The introduction of heads-up displays (HUDs) to online poker undoubtedly transformed the game, elevating the skill level of the competition and making the tables tougher overall to beat. By crunching the data produced by hand history files, software like PokerTracker and Hold’em Manager allowed players to study the game like never before and quickly gain insights about their opponents.

Most HUDs, however, are not known for being user-friendly and usually require a good deal of configuration to get started. Now, a tool called Jivaro is aiming to take HUDs to the next level and boasts an easy-to-use interface that can be quickly understood by even those who are brand new to heads-up display software.

Jivaro was built over three years by developers who wanted to create a HUD for recreational players. The software, which integrates seamlessly with PokerStars, is comprised of three main components: the Strip, Command Center and Heads-Up Display.

The Strip

The Strip appears as a window on your desktop and can be thought of as your base of operations. Here, you can view your own core statistics and see a list of your most recent hands across all of your tables.

The Heads-Up Display

While other HUDs leave you to your own devices in configuring your data overlay, Jivaro requires no setup and displays only the most useful stats. Voluntarily put money in pot (VPIP), pre-flop aggression (PFR) and post-flop aggression (AFq) are displayed in an innovative color-coded circular indicator.

“While other HUDs may display more statistical data, our stats are hand-picked by professional poker players as the most relevant for players of any level,” Jivaro Marketing Director Jóhann Schröder told PocketFives.

By representing the information visually, the Heads-Up Display feature greatly reduces data load, so players can focus on playing poker instead of constantly processing rows of numbers. Also displayed are the number of hands you have on each player along with their stack size displayed in dollars and in terms of big blinds.

The Command Center

The Command Center is another of Jivaro’s unique features and could prove invaluable for tournament players.

In the tournament panel, you can easily get an overview of things like tournament type, winnings, places paid, number of entrants and remaining players. With those details at your fingertips, you’ll no longer need to open multiple windows to find out where you stand in a tournament.

The ability to switch streets automatically and view player stats at different points in a hand was originally built into the software, but was nixed when PokerStars changed their terms of service to limit third-party functionality last year.

In cash games, the Command Center presents players with their win/loss rate at the current table, table VPIP and aggression frequency. Pot odds are also clearly displayed, again reducing data overload.

Free/Subscription model

There are two flavors of Jivaro – a free version with limited functionality and a premium version that costs just $5.99/month. The free version will give you basic opponent statistics and the ability to share replays. Premium customers will unlock access to positional awareness statistics, premium opponent statistics, the Command Center, live pot odds and street-specific statistics.

Poker Social network

Both versions allow you access to the Jivaro online community, which is something of a social media feed for poker hands. There, you can post your own hands or follow some of your favorite poker players whose posts will show up in a social media-style feed.

Of course, with the increase in ease-of-use comes a decrease in customization. One drawback of Jivaro is the fact that you will be locked into the stats the developers choose and won’t have the plethora of options available in PokerTracker or Hold’em Manager. But, with a sleek and elegant interface, real-time statistics and seamless integration into any of PokerStars’ table layouts, Jivaro is truly a next-generation heads-up display.