It's not a morale debate it's a practical one. If the pool of players is smaller because online poker gets the reputation of being unbeatable or unfair, then online poker will suffer. If a player can't win enough to think he's got a chance, they he might as well play on the play tables instead.

Whether or not players will be allowed to use credit cards, and to what extent, remains to be seen. My guess is that the credit card companies will not want to deal with the charge backs from players who claim they were cheated, etc. Neither will the sites (there is a history here). But allowing credit cards will certainly increase business for both the sites and credit card companies. We'll have to see what develops. In any event, players who lose quickly after making a few deposits will stop depositing and frequent play tables or not play at all. Making the game harder to beat (by allowing the better players more tools in which to fleece the casual players) will increase the percentage of players who try playing a few times then never come back. And then there's the issue of what government officials will think about all of that (Will they care? Will they respond to complaints and over react?).


That's not the "real issue," but it's certainly one of the issues. Casual players won't know why players take too long to act, they'll just get tired of it and play fewer hours.

Of course the government won't get it right. It knows nothing about the subject. But if they take advice from those with experience, they may come close.

And while the free market approach has merit, I don't understand why you think this will be a free and open market. There won't be a lot of competition because sites will have to be licensed by the government and there will be a limited number licenses. Moreover, this market isn't totally new. There is a history and it's smart to review the past and fix any problems that may have developed. Although it's important to realize that the previous market didn't evolve naturally because it operated underground, and we shouldn't necessarily pick up where we left off.

We all want the games to be safe and secure. But what if the games are safe and secure but the perception by the casual player is that it's unbeatable, unfair and/or rigged? The perception of reality is as important as reality itself, maybe more so.

No one here stated that their hand histories are private property. The issue is that some people will gain an advantage over other players using tools not historically used in poker. And while you are entitled to your opinion, others feel they do have the right to ask sites to which they pay rake not to allow those not in the hand to receive hand histories. They can also petition the sites to make it harder to data mine the information. And while different sites will have different opinions about this subject, I think most will welcome comments by their customers.

"And while the free market approach has merit, I don't understand why you think this will be a free and open market."

What markets are truly free? Just some basic regulations about safety, fairness, age, tax rate, etc are possible don't you think?

I don't really see the federal government regulating how big our time bank should be. I'm not saying you pictured that, but maybe you see my point. The games would probably have lots of leeway between sites and i hope huds would continue to be one of those things.


I also think timebanks are the way to speed up games, not limiting huds or multi-tabling.

The problem is many of these people have not taken economic classes and do not understand this point.

So should we have to wear blinders playing live or maybe a curtain between each player. Same as not being able to use a HUD.

It already has the reputation of being unbeatable or unfair, whenever I speak to anyone about online poker (I try not to) who doesn't play, they will think one or all of these things 90% of the time:

a.) It is a rigged
b.) It is impossible to win, and anyone who claims to win has just got lucky and will eventually lose it all because...
c.) You are probably a degenerate gambler with debts up to your eyeballs

Recreational players don't even know/care about HUDs or database software, it's a total fallacy to suggest HUDs stop rec players playing online poker. Getting rid of the online poker must be rigged attitude that most people have is the biggest barrier to entry for most people that would otherwise play online - the rest would never play online anyway because they aren't gamblers, think poker is gambling and do not understand there is any skill involved, and won't be persuaded otherwise no matter what you say.

The 'fish lose money faster' argument is BS as well, you don't need a HUD to spot a 80/30 maniac who will shove with bottom pair, he is going broke within 100 hands whether regs have HUDs or not - HUDs are most useful for finding leaks in other regulars game, you don't need a HUD to beat fish, fish can be spotted within the first 10 hands (or even 0 hands, doesn't wait for big blind to start playing = fish, buys in with weird amount of $$ = fish) they play most of the time. In fact HUDs can make you play sub-optimally against fish because a lot of the time stats for fish are meaningless, what use is stats if sometimes a fish just 'feels' his gutshot straight draw is going to hit and shoves, or sometimes 'feels' you have AA and folds his KK? You will never get a large enough sample size against fish for the stats to mean much (or anything) because they are going broke within 100 hands and you probably won't see them at your table again unless you happen to be playing when they deposit $20 for a bit of fun the next pay day and lose that to someone else. How many people can honestly say they have 1000's of hands with a massive fish? The guys who you have 1000's of hands with aren't fish, they are bad regs, and that is who is losing money due to HUDs, and they all probably use HUDs themselves, or if not they choose/think they are so good they don't need one, which is their problem.

You just had to take lame to a new level didn't you. Not even close to the same.

How about if we have a person sit behind you when you play live telling you that there is a 83% chance he will fold to a 3-bet, now that is the same.

Without getting into a debate about what is defined as a fish, when I used the term, I was also referring to "regulars" who lose. And I also pointed out that many players who break even without HUDs will now become losers with them. Most losing players will lose money faster. My opinion is there will be a lower percentage of winning/break even players compared to total players with HUDs than without them. This will increase any bad reputation online poker has for being unbeatable, unfair, etc. This is especially true for those who discover that they are playing against players using "special" software to beat them. Many of those will feel they're being cheated.

Legalizing online poker will (eventually) greatly increase the player base over what it was during the boom. Most of these potential new players (some of whom were too young then) don't have an opinion one way or the other. Others will think legal online poker as having a better chance of being beatable than illegal online poker, etc. So a prevailing opinion of whether online poker will be beatable or fair has, for the most part, yet to be determined by the public. The main determining factor will be how easy and/or how often these new players can win. Making the game harder to beat for these new players will not be in the best interest of the game in the long run.

The fact that some players use HUDs well and others do not is irrelevant as to whether they should be legal.

Do you really need a few undergraduate classes in economics to understand the issue?

Do you not realize that this industry is going to be heavily regulated and there will be a limited number of sites due to limited licensing?

Do you not realize that the above facts will greatly limit competition?

Actually it doesn't, your whole argument (correct me if I am wrong here) is predicated on the following logic:

a.) Of the % of players who use HUDs, a bigger % of those will be winners than those that don't use HUDs, purely because of HUD use.
b.) Of the remaining % of players who use HUDs, they will lose money slower purely because they use a HUD.
c.) Because of the advantage gained from using HUDs, non-HUD recreational users (who aren't total fish, because everyone knows they will be broke extremely quickly HUD or not) who play regularly will lose money faster than the HUD users.
d.) And I suppose, the corollary of this, is also that non-HUD using winning players will win slower than winning players who use a HUD.
e.) You have a secondary argument that as soon as these non-HUD using, 'recreational regular' players find out about HUDs, they will just quit the game because it is unfair.

The problem I have with arguments a through d, is that players who use HUDs would be better players with the biggest edge anyway even if HUDs/database software was totally banned from all sites. People who use HUDs spend the most time studying the game/reading poker books, they are more likely to make notes/color code opponents well, they are more likely to know poker theory and this is really where most players edge is anyway, without that knowledge a HUD is useless anyway, you must, as a prerequisite to even start playing winning poker, understand at least basic poker theory (odds/implied odds/position/equity/etc.). Not only that, they just quite simply play more, and as we all know, practice makes perfect.

The problem with c.), is that the HUD is such a small edge compared to the edge that poker knowledge gives you. If noone could use a HUD, they would be spending more time doing the stuff in the paragraph above. The recreational regulars often lack this basic poker theory knowledge in the first place, so the tiny edge that a HUD may give, is nothing compared to the huge edge you have just by understanding the basic concepts in the first place, and then the additional edge of understanding more advanced concepts/better understanding of fundamentals gives you. It is the difference between losing -20 bb/100 or -18 bb/100, it could make the difference between busto in 20 days or 21 days - it doesn't matter. Even the act of learning to use a HUD will teach you more about the game and how it works in the first place, and it is not as simple as 'Get HUD ---> Win More', it is going to take time and practice to get any kind of edge out of HUD use (links to argument b - not necessarily true) - HUD use is a skill just as much as hand reading is a skill - if HUDs offered an automatic skill advantage or played the game for you, I could see your point in the bit of your post I have quoted above - but they do not, the amount of advantage they give is very slim, and only if you are skilled. Even then, just by multitabling you are giving up some of your edge, so that anyone 1 or 2 tabling against you, with the same amount of skill in every way as you but without a HUD, should have no problem beating you over a large sample. The multitabling, winning regs (which are a very small proportion of total players) are so good and have such a big edge, that they can give some of that edge away to get a bigger hourly. These players will have a big edge whether you allow HUDs or not.

On point e.), you seem to be arguing for ALL recreational players, everywhere. How do you know that the recreational regular player, when/if he/she finds out about HUDs, doesn't think 'wow cool a tool I can use to analyse myself and other people's game, I've got to get me one of those so I can win the mega $$ at poker, ez game with one of those!', instead of 'wow cheating scumbag poker players I am never playing online again'. All HUD users were once non-HUD users, I remember finding out about HUDs (2009) and my reaction was the former not the latter - at that time I was a quite a big fish. The point is you don't know, and my POV is just as much a subjective one as yours is. If you want to go out and gather some actual evidence as to whether more people quit when they find out about HUDs or not and present the findings, I'd be interested. If I had to guess why players quit, I would imagine it is because they felt online poker was rigged (by RNG, big hands vs big hand, basically rigged by the site, not by players), or they had lost an amount they weren't comfortable with and stopped playing - others probably quit because they found the game boring or not fun, and I suppose you could attribute this to nits, but you can't force people to play more hands, HUD or not.

If we want more players in poker, we need to make it clear that the RNG is not rigged, and that your funds are safe (and preferably not funding russian gangsters or middle eastern terrorists). Do this and we might tempt some of the people in, but quibbling over HUDs/database software takes the focus from the main problem - I actually think database software is good for the game, it has allowed a fish like me to analyse my own game, find my leaks and improve faster than had I not had database software. In fact without database software I might never have come back to the online game - I love stats and messing about with databases (part of my job involves database development). Anyone out there is free to do exactly the same thing, the playing field is totally level - all you need to do is type 'poker tools' or 'poker forums' or whatever into google and start reading - there is no huge conspiracy or secrecy at work here. I found 2p2 within 30 seconds of searching for information on poker. Or you are free to carry on being recreational reg overall losing player (too old skool/good for databases), massive whale, clueless fish, degenerate gambler, drunk guy, crazy russian and all the other donater player types that at the end of the day, the poker economy is built on. The choice is yours, and I think choice is good for consumers. Most businesses see it that way.

I think you have to allow multi-tabling and HUDs (both of which I don't use or do) because you have to give even brand new players, a chance to rise to the top from a profitability perspective.

You have to think that if there are thousands and thousands of new players, at least .05% of them will rise to be very good, be featured by poker news outlets, and give hope to the other struggling players as well as brand new players.

If multi-tabling, and huds weren't allowed, I don't think this game would be quite as profitable for the best of the best, and wouldn't be as attractive to everyone else because there wasn't as much a possibility of this becoming a career.

I realize I'm probably overstating the importance of HUDs and multi-tabling (especially HUDs), but I think it factors highly into edge, $/hr, profit, ROI, etc.

It's amazing that in every one of these threads, the people most hell-bent on banning HUDs are the people that clearly have no idea what they are or what they do.

It's amazing that in every one of these threads, the people in favour of HUDs show that they can not think past their current profits.

hand data analysis displayed in real time opens the door for so much evil that it very well may kill online poker in the near future just the way chess computers killed chess. say you run HEM and run NoteCaddy on top of it .. what do you think, how much more layers are needed to turn human players into button clicking bots? add to this the incentives sites give for playing high volumne and boom ..here it is: a perfect environment to make this happen. it's like having a petri dish full of nutrients laying around somewhere hoping that the bacterias won't notice.