Look at who the HU hyper regs are, watch the HU hypers lobby over a few and you'll see how false this statement is. Anyone who thinks its unfair if you play anyone but fish has long since disappeared from the HU lobbies.

I struggled to find the politest phrasing possible, but since you're admittedly new to the SNG world your opinion carries basically no merit. Just because you're naive or ignorant to something happening doesn't mean it isn't happening.

The earth is really spinning bro? That's weird because I don't feel it, must not be spinning.

Obviously I'd prefer to play recs only, but that's not why I'm "whining" about this issue. As of today, a group of regs have an advantage over other regs simply because they're circumventing the rules to use a registration system that is extremely similar to the one just banned by PokerStars. These players can now, unlike everyone else, avoid the 'blind lobby' feature that Spin and Gos are supposed to have.

Currently, the only way to even the playing field is to make your own Skype chat with other regs, something I've been approached about multiple times in the last few days. The general thought on these groups is that if other guys are cheating, the non-cheaters have to cheat to keep up.

It goes back to my earlier post, if you aren't cheating you're being cheated and that's a disgusting environment to work in.

lol. Why so arrogant ? I didn't know that only longtime-hs-sng-pros can take part to this conversation..

I think it's more than normal to feel the way I feel if you are reg from another format..

I didn't address my comment to you but just tell my opinion in general. I could have posted that comment to "30s division" thread as well..

Not being arrogant, in fact I did my best to not blast your entire post that effectively called me a whiny, stupid bumhunter.

Look, there's this idea that all opinions have equal weight/value in a conversation and that's just not true. Here, yours has less because you don't play Spins (I do) and don't have any familiarity with the Spin environment (I do).

You posted about how you thought it's unlikely that there were hundreds of guys manually regging on Skype, I have confirmed that these groups exist. I'm not saying 'Oh I think they're doing this, maybe." It's confirmed. I have been invited to groups, seen the registration tool document, been offered deals with other groups that involves their own registration tool, etc.

Even the people that tried to avoid all regs with Spinwiz still played 40% of games with regs in them.

And weak regs couldn't bumhunt, they'd be sat by stronger regs in the software.

Spinwiz wasn't really a tool used to "hunt all the fishes." You can't really hunt the worst players with it, because the worst players didn't use the software.

It was a tool whose primary overall benefit was making reg vs reg games more efficient for the better regulars. It let the best reg avoid the 2nd best reg (if the 2nd best reg was willing), and then both of those top regs could focus on playing the 90th best reg instead.

It made no sense for top regs to avoid all regs though, because their volume of games would torpedo and their hourly would tank no matter their winrate. Some still tried to avoid most regs, but that was a strategy against their maximal hourly potential. The best regs that used Spinwiz generally sat over 50% of the software's users, sometimes a lot more, and just avoided some of the better ones. Personally, I like that environment, it rewards the best regs and forces every reg to improve their game. I know others advocate for an environment where it's less competitive amongst regulars, and that has advantages/positives of its own.

The better regs all sat weaker regs that used Spinwiz constantly too. But a lot of those weaker regs just moved down to where they were stronger regs. So you didn't hear a ton of opposition to registration software in Spins by weaker regs even.

I really doubt recreational winrates will change at all with or without registration software in spins, in either direction.

The image of the software is "bumhunter, regs teaming up" though, so I guess that's why all registration software will likely be banned across all games soon. The image/branding/marketing of the tools isn't in line with their primary benefits (minus cash games, where it truly is all about sitting the bad players quickly).

I think that's a failure of the people that benefit from the tools. If the regs that benefit from it and the people that build the software don't want to take the time to argue their effectiveness and their lack of impact on recreationals, then it's not surprising that PS will ban the tools when players from non Spin games are up in arms about it.

+1. Been part of the poker community for 6 years. It's filled with scumbags. With SpinWiz I never felt colluded against. I feel that way manual regging these days.

+1. Half of my $100 spins had regs.

Some people completely deserved getting hunted. Now I can't do that (unless I get invited in some hungarian Skype group and coordinate my registration with him... ) IMO weak regs within Skype circles now get MORE breathing room.

Please bring back SpinWiz.

Yeah like watergun said the current system is much more unfair for casual players and regulars alike. The casual players now are actually having a higher % of 1-2 reg games and are getting skinned even faster post spin wiz.

Stars does care about regs more than people give them credit for, the majority of regs are breakeven players and keep the revenue flowing for stars.

Can someone create a petition to bring back spinwiz? Stars clearly didnt take into account that now 350+ people are using an alternative registration program that is impossible to monitor and creates an unfair situation for regulars and recreational players alike.

with something like spin wiz the better regs will have incentive to just sit the weaker regs as others mentioned. it's just like in hu hypers. even if they don't beat you enough that it's worth 'grinding' they force you away to get a higher portion of the fish action.

the unfairness doesn't hurt recreational players. the experience does not change at all, and their winrate will actually be better since they will be playing less games with 2 other regs (since 2 other regs will not be in the same game). same goes to other regs, even those not using these alternate methods. actually for the other regs, the situation as is is better because of the same reason i listed for rec players.. it's only 'unfair' in the sense that regs using the alternate method are winning more than them since those regs don't play each other, but do play them.

it's really hard to ban everything altogether because if two (or more) players have the same IP they can't play in the same game anyway for collusion prevention purposes. similarly if i say to my friend 'i don't wanna play against you, ill play 8pm, you play 9pm' they obviously can't stop that. so drawing the line at how long the time can be etc is just impossible.

I'm not shocked one bit hearing about such alternative methods after SpinWiz, but how unfair are they in the long run? However, alternative registration isn't making recs loose faster. If alternative registrations means more games, it would only mean more rake and more profit for stars.

Alternative registration could be compared to game theory where we now have a game with x-groups of "alternative" registrations and a group of "normal" registration. "Normal" registration is always filled with recs and the optimal for regs would be a monopoly, i.e. spinwiz. More "alternative" groups will in the end be comparable to a perfect "normal" registration game.

The bottom line is: since its impossible gathering all regs to one group, the value of these alternative groups are diminishing and thus it would be almost indifferent if you're in a Hungarian skype group or not.

For the record many people were using these skype chats even while spinwiz was running because the wait list got so long, only difference now is the worst regs who used wiz can't be specifically targeted.

Its making recs lose faster because with SpinWiz more games were single reg (1 reg 2 rec), now the percent of (2 reg 1 rec) games have gone up so the recs EV is lower.

This is quite obviously untrue. What you are missing is mostly that the chance of a rec getting a 3-rec game was previously under 10% - only 3-rec games were those skipped by SpinWiz and it was in fact that few at higher stakes. Now however, this chance is around 25%.

In other words, now - discounting the skype cartels and whatnot - everyone is getting average games.

Before, spinwiz users were getting easier games on average (that was the whole point which no one will deny). If they were getting easier games, someone HAD to be getting HARDER games, cause on average, the games were - well, average. Guess who? Obv the non-users of SpinWiz, the vast majority of whom are recs.

Where are you getting this data from? Spinlyzer shows 8.6% 0 reg games at 100s over last 7 days far cry from your 25%.

I guess he is (incorrectly) assuming equal probability for the 4 possible combinations of regs and recs (0 regs, 1 reg, 2 regs, 3 regs).

You're assumptions of a zero-sum world are incorrect, regulars having harder games now doesn't mean recs have easier games, a result of regulars manually regging instead of waiting in a queue means both regs and recs have harder games.

This could change in future as the marginal regs leave 100s but as of now its a good thing stars has a generous VIP program

On a side note, it implies that 44% of entries in the pool were those of non-regs (that's a 'maximum likelihood estimate' - if the number is indeed 44%, then, according to the binomial distribution law, 0.44^3 ~ 0.085 = 8.5% is the probability of three non-regs being sat together; the probabilities of a game being 1/2/3-reg are then 3*0.44^2*0.56 ~ 32.5%, 3*0.44*0.56^2 ~ 41.4%, 0.56^3 ~ 17.6%*), which is quite comforting

* The chances of a certain player getting 0/1/2 regs as opponents in a given new game are 0.44^2~19.4%, 0.44*0.56*2 ~ 49.3%, 0.56^2 ~ 31.4%.

uczniak, there is a fault you havent accounted for in that argument aswell, its time. Regs werent queuing as fast as they are now due to spinwiz. Waittime were as high as 10minutes at worst, why? because the amount of recs arent enough otherwise the queue would fly. What does that mean? It means that now when regs whom outnumber recs by far is queuing way way faster, and ending up in a 2 reg-1rec game much more often rather than during the era of spinwiz it was often 2 recs-1reg, which increases the EV of everyone, not just the reg and lowers the EV OF THE BIG BAD MONSTER AMAYASTARS.

interest in ROI isnt as high anymore, volume is all that matters for anyone good because the swings are so much bigger now, which means that recs will have a fricking tough time to get a full rec game or even 2 rec-1reg game at higher limits because regs will always be there queuing.

Also, 3-rec games were actually happening when spinwiz slipped a game here and there through, now its much less because of everyone hammering the join button.

It isnt that hard really. With spinwiz regs could register more efficient and get less regs per game. If recs are getting higher frequent of regs in their game, it only means more games are starting and thus banning spinwiz would be a success for stars.

never disagreed on that, recs die faster but regs also loses much more (roi decreases)

#BringBackSpinWiz

games are great spinwiz gone is the best thing that happened with spins

#BringBackAmericansSpaniardsandFrenchies

+italians

As it turns out, Skype queues that do the same thing as SpinWiz are against the rules.

how do they draw a line? what if ten friends who live together in a grind house.. 5 friends visit too? am I allowed to tell my 5 best poker friends when I'm playing so they can play different times? what about 10?