker that provides you with MDA features. Read more about Hand2Note.

Second, you need good popups

To get started you can use default Hand2Note popups. As you go deeper, you’ll need more stats for specific scenarios — sizings, board textures, and so on. Professional popups live in our Research category.

Third, you need a bunch of hand histories

We recommend having at least 300k hands in your database, but the more the better.

How it works in practice

1. Studying recreational players

In most cases, we won’t have a representative sample in your HUD for a specific fish opponent. MDA lets you combine many similar players from your database and investigate their lines in various spots.

Go to Statistics or Reports, click the current player nickname, then select Multiple players and filter the group you want — for example VPIP > 40.

2. Analyzing a specific hand

When you review a tough spot against a recreational player, filter out similar players and check how they usually play in that particular line.

Shaping your preflop strategy with MDA

Preflop is the most important street as it shapes your strategy on the following streets. Investigate how the pool constructs ranges, then adjust your own strategy for maximum exploit.

Conclusion

Now that you have a basic understanding of this technique, be sure to integrate MDA into your poker training routine.