Not sure if you are dumb or on your small private crusade...one of the 2 it is.

+1 Not prohibition for Notecaddy.

Almost all things you can do with Notecaddy you can do it via PokerTracker configuring Custom Stats.

A lot of Players have worked hours and hours in make good configurations with a lot of work behind, if you ban/limit it you are going to lose a lot of players, me the first, because you wouldnt be respecting our work.

You have much more big issues, it really shock me even we are discussing about this.
Fix your things Stars and dont make more disgusting/stupid things.

The argument that a piece of software shouldn't be banned because some players have spent many hours learning how to use it is extremely weak.

The scripts annoy some regs, partly due to unintended consequences and partly the price for what becomes, via their ubiquity, an essential tool for the reg.

The real problem for the rec and ultimately the poker economy built upon them is the scanning software that picks up the fish. It means they never see another fish, all they get is regs hunting them, who play very differently vs each other compared to them. For the fish it is like a tag wrestling match where their opponents are playing by different rules.

This is the most important thing that needs to come out of these changes. In this thread a lot of people are vilifying certain software/HuD developers that have worked well within that line up to this point and that in itself seems very unfair. Especially considering the hard work, effort, and time that these people have put into their products. Maybe you personally are not benefiting from these products as much as they are or you feel that they are hurting your bottom line or the future of online poker by marketing these products but these people have played within the current set of rules. Sitting here and just making a bunch of posts condemning these people for their efforts that fall within the current set of PokerStars T&C is not the way to go about change.

If PokerStars is going to make changes and lower the bar/line, change the rules of which software can or cannot be accepted everyone will just have to adjust to the changes. It's most important that the line is clearly defined and enforced.

Both? I mean if you want to reduce it to personal attacks they ain't mutually exclusive.

Richas, I don't know whether you missed my question, or just skipped, anyway I will re-ask you again.
What is your envolvment in the poker world? Are you a PPP, a journalist or other?

Yeah: the last FTP/Stars transfer I made completed in 15 minutes. I don't think speeding up is a concerning problem.

I agree with that.

However I use Notecaddy myself and this was the main reason I chose HM2 vs PT4.

Same time you can achieve similar results with custom stats of PT4. (custom stats are known even in PT3 if I remember correct).

In that perspective if Notecaddy should be banned PT4 should also. And if creating custom stats is the problem, who decides which stats should be allowed and which not?

In my view NoteCaddy allows the user to create his/her own stats in an easy way.

Now let's take 2 players which use different huds. One hud will be better than the other. So the player with a better hud will have theoretically an edge (if he knows how to make use of that). So everyone who supports prohibition of Notecaddy should support prohibition of advanced huds as well.

In my mind you should either ban all type of huds, or otherwise it doesn't make sense to ban one aspect of them.

It's like saying that HM2 should be banned but PT4 should not in my eyes.

And it is unfair a software which used to be legal, and I bought it bc I knew it is legal, now suddenly sb decides to be banned (and without refund).

Having that said, maybe some of the new features of NoteCaddy, such as pop ups with previously played hands, or timing tells... should not be allowed.

But if Stars prohibit NoteCaddy I m leaving Stars. Enough with Stars and its changes!!!

13 posts you made so far in this thread and neither a single one contains a valid arguement for your position nor showed that you have a clue what NC does and therefore makes you qualified to judge.

That makes me stick to my theory from my previous post. My sincere excuse if this offends you.

Continuing with the sporting comparisons; PEDs in many sports, racket/bat spec in tennis/cricket, engine spec in F1, bike design in cycling, helmet aerodynamics in Skeleton Bob, homegrown player quotas in English football, salary caps in nfl.

Just a few examples I could think of, there's obv a lot more, in competitive sport, where the association has had to introduce or regularly update rules to limit technology/money both widening the gap between top and bottom and thus making the game unappealing to those at the bottom, and reducing human edges at the top of the game. These limitations were implemented to ensure the continued appeal of their sport.

Poker constantly evolves, I started playing professionally in '09 without a HUD, after a year or so I created a basic HUD with 7 or 8 stats, now I run a professionally designed hud with NC, I guess it can display somewhere upwards of 70 stats/badges, and I regard it as quite basic.

In that time very little has been done to regulate these advances. Pokers a competitive game with a lot in common with pro sports, but we have absolutely nothing to learn here??

I did reply but at the same time as to another poster. So here is another more detailed reply.

I'm a rec, used to be most days, now a couple of times a week, mix of live and online.

For some years I have lobbied regulator(s) on poker issues. My perspective - trying to save the industry from itself (financial scandals, cheating players, bots etc etc) and to try and make for a better environment for recreational players. I'm pro regulation and pro prosecution of cheats. I want sites accountable to the regulator - ie on compensation paid to the cheated.

I also lobby government and regulator on problem gambling issues, where I want more help for problem gamblers but am pro the gambling industry and the freedom to gamble.

An example of my lobbying was the new UK point of consumption tax where I lobbied HMRC for the poker carve out that means that VIP points/rakeback are not taxed. Another getting the regulator to drop the ban on auto top up for UK players, another the new centralised self exclusion list fo UK remote gamblers.

I've done a couple of blog pieces but I'm no journo and not part of the gambling industry.

As you may have guessed I have been an advocate of regulatory involvement on third party poker software and have for some years thought it is too powerful a set of tools for the game to remain "fair and open".

Dear PokerStars,

why don't you do like you always did: test what you want to do before you do? You have a pretty useless FTP which you'll sell anyway. Why not make it HUDless/softless room? If you are ok with the result, then you may think of "fixing" your real business.
But remember, poker soft is what still keeps a lot of govnoregs (****-regulars as we call them in Russia) in the game, I mean those who still can be break even and thus continue to play in hope to become a... poker star(?) someday. Without soft they'd quit poker in no time, as they thought they are pros and played only to gain. Recreational players won't stop playing and will be left with the best players, that make money with software or without it. Depositors will lose quicker and there will be even less traffic.

Richas, Ty for your reply

Ban 'em all

It reminds me of the time not too long ago when a Pokerstars software update caused HUDs to stop working on Zoom etc. There were people refusing to play until this was fixed. Whining relentlessly in both the HEM thread in Commercial Software and the Pokerstars Software Improvement thread about how it was the weekend and they couldn't grind.

Pokerstars, for their part, had a team of people working on the problem off the clock. Clearly it's very important for them to keep peoples ability to play with software.

That's where its got to, people afraid to play without their third party software, they clearly pay no attention to who they are playing against when they have no access to their HUD. They make no effort at all to take notes themselves and would be helpless to know what to do in marginal spots without it.

Yep, don't forget that there was a supported HUD for the ZOOM product the day it was launched. The relationship between HUD supplier and (most) poker sites is symbiotic.

HUDs are actively supported software - part of the site's core offer.

Ironically if the product was sold to the Remote Operator and they had a UK licence like Stars then the software supplier would need to have a software supplier's licence, need to have the s/w comply with the UKGCs Technical Standards document and sign up to some social responsibility commitments. If it is sold to the consumer these regulatory obligations are escaped. Including, crucially, a requirement to prevent as far as practicable cheating.

Instead the site spends time and money supporting unlicenced software that provides a differentiated interface whilst getting the consumer to pay the bill for the s/w itself. If the site merely wanted a new skin, identical functionality just branded differently and changing the interface a tiny bit to make it look like it is not the same product as another site's product then they would need a licence. Supply a SUPPORTED product to the consumer that changes the functionality of the user interface radically so you have an uneven and truly differentiated product - it escapes the regulator.

Neither. I just figure that there is so much uninformed crap in this thread that it would help to reframe the issues where there is actually a debate to be had. Since I can't do that myself people like you who build and use the extensions to HM2/NC have to pitch in.

I think my own view is squarely in agreement with yours:

While I would prefer poker to be a game of fewer, rather than more, software aids, the above seems the only feasible place to draw the line.

So the question becomes why does Stars think NC (or NCE, or whatever) would contravene it? And what about Skier's tool? From what I'm hearing both are fine.

I mainly agree with those Pokerstars proposals, but I'd like to address a lot of peoples' posts that talk about "pure poker" and this kind of stuff.

1- "BAN ALL SOFTWARE, BRING POKER BACK TO ITS PURE FORM".
People have a tendency to think "pure = better", "old = good etc". But just like the huge number of audiophiles insisting vinyl sounds better than CD/digital, it's usually baseless. We should understand that online poker is NOT live poker.

Therefore, this quest for purity is pointless. It's meant to be - as it should! - a different game, with a different set of information available, even though it's based on the live game. There's dozens of things specific to online poker that are awesome and don't exist in the live setting. If we make changes only aiming at "purity", we'd take away a big part of the overall fun. Therefore, I strongly disagree with the notion that if we ban all software, it will be "real poker" again. It IS real Poker now, real *online* poker. Online shopping isn't real shopping, online meetings aren't real meetings, and I don't want to be as limited on ebay as I am on a phisical store. Aiming at purity is utopia, it's pretending technology doesn't exist and making a rule not to use it - like the record industry did when banning Napster, as if it would just go away. Making the game more enjoyable and fair to everyone, bringing more rec players, I'm all for it, but making the game "more pure"? Bull****.

2- "SOFTWARES AREN'T FAIR"
The argument that all software should be banned because rec players aren't using it is logically flawed. The same base could be used to almost everything that helps people to play better. You could argue that video schools aren't fair because 60-year-old rec players haven't heard of it, forum discussions aren't fair because they don't have the patience to use forums, nor note-taking skills, multitabling that leads you to improve faster, and then on. Practicing with Pokerstove, learning to use a HUD, making EV calculations are all inherent skills to being a better online poker player, and also a better poker player. Most rec players won't use those software? I know, but they also won't review sessions, won't hire coaching, won't do EV calculations, won't try to learn about GTO etc. And it won't ever be unfair if other players are doing that. In all business fields, there's a lot of competitive advantage you could gain by putting more effort into it, and even though they're available to everyone, just a few will use them. It's the same here. It's also a complete fallacy that rec players don't know about the existance of those software or feel cheated by it. They just don't wanna use it (as a relatively decent portion of winning HS regs also don't), but whenever they decide to "take it seriously", it'd be available to any of them, quick and relatively cheap.

3- "HUDS ARE CHEATING".
I can say with a big certainty that 95% of the people who use a HUD do so incorrectly, aren't able to correctly interpret the stats, or make a lot of WORSE decisions due to what they see in the HUD. These numbers don't play by themselves. Knowing what to do with that info is a big skill that few get right. When you're playing a game without a HUD (say, live), the info available to you is the same to everyone, but people will still take different decisions when interpreting that info. Having the info displayed on your screen will help you but only if you learn how to use it, just the same as playing 16 tables will make you win more but only if you have multitabling skills. This is just another leg for online poker.

4- REAL FAIRNESS
I don't believe "banning everything" would be enforceable. In those cases, the best way to make it fair isn't banning everything, but making it available to everyone AND promoting it. There was the time when video schools were the #1 skill-gap-increasers, until FullTilt and Pokerstars partnered with them. I believe this is the way - as well as I believe the greatest changes Stars' software has ever made were the ones implementing stuff people were already doing with scripts, like hotkeys, bet-slider, seating smoothness, percentage of winning, run it twice etc. The market and offer/demand laws usually are correct.

+1
Great post!!!

This. Its cringe worthy listening to these people coming in saying 'but but but, we 'studied' hard, we put in the work, we are entitled. Its a skill to learn how to use software aids. That may be true, but its not a POKER skill. Statisticians and analysts maybe. But not a poker skill.

I don't think anyone means to suggest what you say. This argument has sprung up in relation to Skier's tool, which I understand to have been used privately and not made available to the general public.

There is a separate argument that HUDs etc put off recs who don't use them; I think it's actually something of a red herring. Poker's still a game of short-term luck so plenty of those recs will stick around because they remember great pots that they won. Perhaps more so if they beat the grinders. Look at the WSOP and other big tournaments. You see plenty of people wanting to sit down against people who they know to have a huge edge over them.

How can people ask to bring back poker closer to the roots or nearer to original live brick- and mortar poker?
If this then ban all software cause I have to have all stats/reads about my opponents in my head not in my HUD, ok....
BUT then also abn this f***g ridicolous ZOOM-S**t cause it has nothing to do with real/pure poker or back to the roots when I have to remember the stats/reads of like 100 people sitting at my table in my head instead of using a HUD.
So if u wanna bring poker back to the roots, then don't ban only software, also ban ZOOM cause it has really nothing to do with live/original/good old poker
Otherwise let onlinepoker be onlinepoker, with all its skills and software which is esp for onlinepoker and makes it so interesting as MARCOS explained in the post above.
And let livepoker be livepoker and prohibit HUDs and software in livegames where you sit at the table with 5-9 opponents and have to have your reads/stats in your head.

this message should popup everytime a recr. player starts a poker client

First of all, one thing:

I got an email about this thread and at the first sight I thought its from Pokerstars. Felt like they wanted all of their high volume players to be part of the discussion (I quickly read it on my phone). Then I noticed its from HEM directly trying to keep their bussiness running.

WHY DOES POKERSTARS NOT INFORM THEIR PLAYERS ABOUT THIS THREAD? THERE IS A BOT RING GOING ON ON YOUR SITE AND BECAUSE OF THAT YOU ARE CHANGING YOUR T&C YET YOU ARE UNABLE TO SEND OUT AN EMAIL TO AT LEAST YOUR SN AND SNE PLAYERS LIKE YOU DO WHEN INFORMING THEM ABOUT THE UPCOMING SCOOP AND OTHER STUFF?

As for the Software itself, I am a high volume player myself and I would ban them all. I use HEM and a HUD of course. It does help me make proper decisions, yes. But we are forgetting one thing when we discuss whether we should move on like sports does or not.

We forget to think about the recrational players. They deposit and want to have a good time. They might use HEM but for sure with a standard HUD. I am pretty sure noone of them uses NoteCaddy. We need those players to not go bust in 5 hands in NL Holdem and in 10 hands in PLO but instead be able to survive a longer period of time. That is the only way we can make more amateurs deposit and play online.

Five years ago people were gambling mostly at the tables, there was no GTO and optimal play. Everyone was able to run their roll up and have a good time. Of course the weak players will stay weak players but the game will be more fair.

Just think about if you had to play tennis against Djokovic, who is already the best. Yet you would not wear shoes and play with a crappy rocket from 1960. That's what is happening in todays online poker enviroment.

Let people use HEM and PT to track their results and review sessions but make the table play as simple as possible.