1. Be allowed to download hand histories. The hand histories are already anonymized, there is no way they could be used for a HUD or data mining.

With the ability to download hand histories, players can feel confident that the RNG and rake structure are accurate, as well as giving some defense against possible collusion and/or botting.


2. Be given access to session accounting. Each game/session listed with how much is won or lost. Without this, we have to have blind trust that funds aren't randomly missing when playing lots of volume.

I believe that these 2 are very important and I don't think these would favor regs over recs, etc. Transparency goes a long way to keep players of all types satisfied.

+1!

Thanks for starting this thread, OP. I agree that both of these are legit issues for the sake of accountability. Players need to have access to hand histories in some way that enables basic review of their own play & outcomes, as well as $ won/lost by table.

I do, however, disagree with your claim that there's no way anonymized HHs could be used to enable HUDs. I'd include two additions to your point #1 to help prevent HUD use. Not saying these are the "be all end all" for stopping HUDs, but they'd help dramatically:

A: There needs to be a significant delay before HH can be downloaded (say, 24 hours). Otherwise it's too easy to generate stats from the current session on all opponents.

B: The HH should not include the exact times the hands took place. Maybe randomize the order within a given session or block of time?

Without these measures, I can easily imagine how I'd write a script to match anonymized players in the HH with actual usernames. Global is very anti-HUD. They absolutely need to address both of OP's concerns, but also want to be very careful not to enable widespread HUD megatabling (which is wise given their business model, imo). There are some extremely smart and resourceful poker-playing coders out there.

If not download, GP could at least work on a way to display stats for players personal use.

Even if it just starts with our own personal stats. WPN offers more stats to players on the tables as they happen.... than GP does in total. Being able to look at what you've done this session with regards to hands played, pots inolved in, etc. is a very helpful starting place.

Beyond that, my biggest request is this...

Allow players to search our own personal histories with parameters. Examples:

-Hands opened
-Actions by position
-3bet/4bet
-Equity when all in (how many times have I won/lost when all in)

Advanced
-% chance to win pots in various hands we've been in. (Pre-flop v. opponent.... when all-in v. opponent.)


It's as simple as this. A players should be able to search their own hand histories and bring up parameters/specifics with amounts, positions, situations, etc. Display them in a way that is impossible or difficult to extract and again... it's only for players' personal consumption.

This is good for the players' enjoyment, it's good for building trust.... it's inarguably helpful and not harmful. In no other aspect of life is someone having less information about how they're spending their money tolerated or explained as acceptable.

Open up players personal data to the players. Start there. It's way beyond time.

I think that ultimately, it would be easier for Global to just allow the HHs to be downloaded and looked at offsite since it would literally just be a change in their TOC rather than a new and rather complicated function added to the site.

Nonetheless, I would be happy with either.

Jay S:

Thanks for the clarifications. 24 hour delay sounds like a great idea and still serves the intended purpose of transparent record keeping.

Also, I thought that the anonymous #s are generated for each hand (I could be wrong), which makes matching numbers to players much more difficult.

I think for those in support (most of us I hope) of more access to our own stats and histories, the notion that this harms rec players somehow has to be dispelled.

I've given examples from pretty much every other gaming industry on earth and none tout more access to person player stats as "dangerous" to players.

We're not talking about full fledged HUDs here, we're talking about giving players more access to their own history with greater detail. At least as a starting point, and that's an important distinction.

There’s been so much discussion of this in the other thread when they first changed the TOS. All the good ideas that people have would require an update to the software that they do not own. It’s much cheaper for them to just threaten people with bans which prob aren’t even enforced(I have not seen a single thread opened about a player being banned for DL HH yet and it’s been a couple months now). They never even gave reasoning for why they changed it iirc. Joey just came in the thread and cherry picked posts to answer and sidestepped all the difficult questions.

I concluded that people must have been running huds and this was the easiest/cheapest solution they could come up with to combat it. Nothing else really makes sense why they would even care about people looking at anonymous HH in HEM2 or PT4 or w/e. Truly bizarre

+1 well said

I think the technical term for that scenario is a ####ing mess.

+1+1+1 Once again as stated before well said

yeah definitely need downloadable hh. anonymize the players obviously. 24 hours after the hand was played.

I support this post.

Just saw this thread, and I wish the title was a bit more clear (ie: Downloadable Hand History Proposal) or something like that, as I did not know it was these topics until I just clicked it now.

That said, the main reason I have not backed people on this room is essentially point (2), which to me is pretty much a deal breaker, and I have no idea why they have this in place, and I agree it is a change that should be made in some capacity.

Note, I am not as concerned that money is vanishing, so much as the inability to keep proper records is a real problem for those that need to do that (staking deals, taxation purposes etc). It is not reasonable to expect all poker players to track every table/session manually in an accurate manner.

As to the downloadable hand histories, obviously I would prefer them as they would be in line with what I would want for my business, but I also am aware that therein lies a bit of the problem. Once they are available that will likely create a much bigger rush of players (backed and not) who take advantage of that data, and the crazy games as they are for now will likely change much quicker as a result.

I think a proposal to ask to see some key stats is an interesting one, but I do not believe those stats will do anything to alleviate any concerns about the deal, so I would need to have a better idea of what specific ones would be wanted and what the goal of that would be. Anon hands (a variant of the Bodog approach) is interesting, but I do not know how practical that would be to put in place. Perhaps it is easy and perhaps not, and those are good questions to find out when proposing it as a viable solution.

I will also suggest that whoever wants to push the hardest for this do their best to contact the rep here or someone who can speak on behalf of Global and try in a non hostile way get all of their reasons for why the two scenarios in the OP exist. That might help shed some light into why these choices are made and then a stronger proposal to find a common middle ground can be made with those in mind.

Best of luck with these issues.

Anything keeping backers from bringing their stables over into the games is good by me.

@Monteroy
It’s already anonymous by default. When you replay a hand only your sn is visible. When they were allowing DL of HH the SNs would not be visible within HEM2/PT4.

A rigged site that jacks your cash would keep stables away too.

I understand the sentiment and I agree to a degree, but I think there are other ways to protect the rec friendly environment at global without sacrificing basic self auditing tools such as game by game balances and basic hand data functions.

While I don't personally feel that Global is cheating or stealing, still, the more people keep significant funds on the site, the more I think it's absolutely essential that there is transparency and the ability to access one's own data.

Fyp

You would think, but there were still were companies backing a lot of people on Lock Poker (not rigged, but outright crooked) as they paid nobody, which made no sense to me at the time (they generally had affiliate deals worked in them that paid them Lock money as well, which I guess made them happy or something).

The reality is this is a predatory business by its very nature, so if changes are made to make it easier to do backing on a site like this (player transfers, better ability to track wins/losses, downloadable HHs, trackable games) then that will be filled quickly, and that is something that should be considered by those who want a lot of these changes, but also want the games to not change. That is not how this industry works.

Why not for one time just try to make some fn money instead of counting it, it will be more productive I'm sure.

One of the best posts I've seen on the entire subject.

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...7&postcount=34

Very disappointing. HHs sound unlikely.

yes i was nauseated after reading that post also which is why i didnt reply to it. I didn't even know what to say or where to start, I kinda give up, cheating till i get caught seems gto at this point, then open new acct rinse n repeat. Feels foolish trying to play a straight up game and honest grind imo.

edit - i dont think anybody else was too please or impressed by that post from hence the lack of comments or support, don't feel bad. LL I think all of the players are on the same page here and now GP is pretending like we aren't as long as they can to keep hiding whatever it is that they so adamantly won't let us see.

I agree where is this overwhelming majority of players that don't want accessible hand histories? Well lagtight and nick seemed to be opposed to hand histories.
I'm not sure why they think not having access to hhs will benefit them so greatly

I am honestly starting to question whether playing there long term is going to be smart. Whether it's getting cheated by collusion, bots or software glitches, without a way to monitor ourselves, seems like a recipe for disaster.