I mean, the maker of the video clearly has too little understanding of the law for this to be of much interest.

It isn't because it can be achieved with those two things:
1)a SQL console which is distributed with any database out there
2)Notepad

I don't disagree with you about HUDs (because their only purpose is to interact with poker clients and thus you have a point here).

ToS only matters if you are actually playing the game. You can buy and analyze the HHs while not being in game. ToS has 0 standing there because you are not using the service.

But it's not "illegal data". The ToS is not bounding when you are not playing the game and/or interacting with Stars' client in any way.

Only if you are actually using the service. Some people didn't even agreed to Stars' ToS what is there to stop them from selling HHs?

It's not moot because you can take the HHs and put them online for everyone to see (like Poker Table Ratings used to do) and that's a problem if you claim datamining is a no-no but it's still available one web search away.

Great you did cause it's one of the best way to argue against nonsense and forces you to formulate your solution to avoid absurd being derived from it.

C'mon you can't possibly believe this is sensible. Stars doesn't own the software market. What they put in ToS is only relevant when you are in game. They shouldn't have power to ban people from writing software because they don't like it and it can be used as assistance in their games.

People are entitled to write down what happens to them. You can argue (but you would probably lose as noted in your point above) that copyright protects HHs but it surely doesn't protect people writing down their playing history which is indistinguishable from translating them and then releasing them. The information in HHs isn't in any way protected and making it so is just a lunacy.

They can create it independently; what they cannot do is create it in a form deriving from the HH (assuming it is protected).

Hello all,

I read the last two pages of the thread (maybe more, because I'm taking a couple of days to write this...), because trying to read more than 100 pages and trying to catch what you are discussing in 100% of things it would be a little bit insane for me.

I'm not a so regular nowadays and consider myself just a mediocre player trying to get better (and probably I'll post a PG&C next month), not just for playing, but reading a lot here. I was a student of Math and Statistics in 2005-2010 but I didn't concluded my studies due to my marketing online career (working on, oh what a coincidence, user behaviour and BI with web analytics). I started playing poker at 2010 with SnG's, after that I started to play cash games. 2013 I was a reg at NL50, NL100 and NL200. By Oct 2014, I played off the BRM and moving up from NL25 to NL1000, turning $200 into almost $8000 in five days and playing only with the mobile app at PS Zoom tables.

So, I'll give my opinion based on what I have learned since 2005 until now, based on to turn the game fair to all users and have a great game to play, no matter how good or bad we are. (sorry for the long post in advance :/ )

==

Info is gold. So, if get this resource and do nothing, it's only gold. In Sauron's hands, it can be turned into a ring "that can rule them all" and in the hobbitses' hands, they'll use to play "hide and seek".

Historically, every poker room/software provided hand history with a default text. So, everyone have potentially the power "to rule them all". But, is everyone benefiting from that?

I could answer:
1) yes, because we have software that everyone can buy.
2) no, because not everyone is looking for that edge.

And for the number 1, I think we have two categories:

1) users that can understand statistics and apply for the play
2) users that cannot.

For the users in number 1), great! Congratulations!
For the users in number 2): hey, just use Google and you will find tons of info on how to use it!

Maybe for the number 2) group, some of them succeed, some not. And for those who not succeed, they eventually stops playing because "PS is rigged" (meaning "hey, I don't know how to deal with these statistics").

So, probably we could have a little % of users that can actually use 3rd Party Software and a great % of users that cannot.

At total, in the present moment I'm writing this, Twoplustwo have 424k users and 2.8k active users (record peak was 30k). But as I drill down the numbers for just poker related forums, I roughly sum 200 active users. This is like 1% of PS traffic and 10% of 888poker (using numbers of PokerScout).

So, if I consider 100% of TwoPlusTwo players, that knows some programming logic, mass tablers with only 10 active tables, it would be like 10% of PS traffic. I'm doing this calc because we can do 10 active reg tables easily (I don't think that we can mass table at 888 poker, but it's not the point here...).

If we consider that everyone is playing FR, it's like 1 player playing 80 other players (if they are not mass tabling too!). A quick calc: 200 x 80 = 16.000 "TwoPlusTwo opponents". So, it would be like other 80% of the traffic of PS (considering my previous calc).

So, the strong winning reg that can use a HUD and mass table have a enormous edge counting hands/hour. The strong reg can lose Aces or Kings all day. Because he knows that ultimately he will be dealt with those monster hands and he'll recover what he's lost. Better yet with any other hand that turns into a monster with the flop.

But you can say that "the sample is too small" (no matter if you play against too many players in Zoom and have a small sample of hands, or a small number of players in reg tables with a low number of orbits) ... Gosh... always is. Deal it with. I clearly see that every losing play is "because of small sample" not because of "bad read" or "opponent just got lucky this time". Whatever...

What I'm trying to say here it that datamining and HUD usage affects 10% of the players that have enourmous impact in 80% of the players. Almost a Pareto Principle.

... so that being said ...

I think that the study of the opponents offline is THE edge. And if I mimic the offline play, I don't have a "Google Glass" that tells me that "this opponent is TAG/LAG". I have a little notebook that I can make some notes (liar! I only take mental notes). But in my mind I can "tag" my opponents. The software does that, you can colour your opponents and take notes. Thinking this way, a HUD with only the history of the player could be reasonable (it's the same). But any other way that a software have already an intelligence to automatic tag users, it's something like "to use steroids". You have to have the knowledge to do that, not the software.

==

some more opinion...

==

So, it leaves to only statistical tools to search that could spot potential bots and cheaters. I really think that some users from this forum deserves some giveaways from PS, if not, a cash payment, like some great IT companies do when you spot a bug in their system.

The fun of the game (and for the rec players) isn't the HUD, HH, etc. It's for the table selection, it's the Aces losing vs any-two, etc.. The real deal is that we have a lot of dreamers-haters than "reality-ers"-thinkers in our game. They just think in the present moment, not in the long run. They don't even know what is bankroll management or how to properly do it.

And for that my friends, we see that our sites have now cassino and sports betting (for some regions, of course)! Because "poker is a skill game" and cassino it's just luck. "And if I don't have skill to beat the game, maybe I have some luck", if not, I'll go back play checkers. And if we go back IRL, Las Vegas profits more with cassino games than poker. And more with entertainment than gambling in general. I think you all know that.

I only want to play a great game and have a good time. I'm looking forward to spread the word writing (my future post at PG&C) and making some videos for Youtube.

Maybe you are right that seling hands only for offline use would offer some legal argument for those selling them, but we both know that is bollox don't we? They are sold for use in game, they are marketed that way and that is how they are used.

As I said it is moot as we do not have a regulator prosecuting for use in game never mind supply but we do have a quasi regulator in Rational that prohibits use in game and supply - they could leverage licencing to get to check the data used and get compliance by the main software suppliers.

Regulator and Quasi regulator working together could kill the cheat data market, could get compliance in game, at least on the same machine and likely beyond that once supply of data to facillitate cheating is not just criminalised as it is technically now but also enforced.

We both know that using bought HH in play is cheating - that is an offence. Supplying those hands is an offence too. The problem is that nobody enforces it. Instead we have the only cheating prosecution to date (Darren Woods) being a fraud one because his fake identity use meant that had a higher penalty and so we have no poker cheating precedent under the 2005 Act.

The law is there on data cheating, we just don't have anyone enforcing it. I'm not advocating new law - I'm just advocating the laws we have in the UK being used.

There is a very simple answer to the problem you see as "cheat data". Nothing revolutionary, and easy to implement. Instead of giving the dataminers complete HH with only the mucked cards at showdown removed, how about PokerStars just don't give them useful data at all?

But no, probably best to criminalize poker players, smh.

I expect you'd be all for the government to abuse it's power and have regz.club and RPTR added to the great firewall also.

Against players, or the people selling the hands?

It is part of the fun for some players, recs and regs alike. Not everyone thinks it is fun, but that alone isn't reason to ban them. Huds, hand histories and the sheer volume of hands seen online will evolve poker to the next stage, just like chess engines evolved chess.

Both, in his ideal world.

Of course, jurisdiction doesn't matter - the UKGC is equally adept at prosecuting those in faraway lands as it is those at home. Because of this amazing ability, we won't end up in a situation where we as players are unable to use tools to compete fairly with our opponents who use such tools, under threat of law.

imo we should bring back the death penalty for anyone who uses a HUD

And for people who check raises or for people that reraises preflop with anything else than aces.

Alienating customers by taking them to court sounds like a bad idea, and the film and music industry aren't doing too well getting convictions for pirating. The only people who would win, are the lawyers.

Death penalty would be too harsh imo. Playing Zoom is punishment enough.

Nah, playing Zoom a far worse punishment than the death penalty imo.

There are two sources of datamined hands:

1. Pokerstars failing to have tables that can't be observed. This can be stopped by making tables unobservable as FTP has just done. Maybe there are some more techo things that need to be done to hide table handles from Windows spy tools, I don't know but I'm sure if there was a genuine will there is a technical way to hide them. If high stakes regs want to be railed there could be an option to turn observability on (soley for high stakes tables and authorized high stakes players) so Isildur could get his fix.

2. Players who share hands with each other. I get the impression this is rampant in the HUSNG community especially within coaching groups and within staking groups. As far as I'm aware in the 6max community this pretty much never occurs but maybe I'm the only idiot who didn't get the memo. I propose that in HUSNGs Pokerstars simply stop producing text file hand histories. For tax purposes all that is required is the result of the match.

Suck on them apples.

This never happens in the HUSNG community as far as I know. It would basically amount to suicide. Sharing your database gives a thousand times more information on how to beat you as it does any opponent you may have encountered. Added to this, in HU the stats of a villain playing against NOT YOU are of far less value than in any other format, since specific adaptation is such an important facet of the format.

As someone who doesn't play 6max, or Zoom - I can tell you this never happens in HUSNG, but I am pretty sure it happens all the time among 6-max cash and zoom regs I propose Stars stop giving HH to 6-max/zoom players to curb this obvious cheating.



And in case you missed the above posts - Pokerstars need not make tables un-observable. They could, but it would be overkill, and likley impact sign-ups from new players. They already know who is datamining, and give them a specially created dataminer hand history instead of the real one. Only problem is the dataminer history is almost identical (only mucked cards at showdown are removed), suggesting they really don't give a hoot despite their ToS.

HUDs = mass multitabling

mass multitabling = slow games

1 tabling recs = get bored

get bored = no fun

no fun = recs leave and don't come back

no recs = online poker dies

Solution = ban HUDs or limit number of tables.

A lot of you guys quibbling over trivial software changes need to wake up. Online poker won't exist in 10 years unless something radical is done to rebalance the ecosystem.

Very smart post. Completely agreed. I think those radical change should be limiting played tables by 2. Also, remove 4max+ tables and leave only 3max. Also, I think time bank should be removed. I am sure fish hates when someone uses timebank. Online poker is going to die without that change in the nearest 10 nears. Possibly 15.

Any speculation on why they might allow this in their software? Has PokerStars Steve or PokerStars Keith, etc ever commented on this issue? If not I'd appreciate if one of them could get back to me and others as to reasons why this is integrated into the software.

Limiting the number of tables (to, say, 12 regular or 4 zoom as a default) seems reasonable to me. Another way of achieving that would be to make the amount of time available correspond more to the amount of money in the pot, and remove disconnect protection on small pots.

I think there are some interesting arguments around this (probably doubtful, rather than really doubtful) but on balance probably not a copyright work.

That said, there are surely better arguments that the sui generis database right applies.*

On another note, can someone please repost the new rules/guidance/whatever it is? Or link to them, or something? Sounds like a disaster for enforceability but this whole thread is such a train wreck that I'd rather see for myself.

Both - I want suppliers of hand histories prosecuted for assisting cheating, I want those using illegal data prosecuted too.

As an aside SpinWiz is a tool designed to facillitate 2vs1 collusion so I'd want them prosecuted too.

Not going to happen, there is no appetite by Rational or the Regulator to prosecute, too expensive, bad PR, uncertain outcomes but I'll piss in the wind about it occasionally.

The key bit would be getting the HUD suppliers signed up to a licence and forced to let the sites see the data being used. Stopping it is more importnt than an unlikely prosecution.

Yep.

The European Arrest Warrant means that the jurisdiction could be - should be - EU wide but as they don't do it in the UK that is a leap.

I think the closest one can get to the CDPA categories is probably a literary work, right? And then it seems how one interprets Ladbroke v William Hill in that a HH could arguably be regarded as a 'compilation of information'; even then, I find it difficult to see how it can be the case that each individual HH is sufficiently original to attract copyright protection. Possibly also an argument that Creation Records is wrongly decided given the EU situation but again, don't see how that gets over the originality hurdle.

As to this, I struggle to see how individual HHs can amount to a database; and Stars is surely not the maker of any collection of HHs?

Don't think the question is of much practical importance.

Great point. But you understand that I'm agreeing with you, right?
I don't think that you read my entire post.

One more thing...
I'm looking forward to play at FullTilt. I'm just waiting the end of the month to do that