HUDs are not as useful vs rec players. HUDs are most useful vs regulars - who also use HUDs.

If you could opt out so no one can see your stats but you cant use the hud yourself then, I don't think many would complain.

I suspect this will be similair to the prohibition of buying hand histories. I think a lot of cash game regs still buy them, because no one ever gets punished because of it. It will be the same story with banning HUD's and other software. There will be workarounds and only honest people will suffer...

They have that choice and they choose playing on Pokerstars which is the largest site and the site where software is not allowed is not even close. And it is not the largest site by making idiotic decisions like banning HUDs. Obviously HUDs are not a thing of big importance to fish.

Its not that they don't get punished for buying HH it's that they don't get caught. Key difference.

Im a table starter of nl1k-nl2k on PS, and i find hilarious that you keep considering put roadblocks to the people who is really willing to make an individual effort to study, learn and improve his own game. But you allowed scripters and bots for the last years, and you are just killing the ring games. Any month is more difficult to get a single table of 600nl+ for any reg who is not a startert. So the only way you have to get a table withouth buying an expensive script is to really learn how to play poker and how to beat regs, and you will ban us from that opportunity. The other option is easy, just not to play mainly at Stars, something that since i become a poker player (4 years ago) had never consider it. But its something that you can really not avoid at this time.

Why a recreational player would join to a ring game ? I mean, if i were one i really wont do it. Its just very scary the way that they are treated for these scripters.

And i also really get how much do you think this programs affects in reality to the low and midstakes population, since for more programs that does exists, most of regs are not ready to make the effort is needed with them, most of them are very lazy to use it in a way that could really make a drastical changes in their games. So what do you pretend are fixing with this ?

And you also increase rake every year. You dont encourage games between regulars.
I dont really know where you are going with all of this. But had a very negative feeling about where NLH is going lately..

and nothing says that the largest site cant offer both both a hud and hud free $100 nl fullring cash game...

u wanna play in a hud war go for it... id love the opportunity to play against people and not huds

This. If these hud players are so hell bent on keeping their cheating tools under the guise that they need them verses other hud players then LET THEM AT IT! Alone. But for sure restrict them from normal games where players are solely playing humans with NO advantage aids.

It looks like there is a missunderstanding about what dynamic stats is.

I think allowing a HUD and banning NC and any other program that helps you real time should be banned. It takes skill to know how to adjust to different hud stats ect

No point. You can't have one ban and not the other except for like two NC things all the information is static from before the hand. It takes skill for both. Please do not demean the program with misinformation.

I for one don't think Skier has done anything that far out of line with the current climate of husng ethics... in comparison to the ethics of some his "opposing force" who have voiced their concerns so forcefully via their large hoarding of numbers and mafia like solidarity.

In the world of husngs where sharkeystrator and cartels of hundreds of players have been created to basically keep the top at the top... and make it impossible for any new blood to scream up the hu sng stakes.

Where recently a discussion took place to create a cartel at 3 player spin and goes games. Wtf??? Do u not already have enough of stranglehold on hu sngs??

If Skiers technique was somehow manipulated into PT4 hud and available for $100 to all of the husng community would there have been the uproar there has been by certain pilars of the hu sng community?? I doubt it very much.

Im just saying. People in glass houses shouldn't.... no wait... if your in a cartel its okay. You have the numbers. You can dictate however the f you like.

You guys cannibalized your own profession. Its your own fault. Lol

....

The hud line in thread is coming from that part of 2p2 that doesn't understand the onus the husng xommunity has had on software to become what it is now.

Why don't you just go and play on a HUDless site? This is what I don't get. It's not like there aren't any.

If your software needs to scrape the screen to find out what's happening mid hand, so it can decide what info to show you, then its dynamic and should be banned IMO.

If your software just reads the hand history then it's static.

Why the hell should I?

i agree with darkmattersman... why?

site can offer both games - let the player decide

or r u scared rec players will pick a game where they dont play at a massive disadvantage?

Because they exist in the market - if it matters so much to you, then it would make sense, surely? FWIW I'm all for making FTP HUDless because the two sites are essentially the same at the moment, but tbh as a rec player I would (and did) instantly gravitate towards sites with HUDs because they go a long way to solving a bunch of the issues which make live poker such a tedious game in comparison. Would be surprised if the whole video game generation that Stars is targeting now with Twitch didn't see it in largely the same way.

and by that thought why dont hud players go elseware?
your not providing any reasonable argument why players should not have a choice... if a rec or fish wants to play on a hud table let them... if they want to play on a none hud table let them...

let the player decide

why should u have any say in whether or not i play in a hud or non-hud table... let the market decide - if not enough players are playing non-hud tables then PS can **** can the games...

but i expect many rec players when given a choice will go to non-hud games and those regs who are solid players without a hud will enjoy better win rates

for the weak players huds are like auto tune... they help a **** singer believe they r a rockstar

That's why I would support FTP being made HUDless. It doesn't make sense for the market leader to completely change their business model based on vague assertions from some guy in a forum.

omg

again -your not even making a argument... give a reason why players should not have the option to decide?

and stars has always been open to ideas from players for new games or to change existing.... and read the thread ...... way more then me saying ban huds completely.... i am offering a hybrid proposal - allow both and let the market decide...

if u dont like it -play on a hud table

seems pretty simple

Okay - the player pool is too small to split down the middle. It also doesn't adequately reflect the choices of recs who will often simply sit at the first available seat. In effect, it makes the HUD tables HUDless too since any regular will table select across the whole site, so this suggestion basically enforces no HUDs. You also have to provide a whole bunch of literature explaining what a HUD is which is going to be controversial in itself. And my suggestion already does the same thing in essence without splitting the player pool, as well as providing more reliable data as people will have gone to the trouble of switching and it provides actual diversity in the market rather than in a single provider who won't be able to differentiate between the products in any effective manner. Got it?

I was getting mad spikes with hm2, and all my tables would freeze for 5seconds when I try to view other players nc stats.
I'd say this is unfair, what about the people who put in countless hours making software and tools for those who want to improve and beat the game.
Rec players don't care and they'll come back either way once they hear their friend or relative has binked a tourney. People won't be depositing more money because the game has become more fair.

Party has done something similar with its Casual Cash Game tables (where you can only sit if you're playing one table at a time). It's a solution of sorts to this perceived problem of recs not wanting to play mass multitabling HUDbots, but it's been far from a universal success. And then of course there was the covert segregation attempt, which was stupid of them to even consider.

The idea that Stars could easily enforce the segregation of rec-friendly tables other than by copying Party's CCG approach seems unlikely. And the CCG approach isn't much fun for the solid regs who can win without a HUD, mentioned above, because playing only one table at a time kills profit whatever the winrate.

Monkeyheaven sensibly pointed out that the changes proposed by Stars are relatively concise (i.e. all the talk in this thread about Stars banning bots or Snowie or other things that are already banned during play is pointless).

Most of what is proposed seems uncontroversial. As I see it the two main issues are:

1. whether tools like Skier's should be allowed (he says it simply presents charts efficiently; others seem to think that presenting charts that efficiently gives an unfair dynamic edge; Skier - does your software read the action, for example, to present a particular chart for a player?)

2. whether NC/NCE present a dynamic advantage. As said above, perhaps there's some sort of misunderstanding of how these work. I don't use either but my impression of badges were that they might be capable of this by flagging that a particular issue was relevant at a particular point during a particular hand. If that's not the case (including in any of the extended uses of NC/NCE) and badges are static and unaffected by action during a hand just like any other stat, and there is no question of the software prompting the player to notice something in the action that might help them, then I can't see why NC/NCE should be banned if HUDs are okay.

I don't think I'm uncomfortable with the changes currently proposed subject to clarification of the above points.

This suggestion that HUDs are responsible for the decline of online poker is ludicrous. In my experience segregation of markets has been a far greater factor, from the UIGEA onwards.

got it?

ummmm.....not really as it feels like your grasping at straws

$100 no limit FR and less definitely has a massive player pool that can support a split... but wouldnt that be interesting if half of the players went non-hud? would certainly suggest some demand eh?

im pretty sure players can set up in ps the games they want to play? why would that change? as a reg i simply click off hud games... so i dont have them show up in my lobby... ditto for recs...

and i think a one pages description on huds is a GREAT idea for all new accounts... so people know in advance what is being used against them

and how does your suggestion provide more reliable data? i dont see it...

No, my software does not do that. The user must reference a specific chart, which can either be done with the mouse or by voice.

Steve,
I like using notecaddy and I don't think the stats there are dynamic but I do see how you can consider them too sophisticated.
That being said, from the bottom of my heart I can say I couldn't give a s**t if you ban it completely, some of its features, scripts, or even HUDs entirely.
I am confident I would crush the games anyway regardless of which of the above is allowed or not.

What I would suggest however is to announce decisions like this with more time notice.
You said you'll let the discussion go for 10 days, if after that you make a decision like "Effective immediately all software that do this and that are not allowed" that would be a bad idea.

For example if I remember correctly you announced switching to contributed with about 1 month notice but gave around 6 months(then an extra 6 months) notice before implementing the rathole solution. That's too random imo.