Ummm.....not sure what's so enlightening about that. Fact is it's an easy game when you have your opponents stats. Playing on an iPhone without a hud I don't have the info I had when I 24-tabled with a HUD on a PC.

I've probably logged ~750k hands of zoom on an iPhone. I couldn't tell you one single regs screenname. I could tell you all of them when I played in the past.

a bit of a problem may be that the sites do everything to weasel out of the responsibility. see josems watering down attempts as an example. my best guess is that they are directly profiting from the software, trying to squeeze out some extra $$ from the players. so i would not expect them to drop this stuff without putting up a fight.

Even so, man up and learn to play poker. If they ban all software, you're still going to lose to the guys you're currently losing to - perhaps more slowly due to multi-tabling being more difficult, but your decisions still are going to be worse than theirs in either format.

the problem is what Sect said. HUDs are great equalizer of skills.
Thanks to them more and more regs have b/e,small winrates without really that much skill.
Simply if there was no huds the rake to deposit ratio would be signifiantly worse(for poker rooms).
From "poker rooms" rake stand point current status quo is significantly better. Table with one fish and 5 b/e max 5bb/100 winners is generate way better deposit to rake ratio than it would be if there was no hud.
Simply there would be bigger gaps between winrates.
Ideally from poker rooms standpoint regs would make the money only from rewards program and not from the play itself.

This whole post is absurd.

nah you don't need HUD in penny rooms... just play ABC poker and you still own noobs... I've used HUD once but it's more of a hassle to keep for me. You can just tell player's tendencies just by playing few hands with them

THIS post is exactly the reason why I started this thread. Most recreational players will not articulate as well as Hanley did, they will just spend their entertainment dollars elsewhere.

Josem is his own man, his reputation on here is flawless. I am as anti hud ( and associated software) as anyone, and think the fact that Josem enters such discussions is to his credit.

Most rec players don't trust it as it is . Not sure if anything can be done to change that but getting rid of software could be a start

this would be a great way to come to a middle ground, even if some data is mandatory.

you don't know that, the HUD data is giving them a huge edge on the better decision, would you feel comfortable turning off your HUD and jumping onto a table of regs?

- what about changing your name and dropping into a table of people you know?
- gathering a players complete hand history, studying it while he doesn't have access to the same?
- running an extensive hand history through software to isolate patterns?

i don't honestly know what's right or wrong, i just know that my enjoyment of the game is observation, discipline, planning and problem solving. with or without a HUD, i refuse to give my opponents a free edge so i'll stick with Bovada for now.

the entire HUD based mass multi-tabling poker scene is so boring and robotic. i don't particularly like anon tables, i enjoy playing against a name that we both can form an image from.

i'm new online but it seems like this topic is has been thoroughly beaten through and decided on so i'm not going to put much thought into it except for where i choose to play.

All of this just indicates is you don't know how huds work. That's fine. You are not alone. Most in the thread don't understand them either. They think a hud spits numbers out at you and you don't need to acquire the skill to interpret the numbers in a profitable manner.

You say you play at Bovada because you don't want to give a free edge to your opponents. A very good player can figure you out within an orbit or two and cut you up. When you sit tomorrow he just does the same, but you don't have the knowledge that this is the guy you shouldn't be playing with.

I personally feel like the issue of the game being harder and harder is simply the fact that you have one of the largest markets in which people cannot play online poker. Not only that, but there has always been a stigma of online poker being illegal coupled with news reports on UIGEA, and Black Friday, there is probably a good amount of people who would otherwise play, but believe playing is illegal and they decide to steer clear and get their gambling fix at their local casino.

In the seven years Ive been here Ive never read one post where I questioned Josems honesty, integrity, and or his credibility, even if I disagreed with him.

He has never hidden the fact the he works for PS since the very day he started working there.

He also is very capable of separating his personal opinions from his job and will always make it clear when he is speaking for his employer.

You are way out of line.

Id suggest you worry about your own credibility.

Youve been here for three months and already lost it all.

Looking back on your posts, it is pretty apparent that your sole purpose for posting in these forums is to trash PokerStars.

I never win be0causse I suck, and not because you use aids. I deposit at least once a week because I think it's fun, not to win money.

Recreational players like playing. You don't know anything about us.

I'm not a supporter of banning HUD's. Simply put, it's not the root of the problems, and isn't going to suddenly solve everything and make the games easier for recreational players.

Removing HUD's will mean that regulars cannot make the whole "He folds to cbet 80% of the time so cbetting ATC's is +EV" decisions, but it will in no way bridge the gap between recreational players and regulars.

The main reason for the gap being so huge is simply that regulars put time and effort into improving, while recreational players often just want to have fun. Recreational players can have plenty of fun sitting at one table by themselves, while regulars looking to improve their game are most likely going to be playing more tables, getting themselves more hands per hour, just so that they can get into interesting spots more frequently. Take into the account that they'll then study their game using Holdem Manager/Poker Tracker, while a recreational player will just go about their daily lives (since they had a session which was either fun or not for themselves, and achieved what they wanted to), and it's actually easy to see that the reason for the larger skill gap is simply because of the regulars persistence in studying and playing.

The gap wouldn't be so large if recreational players decided to put the effort in that regulars do, but for many they don't often care. You have to remember too that some players who play online will see as many hands per year as a popular casino probably deals on every one of their tables per year, if not - more. These people get into every scenario numerous times over, and if they have trouble with it will go back and discuss it with others.

It's this whole combination of a huge amount of hands, and the will to want to improve to find greater edges against each other that really divides the gap between online regulars and recreational players.



Don't get me wrong though, I definitely think something needs to be done to make the games more enjoyable for recreational players. There's tools out there that aren't prohibited that I believe should be, such as seating scripts. There are also some actions that regulars at higher stakes might do where they split action between each other, which is in some ways a type of collusion against the mark at the table. General things like berating are something I see people do fairly often towards fish, and that attitude doesn't help at all. I can't remember what Podcast episode it was, but the guys were mentioning how the attitude in Southern America was so different from Northern America, where if a recreational player would suck out on a regular, and it would just be "That's poker", rather than a large amount of curse words and negatives thrown towards the players that drive the economy forward.


I do agree that the economy of online poker is slowly coming to a halt, but banning HUD's won't fix that at all. There's plenty else that needs to be acted on prior.

Sorry if I've repeated anything anyone else has said in this thread. I just read the OP then responded.

Oh, and another quick edit: I've seen a couple of people mention "You wouldn't be comfortable turning off your HUD!", but truth be told there still are people who don't play with them. Last I remembered, King10Clubs on Pokerstars didn't use a HUD, and he does pretty well for himself against regulars.

lol @ people thinking huds dont give an advantage, there are softwares available on 2+2 that guide you to a 3bb/100 winrate at 100nl while 16 tabling, its that good that I'm too scared to even pronounce its name. It use the hh datamined to give you stats and tells you when its +ev to bet on F/T/R.

If you dont think huds and stats are a tremendous advantage, you mustn't use them correctly or have the latest softwares available.

we are at a time where you dont have to understand poker anymore to beat the game, you just need the latest technology.

and lol @ hud = cbet stat, are you guys still in 2009 ?

its funny because guys defending huds are the guys that dont even use the properly or have the latest software

check 2+2 software section for **** sake

Software that assists a player by telling them what actions they should take are banned by most Poker networks.

Also, anything that uses hand histories you didn't participate in, whether obtained through data mining or through a network of servers, is also prohibited and disallowed.

HUD's, such as Poker Tracker 4 and Holdem Manager 2 only give you the frequencies of which certain actions happen. It's then up to the user to piece those numbers together to make their decisions. So those HUD's are in no way linked to the one you mentioned in your comment.

Basically, everything you just said is a moot point because the most renowned Poker rooms have banned those types of software.

you are ignorant about the latest legal technology and you act like you know everything

read the 2+2 commercial software section, buy the sofware and come back here

and everyone uses it well every top regs, its like seating scripts, you need to use them if its available or you are giving up edges

What's the name? Likely it is prohibited software if it tells you which action to take.

Other than that, supported huds, PT and HM, if they work as easily as you think they do, then why bitch about it instead of use it and clean house? Oh yeah, it requires work, and your hotdog-eating ass is lazy...

its not, its even integrated to hm2...

you guys just dont know anything really... its mind blowing seeing all of you taking the defense of huds when you must not even achieve 10bb/100 at 6max (how do you think i do it ?)

im giving you the blue pill here ahah

I haven't played online since 4/14/2011, so enlighten me, dummy. Tell me what it is. PM it to me if you have to; I won't be playing online anytime soon so you won't have to worry about me crushing your soul, but I'll look at it and tell you why you're a crazy, clueless person.

i was going to but when i see how you are talking to me, i'll just leave this thread, i've said enough anyway, those who are intelligent enough will do their homework... the others ? well there are fishes to the regulars, not that there is anything wrong with it

Ok anti hud geniuses, please tell us how huds can actually be banned from being used by all players?

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE, the best you could hope for is that only a few super tech savvy sharks formulate one and carve up the competition themselves

Yep. What I expected... just another lazy loser.