How can you tell someone is observing your table? Is that only for Spin N' Goes?

I don't think there is much difference between Sharkscope and buying HHs tbh.
I think there is big difference between Sharkscope and using said HHs during play though.

My point is that there is difference between behavior undesired by Stars and cheating in the game. One makes you criminally liable and your funds can be seized the other can be basis for account termination but then again, Stars is free to terminate any account for any reason or for no reason at all.
I am saying that buying HHs is not cheating as you do it outside the game. Using said HHs in your HUD is cheating because you are violating rules of the game while being in that game.
Stars has no say in what I do with my life when I am not playing there and not using their property (or intellectual property). They can terminate the agreement with me, give me my money back but that's about it.

Well yeah, it seems the problem which started this discussion is irrelevant in the presence of problems like that and attitude Stars displayed towards solving it.
Arguing things about games in ideal environment is fun but it's meaningless when way bigger issues are not addressed.

Well the truth is, it doesnt matter if its outside the game. The rules say buying and using other players hands and datamined hands is forbidden. There is no grey area. And I personally know of people who got banned for a certain amount of time, aswell as other who were not caught aswell as players who were not banned.

And if that happens, its obv its against the rules. Maybe not YOUR rules because you think it happens out of the game and Stars cant say what you can do and cannot do, but youre just lying to yourself. The rules are clear.

I don't think ToS is binding for things I do when not using the software or not using the property/intellectual property of Poker Stars. Even within that they are limited to what they can put in ToS. There are rights you can't waive when agreeing to contract like ToS. I am pretty sure "you can't browse websites A/B/C or buy products from companies X/Y/Z" wouldn't be binding.
Any lawyers to comment on this one?

I think "irrelevant" is the wrong word. Whether we're talking about the rise of bots, super-HUDs, seat-selection in supposedly random games, or the sharing/selling of datamined hands, it's pretty clear that online poker has some pretty big problems right now. It's hard to say which of the above poses the greatest existential threat to the game, or which problem needs a solution most urgently, because they are all somewhat related, and all have an incalculable effect on liquidity to one degree or another.
It's quite demoralizing that the one game that everyone thought was introduced purely for the benefit of recreational players (SpinGos) is apparently just as attractive to parasitical "angle-shooters" as all the other formats.

Can you in any way explain how that matters? I mean okay lets play this through. You close the software, you buy HHs, you load them in your tracker. You analyze games of your opponents you havent observed yourself and have their stats. You start the software and play with something that you are not allowed to have according to ToS. What the hell does it matter if youre not using the software the moment you get them. You are breaking ToS when you start it and play.

Feel free to comment on that but anyway lets get back to topic in general.

Horrible site, scumbag users. PokerStars need to ban players who are using them. If they would want it would be easy to figure out whos using it by simply getting access to it themselve. BUT they wont do it because they make a huge ****ing profit of those regs, so its okay if they cheat.

Well, my point is that you can buy them, analyze them but not use them during play (you can for example have them on different computer and only use kosher ones when playing).
I think that to cheat in the game you need to break the rules of said game while playing it and that ToS is not binding for w/e you do when not using the software.

They can terminate the account if they don't like it (but they can do it for w/e or no reason at all anyway) but it's not cheating (so you are not breaking any laws and they can't seize your funds).
Again, it would be nice to hear some lawyer opinion about it but I can't imagine that you can put things unrelated to the software use in ToS and have any chances of enforcing it in court.
The problem is, those rules are completely unenforceable and there is huge incentive to break them along with 0 risk of being caught (well, unless you load them up in your HUD and make a video which you then make public).

Well, I buy hands, put them on my laptop, analyze them. I then play from my main computer. How can they possibly do anything about it?

What about simple step:
Don't allow observing the games without logging in. It can be extended to allowing it only for accounts which have made at least one deposit.

i'm not 100% sure, but i believe PS has to provide HHs at the table (maybe richas knows more). so the quick HHs night be not just a (good) service, but a regulatory mandatory.

also datamining comes from sites, who scan the tables. so the only solution would be to hide full tables, sngs and mtts or allow no observers at all.

a bit less drastic would be to make the tables for observers anonymous (exceptions can be made for Major FTs, who are recorded anyway)

there is the same thing for hu-sngs. it tracks every single hand any player ever plays, and shows every possible stat in a hud.
so you just search for a player like fydor_8 there, and then on this site, given you bought access, 20-30 huds pop up showing you his vpip, pfr, limp, cbet flop,turn,river etc on all stacksizes, it shows you heatmaps of every single prefloprange they have.

i emailed pokerstars about it months ago with proof, they said its forbidden... but they do dick about it.

I also noticed there always being 1 observer in every game when I recently had a go at spins. Datamining has been a problem for ages and I've never noticed much being done about it but now with very powerful huds it will be much worse. Perhaps if they start to think that datamining will actually make people not want to play on their site they will care, maybe cheating has to negatively impact them before it gets taken seriously. I also dont like the idea of groups of regs being able to share databases even if can get rid of datamining bots.

Any comments from Pokerstars support in this case ?

I dont have problem with datamining, i mean off course it will be better without, but you can buy hands from all , zoom sng, mtt, etc


Where i have a very big problem is when only some people can buy,
i know there is one stable of 100+ people having access to datamining hands spins since march of this year....
And now the site selling hands need a invitational code for buying the hands...

This is VERY unfair, and make me tilt so much,

This is such a disgrace.

it seems to me that PS wants all games viewable for the purpose of sweating with friends even though by doing that, it makes data mining possible.

Unibet doesn't provide detailed dealer chat or downloadable hand histories. I doubt they are breaking the law. (Hand histories of a player's own hands can be seen within the client, but they aren't downloadable in txt format).
In addition, table and seat selection is impossible on Unibet, and you can't pull up a random table to "observe" (except in an MTT that you are playing yourself).
It's perfectly possible to reduce datamining almost to zero. Stars evidently doesn't want to. For some reason they think the ability to open and observe multiple tables is a good thing. At the very least, they could make it so that observation was limited to 1 table at a time or something. As I understand it, you don't even need to be logged into a Stars account to "watch" the tables. That seems like an open invitation to data thieves.

I also noticed in last 2 months that there is observer in games even everyone is locked , and I was wondering how its possible that some1 can observe!? Even in games that are 2x prize pool, not jackpot games

even 3-5 observers at the time at 60$ game (30$ buy in) for example

funny

+1

they should ban the search by tournament # they wouldnt be able to find the 2x and 4x games as they dont show in observer bit u can view only 6x+ i beleive.

and 2x and 4x make up 90% of spins would def make it harder for these ****s

If you read this, and then still thought pokerstars should do more, you have the intellect of an 8 year old (at best).

A quick idea how to check if someone is using data mined info. If people have data mined info but cant use it to improve their play then data mining and those websites with stats are no longer an issue.

Well... they are asserting that this:

Has ultimate value and can't be compromised on.
It doesn't sound like taking the datamining problem seriously if introducing even minor inconveniences for observers is too much to reduce it. You can for example do the following:

1)only allow logged in observers
2)only allow logged in observers who made at least one deposit (so you get some info about them, it's way harder to clone accounts even if the deposit amount is 1$)
3)some combination of 1) and 2) but you can also add invitations (so players in the game can invite someone to observe by sending them a code or something)

All of those are inconvenient for observers but maybe those inconveniences aren't huge. They all would help with datamining problem.

While they succeeded in the past it's imo not very constructive. There are so many countries with different laws and their case is very weak anyway. All they can do is to intimidate with cease and desists letters but those aren't very scary if you can choose a place you operate from.

I really think removing search by tournament ID is the way to go. If you want to share a 2x spin with a friend then unhide yourself from search and do it that way.

Congrats to whoever the mod is deleting posts without dropping a pm or leaving a comment in the thread as to why.

Is this forum completely owned by Amaya now or what?

Thank you.

As no doubt you know, he is a repeatedly returning multi-banned "riggie" troll who is well aware that his posts are deleted each time he is noticed.