Because it's insane. Players without the time or dedication to study should not magically be given winnings from those that do.

Similar to Partypoker's casual tables. U can only play 1 or 2 tables for example.

A pretty simple but easy solution imo.

Just read a quick description on this. Pretty cool. A step in the right direction.

That's not what I am saying. Are you really that obtuse?

A lot of regs one table Party to play these tables in addition to their main site. There are lots of solutions that seem simple and easy but reality is much more complex.

This is my fear with the PS rules. Specifically the difficulty in enforcing these particular rules and the incentive that creates to break the rules to gain a significant advantage.

Maybe HUDs should be banned from these tables as well. Enforcement could be a problem admittedly.

Unibet seems to be able to do it though.

I grew up in country NSW, town of 12,000 people with no computers except in my imagination. Age is irrelevant if one has the interest and motivation. BTW, I used to own a Sinclair ZX81 in the 80's.

Perhaps the regs are a bigger total of players than casual players,and the rake from multi table grinders would take a big bunch of casuals to rake as much, so while sites are always campaigning for newbie type players,they have to respect regs wishes (HUD's etc) due to their multi table play (rake rake rake) and try to find a happy medium for all.

48k spectrum for me

How do you explain the completely different player experience (and winrates) on Unibet or Bovada or anonymous tables on MPN in comparison to the experience and winrates on Pokerstars?
HUD-free sites are soft precisely because HUDbot regs don't play 24 tables on them.

12,000 people? You must have used a ****ing big abacus to count them.

FWIW, I had a ZX81 with 16k RAM, and I still think '3D Monster Maze' in 1982 was more exciting than poker in 2015.

I think 'money' is a legitimate argument, but saying they don't have the time or dedication could be extended to any component of poker. Casual players don't have the time or dedication to run solvers (which you obv can't ban) on river spots? Better stop playing games with rivers!

HUD free sites are soft because they're unattractive to regs as HUDs can't be used. If that's changed, there's nothing making them less attractive (apart from terrible software but whatever), they become a lot tougher.

About the ToS: It seems that they changed what was written in the Privacy Policy and ToS. They don't conflict anymore.

Cloaking software processes are extremely easy, I won't go into further details... But your question and what FreakDaddy and warrenBluffit said below are extremely relevant.

In the case of chess you are talking about, it's a little bit different. What FreakDaddy said about in his other message is true: People usually don't know how to use (and understand) statistics, and I'm not even talking about poker players, I'm talking about everyone .

Someone watches F1? I don't remember watching a single FULL race since Senna died. I was a kid then. What we are talking here is like the evolution of the F1:


After Senna's death, people started to invest in technology for security for the pilots and of course, faster cars. And as you can see on the picture, we have a lot of buttons that controls a variety of things in the car.


Great changes, right? The pilot have the entire control of the car. The skill of the pilot is just not for the acceleration and breaking times, and pit stop strategies and the setup of the car, but how the car will behave in the circuit.

We can see two groups there. The first and highlighted one: the fierce competitors of "who clicks the button in the right time". And the not so glamorous "It's my job and all I can do is to give my best".

Now we have a group of F1 pilots we like. In 90's and before, was like 3 or 4 pilots racing each other.

What I'm trying to say here is that some variables we couldn't control in the past, but now we can for many things. But turn into automatic actions or do something that we can't do in the lobby, it's just not right.

In my opinion, it's fair to use a poker tracker software, but automate that for actions or showing info dynamically to take actions is not right.

Yes, I wrote again with other words what I said on other post. I think it's good to illustrate how I think and maybe change opinions

Regs are the financial life blood of online sites, but they need rec players in order to thrive. So there needs to be a balance of course.

I'm just laying out the reality of the over reaction that's been going on since PS's announcement. I really haven't read through the thread, so perhaps this has already been stated, but you really only have 2 options.

1) You ban poker software, and then push it under ground and create an even bigger unfair advantage. Because there's no way to stop it.

2) You create an anonymous format like Bovada. But when you do this, you open up all sort of other major issues like collusion and fraud. More importantly, you create a game that isn't live or online poker. I mean in live poker, you know who you're playing against. Bovada has created a hit and run dream. Imagine that on a bigger network like PS. It's really not fun, and the only reason you play at Bovada is because it's one of the few games available games for US players that have reliable payouts (correct me if I'm wrong, maybe some sites are better now, I don't know).

It appears more like the typical company take over, where new ownership comes in and over reacts and doesn't understand it's customer and base well enough before it starts making all sorts of changes. I mean, they're upsetting a lot of regs, and not because of this software thing.

Regardless, it will be interesting how it plays out. But I'd tell you rec and casual players, it's not the software that's the problem. It's really not, but I know it's the easiest thing to blame.

I think party poker is deff on to something with that idea. And you're right it's not just the 3rd party stuff making the games harder but to say they have no effect..... is just dumb, naive or ignorant

I don't know how possible it is, but it would be great to just be able to split all the tables up. But than again that wouldn't be good for tournaments.... If I play the Sunday million, I want as many people in as possible.

It's certainly a tough issue. Glad I don't have to make the decision.

We have users:

1) that are against any type of 3rd party software;
2) that are against any type of 3rd party software that automate actions (from table selection to making advices against players in hand); - I'm here
3) that are against HUD's;
4) that are pro-HUD's;
5) that are pro-table selection automation programs.

I just think that people in 1) and 3) don't realizes what's going on with the poker online as a whole. It's like F1 as I described earlier.

And people in 5) don't know that table selection IS a skill from an online poker player.

@FreakDaddy, one more thing...

CS:GO have the "Overwatch" program. As some users are capable of identify cheaters by seeing they playing and make judgements that are sent to Valve if they ban or not.

As we can't just see a cheater "by playing", what we can (and already do, but in not so organized way, I think) is spot possible cheaters and collusioners.

Pokerstars may have a way to check that, as banks have with credit card frauds, but I think that they don't know how to apply to it. Google already have an algorithm to spot tendencies and things like that (they even know what's your period of doing things, just with search and app usage behaviour).

And I really think that these users have merit if they have positive cases, and I'm strongly favor for PS giving some money (or something like that).

Maybe Pokerstars could create a mini-social network that we could pin users as "cool user", "cheater", "professor" or something like that, see how many hours the user play and games they play.... As Steam have too. Something that I think it's not cool is to have the option for not being visible in the search. It's like the "anonymous tables" as you said, but of course, in another way.

I thought you said you were a rec player correct? As a rec player, I assume you haven't used most of the software out there then. How are you calling me or anyone dumb or naive if you don't use or understand the software that exists?

I see more regs misuse information and make poor decisions based on the info they have from poker software, than regs that utilize and take advantage of the info they have. The games are tougher because depending on what stake level you play, there's one less fish and sometimes two less fish at the table than there was 4-5 years ago. And poker software isn't the reason that's happened.

Markets close, especially in counties that have money, and you're going to lose the average player or fish from making all the effort that is necessary to deposit and play. Fish want quick and easy access to start playing. That gets fixed, and the games eventually come back. Maybe not exactly where they were 10 years ago, but they will get good again.

Just cause I'm a rec players doesn't mean I've never see or know what poker tracker is.

So I'll say it again, if you think the software hasn't affected the game, then removing it will have zero impact, yes?

But I'm not dumb or naive, I know that it's not just the software that's made the games more difficult, I still think it go against the spirit or whatever you wanna call it of the game.

A game where we're directly playing against each other should not require anything more than your brain. And thing more is an unfair advantage.

When was the last time you done some ev calcs or looked at various ranges and how they hit specific boards?

I'll bite, a few days ago.....

I'm assuming you used software for this? Flopzilla etc?

To be fair, I don't think anyone is suggesting banning Flopzilla/Equilab since it would be completely impossible to do so.

Also FWIW, I've done most of my work regarding ranges and boards with a pen and paper.

I knew this was to where you wanted to go. Flopzilla doesn't give you anything specific about me. Only you're guess to my range.

Poker track give you facts about you that you can use live in real time.

What you use to practice or study is your own business, it's doesn't give you that same advantage. Software that's not directly based on my hand history's won't give you an edge. Flopzilla doesn't give you anything specific about me. It's still your opinion on what my range is.

Isn't bovada US only? That alone should make the site much, much softer. Americans have way more disposable income than 90% of the world. PS is full of eastern europeans and south americans happy to make a living playing 50nl.


I wouldn't mind a ban on huds, it's better than the anonymous tables idea, which in my opinion is a very silly idea and it takes us even farther away from what poker should be about.
I'm afraid that if huds are banned there will be some people cheating with their illegal huds or whatever.

In my ideal world huds should be banned and table limits decreased to maybe 2 zoom and 6 regulars, but my preference is obviously biased.

Also props to PS for apparently solving the zoom datamining situation.