I have to say it's striking and very positive how many regs ITT, included those directed here by software manufacturers, seem to feel trapped into using 3rd party software, are able to see the problems with it and are saying yes, please take this away from me.

A lot of people are saying "email the whole player base". That plan would never get past the suits because they are afraid of frightening the players. IMO it's immoral and wrong that software be allowed that stars would be reluctant to tell their player base about. Stars - if you genuinely think something on the allowed list is ok, you should be willing to sell it to your email list as an affiliate (e.g. of Notecaddy, HM etc.) - if you think it would be bad business to tell your whole player base about it then kick it off.

I'm pretty sure that at the conclusion of this, Steve or whoever reads all this isn't going to report back "We don't need to change because customers who aren't happy can decamp to Unibet and Bovada."

I support what you say about sn's as well as your point about thinking outside the box. I would add compulsory use of the quickseat feature rather than game selecting in the lobbies as an alternative to seat scripting and to:

one time, please!

Not really random, this is a product of development lead times.

Another month or two is likely to see the introduction of differentiated rake (by country or rather tax rate) - again this had lots of notice because of the development time.

You think implementing a rule into the software that only allows you to shortstack 20 times per day was something that a developer would need 1 year to do?
Even if it was prioritized less, it's smth that programming wise would take 1 hour at most to 1 developer.
The reasons for the delay were not development time related

Distilling down some ideas posted by others in this thread:

Put more resources into removing Bots from FTP/Stars
Remove mobile from Stars
Otherwise leave Stars as is.
Make FTP a 3rd party software free zone
Further differentiate FTP by making it mobile only.
Speed up transfer of funds between a players own FTP/Stars accounts (last time I tried it was quicker to withdraw and redeposit than it was to tfr).

Thoughts?

It's partly the priority given, I seem to recall it was all v7 at the time, but the coding time is relatively trvial, it is the interaction and testing that makes it harder.

A global change to everyone's rake is fairly simple, tracking every player, recording their "short stack" play history for the day is an entirely new function not amending a current function. It is a much larger s/w change requiring much more integration/testing and whole new back office tracking systems.

Anyway...... /derail

I will never understand why PS doesnt just takes off the option to pick your seat and everyone must use the quick seat feature. Would solve a lot of issues.

I think it's unfair of Stars to include NoteCaddy with just a vague statement that changes would be required.

What changes? How does NC go against their list of prohibited services?

NC does not have the ability to read active hand hole cards or actions. Without the ability to read hole cards or actions how does NC break the rules?

I know NC and it's capabilities well. Full disclosure, I sell a NC generated HUD. To my knowledge, NC does not in any way "[offer] real-time commentary or advice on the current game state that goes beyond reporting data and statistics."

NC allows you to design stats which are as specific as you want, you can add conditions for bet size, pot size, effective stack size, board texture, define opponent types. This does not go beyond 'reporting data and statistics'.

NC allows you to make graphical representations of opponent's past play. This does not go beyond 'reporting data and statistics'.

NC allows you to create badges based on stats or a combination of stats. This does not go beyond 'reporting data and statistics'.

I don't speak for NC but my personal observation is that the NC developer closely considers how each aspect of NC fits with site rules and would not break the rules. I feel like Stars inclusion of NC without defining the issue is borderline libelous (not in the legal sense but in the gambling sense of damaging his reputation).

________

I saw dynamic being used a lot in the comments and searched for dynamic to read all those comments.

Two of the HUDs I sell (HUD is generated 100% by NC definitions) are called dynamic which may be causing some confusion since dynamic is also used by Stars. Stars is using dynamic in the sense of information based on knowledge of the current hand, i.e. the program can read hole cards or actions in the current hand and tells you what to do (that isn't possible with NC). My use of dynamic only refers to how I parse information from previous hands. My dynamic feature is that stats will display information for specific stats facing different play types based on sample size. I also use individual stat sample sizes rather than general date or overall hand count sample sizes and I refer to that as dynamic. None of this goes beyond 'reporting data and statistics'.

_________

I know there is vocal group that are against HUDs in general and especially NoteCaddy. I'm not going to engage anyone wrt if HUDs generally or NC specifically should be banned. It's a fine debate but it's been done to death and I have no interest in rehashing debates that have already been exhausted.

I'm very happy to discuss whether or not NC is offering real-time commentary or advice on the current game state that goes beyond reporting data and statistics (or breaking any of Stars rules).

Two things about this part of your post.

1. Do you not think the reason why you have to spend so much time constructing and learning about how to use your HUDs etc is because everyone else is now using them? HUDs are the cause of the game getting tougher because the average player is now able to avail of stats that they were never going to pick up on their own because they didn't have the ethic or natural ability. It narrows the gap between top and bottom so that everyone loses more to the rake than would otherwise be the case. Which is why Stars won't have the balls to do anything about them.

2. Your not a rec, stop making claims on behalf of the recreational players, because your not in a position to know what they want and in any case different recs have different levels of concern. I do consider myself a rec and I for one do care. I know about the prevelance of HUDs and other software and it hugely concerns me.

I saw someone else saying that recs don't care about losing money, another ******ed statement, the vast majority of people care about losing money.

AJackson sums up the NC situation very well, Steve should post more details about it and how it would break the new rules

I think Notecaddy should be for sure banned. It should have never been allowed in the first place. Pokersites dropped the ball by not taking a stance earlier.

NoteCaddy has mass e-mailed it's customers to come here and defend their software. I recieved their e-mail linking me here.

While currently I do use sophisticated HUDs, I think NoteCaddy and similar software should be banned to be used when PokerStars client is open. The more software is banned, the better for the longevity of the games. I am happy to see PokerStars moving in that direction.

im an recent NC user myself (that got that LOLemail to defend it)and a microstakes grinder ,i find this a very powerful piece of software making notes(which im lazy to do off the tables after the session) and showing me badges vs other regs saving me from spewing money and time for them and i think it does the same for other regs who use it vs me .

the real questions that i aksed myself w/o much thinking for me are:
if stars decide to ban NC how much % of those regs using it (INCLUDING ME)are willing to put in time to do what i mentioned above and thus save money that leads to a decent winrate so the are able to be lazy and still win/withdraw money from the pool?
(cause i know that if you are winning at a decent rate and putting in volume at 10nl/25nl since you are unemployed the money you make on average per month is a decent paycheck for a full time job in a lot of countrys(including mine)
if stars decide to ban NC how much % of those regs using it are willing to put in time to study how number % from a simple HM2/PT4 w/o apps actually work and be able to look at the correct stat to decide for example if they jam river for bluff or not when their superman icon is taken from them?

from my experience at the micros/low stakes(about 1,5m hands) the answer is that 95% of those regs arent gonna do this (maybe again including me) and this (again in my opinion ) leads to more regs quiting cause they are braking even /losing and arent happy to redeposit to try and learn the actual game clearing the pool for the real thinking regs+fish(who will have more chance to win and blow the money on HS) to reg ratio that crush their stake and have bigger winrates w/o the lolapps, that already put in time to study the game and thus move up and take shots and bring back midstakes/HS to life.

P.S. and again those are my 2 cent about the only app i have experience with and it happens to be NC . my opinion ofc is if you ban NC before you ban it make sure you ban everything else like scripts etc and make the only available tools HM2/PT4 w/o any apps like table scanners/leakbusters etc and NC should be the last one to ban.

P.S.2 i can adress more questions about those already too powerfull apps but i dont have time since its sunday and i have to log in and grind.

and yea that is what im saying also nice post .

I dont know why all guys crying here, we live in the year 2015. Hud or all that stuff is available for everyone. Anyone can use things like notecaddy and buy it. It doesnt mean that you become a better Poker Player with that.You have to put hard work into all that like interpret those stats, and the game we play is poker and what is it all about is to get an edge of your opponent.

And Skier does that he build his own program and put hours of work into that.
So everyone can build up his own strategy to get the best results possible.
And its online Poker if most guys dont want that go play in the casino.

All this plus cut down on multi tablers and segregate the countries that only produce low stakes grinders

+1
NoteCaddy is a tool that can get everyone.

No need new rules !!! It is necessary to add a special tables, which can not be used a variety of programs. Players will be able to choose how they play. Beginners and those who do not like software will be able to play poker for special tables. Players who are used to the poker software will be able to play for the regular tables as before.

Yes for all the changes from my side!

+1 Don't know why it should be different to HEM or PT4 its only allowing people to create their own stats.... Stars should tackle seat scripting and start to incentive table starters instead of banning NC in the first place.

i think you should leave it as it is and i think even under the new rules Notecaddy shouldnt be forbidden.

dont see why notecady should give advice beyond a basic level as notecady is only giving basic information, all these bandage stuff is basicly based on the HM stats only, often you can find the exact same stat in hm2.
leak buster is trash as far as i know so the info you get thru it is basicly nonscense but going abouth a basic level.

AJackson, thanks for pitching in.

Can you please give some clear examples of what this actually means in practice?

In particular, is there any change in what is displayed during the course of a hand as a result of the action?

[QUOTE]
SEE YA. Dont let the door hit you on the way out

#
Many comments here seems to come from people, that afraid NC as a "Supertool", but never used it. Everything that NC do I can also do by writing notes or by using the possibilities of HM2 or PT4 (filters, custom stats etc.) more effective. Yes, it is helpful and yes, may be it give the user some % more edge. But many things can do that. Changing from a 24" to a 30" monitor increased my winrate more. Dont surfing while playing too^^. Not sure with looking vidz, had a big upswing when I saw "True detectice". May be looking that while playing gave me an unfair advantage...

Let's say the average reg tables reg plays 16 tables (possibly a slight under/overestimate). We're going to have that in both HUD and no-HUD tables. Let's then say that they can get on 1/2 of all 'playable' tables (and non-playable ones would break soon anyway), so we need at least 32 in each to support a split properly (so 64 overall). Would be very surprised if anyone played exclusively at 100FR any more rather than mixing sites/stakes.

This is assuming the regs are going to want to play exclusively HUD tables, which simply isn't true, they're going to want to play where the recs are playing. Unless Stars is going to allow tracking software open and running, with a HUD running, but trust people/makers of tracking software not to run it on HUDless tables, it effectively amounts to a complete ban because it won't be feasible to run a HUD given one drastically limits their table selection ability.

Any given information about HUDs/tracking software naturally couldn't go further than what they actually do in themselves, which is record data from hands the player themselves has played, and process and present statistics from that, while making it incredibly clear that they do not offer advice or suggestions as to strategy. That's probably not going to be enough for you, though, is it? Not presenting some kind of pejorative 'cheat device' approach makes the use of HUDs seem far too reasonable!

It provides more reliable data because having two types of table in one client means that a lot of the time, recs will just click on to the first table which pops up and regs will follow them. This creates a huge skew in the data relative to people having to actually spend some time and effort to change (even if it's just clicking the 'transfer to FTP' button), which would pretty much exclude those who don't really care.

See above. At least 64 tables would be needed at any given limit to reasonably run both HUD and no-HUD tables.