UB/AP already did this, so why are you bringing it up now? Their software wasn't even open source

Whilst I'm not saying that can't be the case, consider this. If that 80:20 ratio is close to the truth for pokerstars, what effect would zero rake have?

pokerstars is about one third winners, and two thirds losers

Didn't read the whole thread so I don't know if there has been discussion of this yet, but if you are able to get this up and running (which I sincerely hope you are able to do), I highly recommend selling advertising space on the tables. Instead of having a logo like the fulltilt logo that is on all of their tables, you can have a Jack Link's beef jerky logo. I think this could generate a lot of revenue to subsidize all of the costs people are mentioning (security, support, advertising etc.). In any event good luck!

Love the idea. Greedy sites don't give back nearly enough (full tilt won't even give loyal long time non-rakeback players the same deal they give to noobs).

Problem tho... if everything's open and honest how do we decide who gets to be a superuser?

I read that it was one third of all seats are occupied by winners, meaning the statistic is skewed by multi-tablers.

No it was a totally different situation entirely.

Don't misunderstand me: I understand that there have been major breaches in poker security. OP brings up some good examples. I can see good benefits to OSS in terms of peer-reviewed security.

But the point I'm making is open-sourcing the client interaction with the server and poses a big security risk: not security in terms of 'hacking the hole cards', but in terms of 'preventing botting and collusion, and use of prohibited programs'.

And there is a larger problem that opening up the server and allowing client poker sites (skins) to run their own business makes it especially easy for rogue skins to set up on the network.

I was responding to someone who was stating as fact it would be a 50:50 split if you remove the rake, which is incorrect, so I was correcting him.

I'd be very suprised if more than 10% were net winners in the online poker lifetime. But this is getting off-topic.

they are if you count RB/SN/etc.

Probably several very trusted users each have a share of the cryptographic-key needed to access the server. They can only access it when they're all present together. Each person will carry the key encrypted on a USB drive and be responsible for securing it.

Although there'd need to be some recovery system in case someone lost a key.

Yep that's true. That's why players must pool their minds to come up with innovative solutions for combating this problems. Some of the ideas I've heard today have blown my mind. This is one small issue that can be overcome while at the same time there's all these massive benefits.

Anyway who knows how many bots/colluders play on PS? No-one is able to independently verify it themselves.

I don't believe it's one small problem. I think it's a major implementation issue with taking this approach. You will have no control over how users interact with the server, so no way to control if they are using prohibited client tools.

... And neither does PokerStars. I run PokerStars in a virtual machine, so they have no clue what other software I'm running. For people in the know, it's not hard to circumvent these petty preventions.

Most of their policy is just about finding the obvious fools who slip-up and make a mistake- colluders sharing IP addresses, bots playing insane hours/tables or known cheaters logging onto other computers.

People can use prohibited services or bots on major sites as well. It might be a bit of a hassle, but it's certainly not difficult for anyone pretty decent with computers. There are in-client ways you can deter users from using software that you don't like, but you're only stopping those with limited computer knowledge. It may not be a small problem, but it certainly hasn't been solved yet by anyone.

Right, it's not black and white. But it's not trivial writing a bot that interfaces well with pokerstars client. And no one to my knowledge has decrypted the client/server communications to allow it to communicate directly with teh server. With open source clients, both will be trivial.

We will just have to disagree on the severity of this issue. Good luck with the project, I will certainly be there with my small bitcoin purse once you are up and running

The hard part of writing a bot, is writing a bot that wins money.

It even says that PokerStars logs your hands to a file. Then you make a bot that clicks the buttons like how tableninja does. This is not difficult to do.

Real Deal Poker part 2?

ORLY?




Can you please explain where the 200k number came from?

Are you asserting open source encryption is not secure?

No that's not anything related to what I am saying.

edit: just so you don't further misunderstand - the proposed solution here is open source client software. Therefore client/server communications will be open. It will be easy (and encouraged) to write your own client to interact with the server. Right now this isn't possible with pokerstars as messages are encrypted on the client side and isn't known. In this case it would be. That would be it would be easy to, say, write a poker bot that interacts directly with the server (rather than having to awkwardly read and control a client GUI)

OP have you calculated expenses for game security personal? I mean you can't use forum support to handle bot detection, collusion reports, multi accounting, and the other methods of cheating. I'm sure PokerStars spends 10m+ per year on game security. How are you going to eliminate this cost?

I made an error here, but the point still stands.

WMF Finance Reports

Wikimedia Foundation pays $8 mil in costs per year. The English Wikipedia is the 8th most visited site on the internet. What else does Wikimedia they pay for:
- Other language Wikipedias
- The 12 other Wiki projects listed on the WM frontpage.
- Conference gatherings around the world for Wikipedians to meet up.

They operate on a shoestring budget. Other sites in that usage comparative bracket spend $100's millions on their operations.

i think OP should just go for it, set it all up and treat this P2P poker room like a home game then see where it goes from there. Giving us poker players a fresh and new alternative is always nice.

sure security would be an issue, so i think it might be a good idea to make the highest stake available only up to 50nl at the start and gradually go up.

i wouldn't mind playing there to relax

Players can offer a bounty to people who are able to break the systems.

A few good statisticians are able to do the statistical analysis necessary. I don't see why crowd-sourcing this would be an issue- I've seen statisticians in the science section of this forum.

And you certainly can use forums. If the data is made public for people then it's in their interest to mine that data and find cheaters/problems. Then they present their conclusion to the community and discussion ensues on the correct action to take. It's the same process that happens in Wikipedia.

People tend to see Wikipedia and assume it's just everyone jumping in and editing. Actually it's got a huge bureaucracy and self developed laws. Just look at the conversations and use of acronyms here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...10_December_12
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...10_December_14
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...strator_review

Self government does work online but many people find it objectionable because it's too different from conventional wisdom.