Why ban something when you cannot even detect if it is being used? I know the history was never used, but site said the ability was removed totally. Is it back?

I am just trying to understand it being totally prohibited even when the client is closed if not enforced, nor even able to tell if it is even being used with the client open. More of a statement of the sites view on it? Since it is so easily circumvented and could be used anyway no effort to detect/enforce?

If just so when stats are talked about action can be taken, why not just make that against the rules instead (could be already, I don't know all the rules technically, but I know what is going to be a problem if its done.)?

To be totally fair, many companies and even some laws do the same thing as I am asking about here, I have just never got the point of it.

Yes and no professional poker player can afford a $150 netbook of course...


PTR has been instrumental so far this year in helping the community expose the Stox and DON cheating scandals (both at Stars and after their security team had 'looked into the matters' and given the cheats clean bills of health).

PTR is also quite handy to expose coaches who are losers and pretend to be winners - of which there seem to be more and more these days.

To be honest PTR seems to be (mostly) in the plus column this year and Stars well into the minus column...remarkable really given their respective reputations 12 months ago...

Many players including Mike and Adam from the 2+2 PokerStars VIP sponsored podcast have made statements that have directly or indirectly implied they've used PTR.

PokerTableRatings does not even track Double or Nothing tournaments.

Isn't this post from this OP http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...81&postcount=1

Where he argues that stars is still doing what they said they wouldn't do?

I'm not understanding your point. Josem linked to a post from that thread, yes. Your link is to the OP, where the poster complained that Stars was doing this. Then the post Josem linked to was later in that thread; in that post, Stars said they would stop.

I'm not sure what you're getting at here.

A few points:

a) Not even in the OP of that thread does the poster claim that PokerStars ever had access to, ever viewed, or has access to, a player's internet browsing history. PokerStars does not have access to a player's browsing history, and does not want to.

b) Prior to that thread (linked above) being started, PokerStars stopped checking whether people connected to SharkScope IP address. The OP of that thread provides no evidence to the contrary.

c) PokerStars does not currently have the ability to determine whether a player's PC is connected to a particular IP address, and I do not expect that we ever will in the future.

I can't be more categorical than this: PokerStars has not had the ability to view player web browsing history in the past, PokerStars does not have the ability to view player web browsing history currently, and I do not expect that PokerStars will ever even want the ability to view player web browsing history at some stage in the future. Further, PokerStars does not currently have the ability to determine whether a player's PC is connected to a particular IP address, and I do not expect that PokerStars will ever want that ability in the future.

However, all of this is a little beside the point of the original OP of this thread, which was discussing the activities of another online poker site.

Sincerely,

Michael J
PokerStars Game Security Team

I stated it in the post you quoted. He was saying that stars was still doing what Josem's link said that they wouldn't do, and the guy gave some articles he says were proof with a download. The OP's contention was that stars could actually do more than they were stating. If someone takes a post out of the middle of a thread, then everyone should read the whole thread and decide on their own what to believe.

I can't say that stars does this, but it would be awful silly to have a list of prohibited software and no way to enforce or check for violators.

New INFO
Hold the Presses, this just in from the batcave

I reported a player last night for abusing people at the table with Pokertableratings.com stats and apparently stars has done an about face on prohibited software any way. I'm posting the e-mail I just recieved from stars.



Hello Geoffrey,

Thank you for your email.

PokerStars will not be taking punitive action against end-users of
websites like SharkScope, PokerTableRatings, and so on. The only time
our moderators will act on is if it used in a negative manner.

In short, we do not want PokerStars to get into the business of
trying to monitor people's internet browsing habits. What a player
looks at on the internet - while playing on PokerStars - is their own
business. We would expect that some people will be browsing
confidential emails, some people doing banking and other private
things. We just do not want to even give people the perception that
PokerStars would ever intrude into their private activities, and
consequently, we do not.

The only action that we are willing to take against players who use
such tools is to ask them to cease using these tools to abuse other
players with these statistics. We do this through the Chat Moderator
program, which you can access from any table.

Instead, we are taking concrete action to stop prohibited services
collect the data in the first place. By cutting out their data, we
are focusing on correcting the problem at the source, rather than
just attacking a symptom.

Thank you for your cooperation and understanding.

Regards,

Tony
PokerStars Chat Supervisor


So I guess Sharkscope, Pokeredge or whatever is OK now?

wtf so anyone who ever looks at PTR when the PS client is closed is gonna get the ban from PS?

Sorry, but I'm still confused. The post in Josem's link came after the post in your link.

The OP was in response to the same e-mail Josem linked. OP calls it "the apology e-mail". That e-mail had been around before the OP posted, or one almost like it.

How do you know since its banned and you shouldnt be going there.
Why is PS checking my history bro?

Ah, OK. TY.

Gee, I wonder if someone from PS will come and explain that they arent.

It seems like every day there is a different grey explanation of what sites you can view/not view. I only try to keep up to date because I feel its my competitive obligation. If I'm at a table of 8 other player and 6 of those players are viewing PTR, why should I morally be left to hang when I'm trying to win money too?

The PS website says, "prohibited at all times" and I've adhered to that agreement since contacting PS support many months ago. But, I see it freely discussed, I see it discussed from actual internal people of PS, I see players in the SNE thread actively discussing it, so what is the deal?

If you have no way of determining a prohibited products usage, why the grey area? Again, I'm only asking as it should be obvious its my obligation to being competitive.

No, that's not quite right. The OP's contention was that in the PokerStars client, the code still existed. He was not saying that the code was still active.

The PokerStars "software" is composed of two parts: the server (running on PokerStars computers at PokerStars "HQ") and the client (running on your end user PC). For a function like this to operate, it requires both the server and the client to work together: the data needs to be sent from the client to the server.

Soon after we made the decision to disable the feature, we told the server to stop requesting this information. Thus, the information stopped being transmitted: we can do this pretty quickly, since this setting is on the PokerStars server. As soon as we did this, the function was inactive. It was no longer used, it was no longer transmitting data, it didn't do anything.

Updating the PokerStars client, however, tends to lag a little bit behind this. Before PokerStars makes modifications to the PokerStars client, we have to go through a whole series of quality and security checks to ensure that there are no 'bad' changes introduced. Thus, there is a lag between a decision being made to do something, and the code being reflected in the client.

The point remains, however, that PokerStars stopped checking for connections to the SharkScope server IP when we said we did, and the code was removed from the client as soon as we could. All of this happened back in 2008, and PokerStars never looked at a player's browsing history, and has no intention of looking at a player's browsing history.

Sincerely,

Michael J
PokerStars Game Security Team

This is such an odd thread now. OP came asking why people play on Stars, as he was looking for a new site since he'd been booted from FT for viewing PTR while playing. So it seems that FT checks for this, while Stars says they don't, yet the thread has become all about Stars and what they are checking for. What about FT?

Sorry - my bad

PTR helped uncover the Stox scandal after Stars security had cleared him.

It was Sharkscope that meant the Chinese DoN teams were outed after Stars security had cleared them.

The point is that data mining sites seem to be in credit with the player base this year...

I don't think that's accurate either: my understanding is that a player reported a few players as possibly colluding, PokerStars investigated, and found a large group of colluders. There was a lot of 'noise' in the main thread earlier on, so I may have missed something, but I'm not aware of SharkScope providing any data proving collusion, especially given that they don't track or publish hand histories.

Actually, players were posting graphs of players playing together ROIs, vs not together, which is how others were outed (the thread got too long to keep up with).

These graphs, charts (games to together and apart) and ROIs were scoped with Sharkscope.

If you had 10 billion dollar check made out to the owner of Pokerstars with the only stipulation he had to step on United States' soil to collect, it would remain uncashed.

Yet people bandy about these site's nebulous T.O.S like they are the unimpeachable word of God. Full Tilt seems to be the worst offender but I think it is important to remember these are illegal enterprises beating everyone over the head with these T.O.S. agreements that are ever changing, often confusing, yet always serve as the final arbiter on all matters of behavior: they are judge, jury and executioner.

I applaud the site's efforts to keep the games clean, but let's not forget this simple reality: these are quasi-legal enterprises upholding their T.O.S. in a landscape riddled with their own dirty laundry -- so how about just giving everyone a ****ing break when it comes to PTR.

Pokerstars are apparently.

Hello Geoffrey,

Thank you for your email.

PokerStars will not be taking punitive action against end-users of
websites like SharkScope, PokerTableRatings, and so on. The only time
our moderators will act on is if it used in a negative manner.

In short, we do not want PokerStars to get into the business of
trying to monitor people's internet browsing habits. What a player
looks at on the internet - while playing on PokerStars - is their own
business. We would expect that some people will be browsing
confidential emails, some people doing banking and other private
things. We just do not want to even give people the perception that
PokerStars would ever intrude into their private activities, and
consequently, we do not.

The only action that we are willing to take against players who use
such tools is to ask them to cease using these tools to abuse other
players with these statistics. We do this through the Chat Moderator
program, which you can access from any table.

Instead, we are taking concrete action to stop prohibited services
collect the data in the first place. By cutting out their data, we
are focusing on correcting the problem at the source, rather than
just attacking a symptom.

Thank you for your cooperation and understanding.

Regards,

Tony
PokerStars Chat Supervisor



I guess this means we can open whatever we want!!! Yippeeee!

The level of ignorance in the above post is staggering. Sometimes other Americans embarrass me tbh.

Back to the topic

No Constant shuffle on PS

because FT's down!