I am addopting.

No I'm pretty sure your breaking the T.O.S

i don't see how this is different than any other form of poker which are also being datamined

Standard Pokerstars security department competence.

if you think online pokiez is full of poker samurais you need to wake up

Their play chips games are pretty good still...

I don't think this.

But people claiming to be adapting when they are cheating won't last long.

There is a thread where stars shut someone's account because they admitted to buying HH's

/thread

It's not OK but for spins it's easy to fix. Make the tournaments unsearchable via tournament ID.

Yeah I've seen it too. In every game someone watching ! I thought someone following me

I've noticed it too; I don't play many of these, but virtually every game I do play has an observer turn up very quickly. I only mess about in the $3 spins for a bit of fun and free entertainment, but for someone legit trying to play these at higher stakes it's definitely going to making things harder.

I think spins should be more like Zoom in their observability — if people want to watch a spin n go then only let them view the highest current multiplier at any given stake and not watch anything else. That still gives the genuine casual observer something to rail, but denies the databots the volume of hands to make it worth their while. Otherwise, you can only view the hands of the people you're actually playing against.

But if sites aren't going to do anything about cheats any more then I guess everyone who is serious about playing poker might as well join the miners/botters/others if they want to remain competitive in the game.

Let's face it, this is just the new reality of online poker now. Adapt or die. It might even be a case of cheat or find something else to do. That's the sort of decision players might have to make these days.

More likely just means that there's no realistic chance of getting the appropriate legal jurisdiction to enforce it because of where they are located, rather than no grounds to do so. It's a clear breach of the T&C.
Yes it would seem absurd if the NBA had that in their T&C. But if they did have it, I'm pretty sure they'd enforce it through the appropriate US Court. Some sports events won't let you take the wrong brand of cola into a stadium, and I think it was not so long ago there was a major international sporting event that wouldn't even let you buy your ticket with the wrong brand of credit card. Absurd, but certainly not impossible to enforce.

I said it in the other thread - PokerStars would do far better to scrap these datamining rules and just tell players the truth: Every hand is played in public, and anyone can observe and record your actions if they wish.

The current situation is untenable. Honest players are put at a disadvantage, market value for observed HH is driven up and situations like this arise.

At the least (if they actually wish to stop mining) they should fix the client so the hand-mining equipment required isn't simply Windows Notepad + copy&paste.

How?

online poker needs to go anonymous.

It not make sense. You block a tournament to unsearchable, but two others players do not . So bot find your game

Everyone can buy Zoom Hands, regular table hands, SnG hands etc. easily. Since years PokerStars hasn't done anything to stop these sites or dataminers. Why would it be different for Spin and Gos?

Its quite hilarious when you think about Steve, who is asking ppl for their opinion about HUDs and charts, because PokerStars is thinking about banning some programs which can give players too much information about their opponents, but is doing nothing against secret-invite-only-reg sites. (which is a total cheat and scam to other players)

PokerStars, if you read this: DO something. You can't be THAT ignorant. These pages exist. People have a clear advantage. Its sickening me.

First of all, if you should participate in that: **** you.

Second: Its not different. Buying Zoom hands is cheating aswell. Always has been. This site is going even further, making it invite-only makes it not even available for anyone to cheat.

I wish Stars would send a warning to each of those Skulls and Bones members and if they continue to use it or buy hands, perm ban them. Such people don't deserve anything else. But look at the rake those ****ers generate, why would Stars do anything that cost themselves thousands and thousands of dollars?

Ridiculous. Oh, and btw., it is against TOC using those hands. Hope you get banned one day before you withdraw.

This would actually be good for poker provided it was free and publicly available, and if instead of profit, only itm% was shown. It would be simmilar to sharkscope but for spin n gos

I am wondering as well. Maybe enough regulars in those games share, remove their holecards and then sell? Or maybe the client is leaking all the HHs (I didn't dig into it but that would be quite bad). Any info how it's done?

I don't know man. HHs don't belong to Poker Stars, people buy them when not playing. It's questionable if you can make rules about that, for example if Poker Stars proclaim that wearing white shorts outside the table is cheating, would you call white short wearers cheaters as well?

For once if you don't play on Stars and buy those HHs there is 0 reasons why it should be "cheating", then you make some stats available on a webpage - still not cheating. Then some people who play on Stars click the link, are they cheaters? It's a gray area at best but imo buying HHs is not cheating and you can't put such things in TOS/rules and expect it them be in any way respected or carry any weight.
Using them during play is another matter though and this is clearly cheating (and that's what people were banned/temp banned before).
One way or the other, the only way to stop it is on their end. Stop spilling the HHs, allow for some more anonymity, there are ways to stop/limit it if they want that.

The current datamining rules are unenforceable. I've said a few times that if Stars really wants to prevent datamining or the sale or sharing of datamined hands, they should stop providing the data in txt format. In short, I agree with your post.

Does pokerstars still have that annual event where their reps meet with players? Any group of regs against could bring this topic up front because stars will unlikely take this seriously through emails.

just my two cents

That's one more reason for me to avoid Stars... Because of the sheer player pool size, they become the primary target of any 'technical innovations' (Spinwiz included).

Speaking of, Winamax's Expresso Challenge leaderboards publicly list every result of any player who is in the top 500 (by the number of games played at two adjacent stakes), i.e. essentially of any reg (available by clicking on the screen name).

lol you cant compare that at all. Because people who buy hh's do not only use them offline. They load them into their tracker and have a huge sample on everyone, which is telling them exactly how much someone 3bets, 4bets, from every position. That has nothing with "outside" to do, thats inside.

There is a huge difference between sites like Sharkscope, which show you of someone is winning or not and hand histories, that show you how someone is playing his cards.

If this problem is going to fall down to a case of adapt or die, then you might as well choose to die since it's inevitable for everyone anyway. Those who choose to give up now will have more time in their life to better their social/personal lives and chosen career path.

The only people staying for the cheaters to exploit are the poker addicts, but world wide government legislations are taking care of them.

I recommend for all those concerned, but still like playing poker to not keep a lot of money on the sites.

You could read the report of the last meeting if you want to have your dreams shattered: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28...014-a-1491343/
Cliffs: Stars said games are healthy, players doubted it, and some of the games that were described as "healthy" (e.g. PLO 200z) turned out to be full of bots.
Steve never posted his own report. He ignored the thread and instead announced a bunch of rake increases that weren't even mentioned let alone discussed at the meeting. And then he cancelled some of them when 2+2 went mental.