I made a point with arguments, i see that the only thing you have to answer to that is "lol!". That sums it up.


You don't seem to want poker to be a skill game, but only a luck game. If this is what you seek, PS also provides a lot of casino games you should be able to enjoy.

I am a poker pro.

Being a pro means that the game needs to involve skills in order to provide an edge to the one who are the most dedicated to the game. Why do people play poker instead of other casino games ? Because they believe that this is a skill game in which their skill can allow them to make consistent profits in the long run.

Yeah, it's just that the only thing differentiating NC advice from that "real time advice" notion you're pounding on is that NC advice pops up prior to the start of the hand. That's it. It's like a slap on the face before the start of the hand, telling you how to exploit each and every player. And you just have to follow the plan.

So I'm playing at a table with reg1..3 and rec1..2 and NC is kindly letting me know what exploit each of the players has (and, most probably, they are all different). So I make my decisions vs each of them not by sorting trough and interpreting the data (numbers, stats) myself, but by having NC do that for me. And all I have to do is act in accordance with the exploit NC (+add-ons) discovered for me. It's not I who discovered it, it's NC.

Got question about notecaddy. I use HEM2 and theres notecaddy notes that show on it on the HUD. I read these are free notes and thus if you buy NC, then you get premium notes.


First off, how is Notecaddy even allowed? When i got lot of hands on players on my HUD, i saw notes such as bet sets aggressively 2/2. Things like 3bet AK 2 times, 99 2 times etc. Then notes like open limp 66 in ep 1 time etc. How is that even allowed in the first place? These notes even though are free notes are pretty good notes. I wonder how the premium notes look.


Do they have notes like check folds in 3bet pot 2/12 times or something as well? I mean most ppl cant even take notes like this on each player on their own if there were playing lot of tables.

FYP a bit.

This thread is just like the last one on the same topic... nothing new or unique has come of it.

Two points here, first of all my posts on this thread have been correcting some of the misconceptions about NC made by people who have never used it. There hasn't been any crying at all.

Secondly it would make no difference to me if Stars banned it and every other piece of software out there as I don't play on Stars.

^ I think if stars goes ahead FT will be next.

As already mentioned before: Right now everyone is trying to justify the kind of software he uses.
Purists want every SW to be banned. HUD users see NC as scam. NC-Users think seating scripts go too far. Cartells want just Skier`s SW to be forbidden.

My personal view is, that SW based on HH-files should be allowed (own HHs, not buyed ones), because the HH shows nothing more than you would have observed by playing only one (or very few) table.
One may argue, that the human brain can`t process such detailed information on so many tables and therefore it should be forbidden.
But hey, that`s why we play online and not live. We want to be able to multitable and play a lot of hand per hour.
Those who want every SW to be forbidden shouldn`t try to play a number of tables, that goes over what they can process.
If someone is playing so few tables, that he really can process the action at any table he is sitting on, he will be pleased for every multitabling sw-using reg at the table.

One last word about the idea of making stats available for everyone via Pokerstars-client. I`m sorry, but that`s the dumbest idea of all in this thread. It`s even worse than teaching the fish at the table by "superregs", because the fish can really see their weird numbers.
Do you really want the fish to think about their play in more depth??? I guess not...
Otherwise we meet again in some months, complaining that now there really is no money in poker any more and the games getting harder as they have ever been, cause now really everyone is solid.

If you had a coaching lesson from someone who said "if this stat on your HUD is this number then do this play in the future", is that cheating then?

My wife is a casual player just starting to learn to play. We've played live a few times, and to help her learn, we were watching some streams/videos of people playing.

When she saw the types of overlays people were using giving direct feedback on hands and plays, she was pretty shocked. It totally turned her off playing online at first, but eventually I convinced her that she can still play on some sites if she's worried about that, just not on PokerStars.

Based on that reaction I'm strongly in favour of banning software beyond more basic HUDs. To be honest, the only reason I think recreational players aren't as upset about it is because they don't know. With Twitch streams becoming more popular I would be afraid of it becoming a bigger problem once people start seeing the extent of some of this software.

How a badge works:
Say you decide you will only play 3-bet bluf vs players with a fold vs 3-bet 70+. You set a badge to appear at the HUDs of players that fold 70+ vs 3-bets. Players with a fold under 70 will not show this badge at their HUDs. Thats all, its like setting the "fold vs 3-bet" stat on your HUD.

Badge system just make it easier and faster to see where someone is exploitable in a certain way, saving space on your HUD and showing leaks only. The same leaks you might find by opening your pop ups and looking for villains leaks as has been made traditionaly, just saving time.

Like this, you can build stats for more specific spots but it is still the same idea.

This whole NC+add-ons debate is easily solvable by adding one more common sense interdiction to those above, namely:

It is permissible for HUDs to filter/drill down via street, but not by action facing, hole card/community card values or player..

Since basically the HUD changes structurally from one player to another, in such a way that it automatically exposes specific weaknesses on a player-by-player basis, it is, indeed, "dynamic". Whoever thinks this is not too much has really forgotten what poker is all about.

Good idea

We all started playing poker as clueless fishes. Then we all learned the hard way about HUDs. Facing this :
1) Some are scared and run away. And yeah that sucks to loose some players.
2) Some other face it, and even though they were just playing poker for fun, they see it as an opportunity to generate consistent profit out of the game, learn how to use it and eventually become pros raking tens of thousands of $ yearly. What if PS decides to ban it ? Will these players keep playing ? I doubt it.

+1 for changes in this or similar direction.


There are two dynamics between regs:
Reg1 usues tool to gain advantage
Reg1 uses his theory skills/reads to gain advantage

I prefer any direction torwards fair game betweeen regs.

Of course not. But I'm sure you already knew that was gonna be my answer and just tried to come on top rhetorically.

What you seem to fail to understand (or just pretend to not understand, as I'm pretty sure you're quite high up the ladder both intellectually and poker-wise) is that it's one thing to have someone teach me something about 1 or 2 or 10 particular stats or spots (that I will then incorporate in my HUD) and it's a totally different thing to have literally HUNDREDS of potential exploits available and have a software display them automatically only when they're applicable.

In other words, if you, as an online poker pro, can develop a HUD with all those hundreds of potential exploit spots and badges, that will be displayed identically on top of all players you play with, by all means, DO IT. I will not consider it cheating in any way, I will just admire your brain's ability to eat up and interpret that much data and come up with an appropriate response in each situation. However, if you just use some software to highlight you the precise relevant spots (or slap you in the face with them, at the beginning of every hand, basically), then I will consider you a cheat. Since you're doing nothing to "read the player", you have your software do that for you. And then all you do is press the appropriate buttons. At that point it's a bit sad to call yourself a poker "player". I'm not saying this to you directly, but to all of you out there who kinda lost your head in the myriad of admittedly great poker software and really forgot the spirit of the game along the way.

Are not those things you could tell and note by playing 1 table super focused?

i followed the original thread closely but didn't post - i also didn't respond to skier's post in reply to my views... basically i don't have a problem with what he's created. it's not like he's extracting game-state information and being told which button to click, he has static information and an efficient lookup system, i think that is fair and within the rules - kudos to him for creating something original, communicating with stars to ensure it's within the rules and ultimately crushing everyone with it.

as other posters have mentioned, there's quite clearly a conflict of interest going on when people state that skier's software should be banned, while they use HUDs that are produced with the assistance of datamined hands. to those saying that a HUD should be allowed but notecaddy should not - how exactly would you draw the line between what stat is allowed and what stat is not? if i request holdemmanager add a stat i'd find useful and they add it, is that fair game? how is that different from me using notecaddy to design it myself, given that everyone has access to the same software? or should stars have final say on which stats are allowed?

maybe i'm wrong, but i do not think there is a non-arbitary rule or heuristic that will allow us to determine the extent to which software can be used to analyse past playing history. i'd be curious to hear suggestions from those suggesting some but not all software should be allowed. even if there were some reasonable heuristic, it is massively naive to suggest that all players would abide by the rules as pokerstars set them out, given the resources they have and the incentives they are subject to. in this world we sometimes lose sight of just how much money is being played for even at small-midstakes.

I guess you are talking about badges ?

As evidenced by the last few weeks software is getting more and more powerful. To anyone not up to date, I built some software which allows the user to efficiently retrieve a specific chart using their voice (or mouse). I also have an after the hand analysis tool. My tools were originally cleared by Pokerstars’ security until the recent NVG thread[1]. The previous rule set allowed the user to manually reference static content and my tool has brought to light that if you wanted, you could do something like precompute a feasible solution space with something like ICMizer and then look it up while you play. Since it is static, it is currently OK. This can obviously become problematic with an efficient retrieval system. Further, this has shone the light on some of the other powerful tools available in poker today such as NoteCaddy. Traditionally, Pokerstars has been hesitant to ban things which they are very difficult enforce, but it is clear that the tipping point for this policy may have finally hit. This thread is the next step in this process and while the discussion thus far has not been totally on focus, I managed to get some clarification from Pokerstars themselves on what they intend with these proposed rules:


Issues
1. Charts
As was touched on above, too many charts can be problematic and the difference between live advice and a ‘static chart’ can quickly become blurred. It is very possible to accurately execute a strong strategy with the help of charts. This problem is made worse by the fact that it is very difficult to police chart use. Charts can be printed on paper or used on a second computer and if the contents of the charts are unknown or if there is not another player using the same charts, then there is no discernible difference in the statistics between a player using charts and one who is not. Given this relative ease at which a ban on charts can be contravened I think it is important to consider what an appropriate course of action is. Charts can be helpful to beginners and professional alike. And indeed, they are used by both. Many professional have sophisticated chart setups which would hit by the proposed new rule of limiting reference (charts, etc) material to the equivalent to one single A4 page containing only ‘basic’ data. Are many of them going to give up using them? I certainly have my doubts. Since an outright ban would leave a very large gap between the honest players and the dishonest, I think that it is important to find a balanced middle ground between not punishing honest users and not allowing a free for all on a technicality. There are some tools which can be used to police chart use. Fortunately the biggest abusers are likely to fall into the subset of high volume, winning players who represent a minority of all players. These players can be targeted with random checks (perhaps video of play) and statistical analysis. Statistical analysis such as checking fixed hand intervals for consistency, timing can be analysed, and play vs unknown players and play vs groups of players can also be checked for consistency. The effectiveness of these tools is unknown, and given the recent ability of a PLO bot ring to operate across multiple accounts in far more brazen ways, likely not that good.

2. Data mining
Data mining is a huge problem today across all online poker sites. It comes in various forms. Some players buy hand histories of individual players, others use result tracking sites, and further others subscribe to sites which provide HUD like statistics of all players displayed on demand. Players all share data amongst themselves and buy and sell products containing information derived from all of these avenues. Using, for the purposes of this discussion, ‘illegal’ data is extremely hard to catch after the fact. A player could print data on paper, or display it on another computer screen or other methods beyond the reach of the poker client. Further, it is much harder to discover use through playing patterns as data mined data is often used for highly targeted changes in game plan vs specific players which lead to small samples. There may be opportunities to catch data cheats by exploring how they play vs players and taking how they ‘should’ play given their history and comparing it how they ‘should’ play if they knew their opponents’ full history. This will take complex categorisation and analysis and may also suffer from sample size issues. As was discussed in the chart section, current failures with statistical analysis don’t suggest success in with this method. the best tool against data mining is to stop it at the source. Companies and individuals must be prevented from being able to extract the information to being with. Open abuse of data sharing policies cannot be tolerated. One of the main reasons data mining is such an issue is that it greatly enhances an abuser’s edge vs players which they have not played or played very little against before. Considering that recreational players are more likely to have extreme tendencies and being aware of extreme tendencies ahead of time can change expected value the most, they are one of the groups that suffer the most from this. Let’s consider the following example:

The situation is that button (BTN) opens A9o on the button at 25bb deep in a heads up match and his unknown to him opponent goes all in. BTN now has to call 23 bb to participate in a 50bb pot. He needs 46% equity against his opponent’s range to break even. Let’s say that in this player’s experience, he expects an unknown player to go all in at this point in time with 22-88, A8o-AKo, KQo, JTo, 98s, 87s, KJo, 54s, 65s. He has 46.86% vs this range. Normally he would call this because he has the correct pot odds. Now imagine if BTN has a subscription to the data mining site (like regzclub) which shows that his unknown opponent only goes all in 2% go the time. Our BTN now has the information to comfortably fold. How much did this cost our big blind (OOP)? Let’s say, that for illustrations sake, the data mined data is roughly correct and our players strategy is to shove all in with the following hands: AA,KK,QQ,AKo. On average this range wins 75.45% of the time, so our OOP player can expect to win 50 * 75.45% = 37.725 gross minus his 25 investment = 12.725 chips. Since our BTN folded and OOP gained 2 BB, we have to consider the difference which is 10.725 BB. That is 10.725/50 = 21.45% of the chips in play and if we were playing a $1k tournament worth nearly $430 for that one single decision (2k prize pool). Naturally this is a contrived example to illustrate a point and as you play more hands vs a person the marginal advantage of using data mined data is reduced, but it still helps one make money in the lower sample spots like river betting. Further, recreational players tend not to play too many hands vs the same person so they play almost exclusively in the zone where the information asymmetry offers the greatest advantage. This is greatly hurting the chances of a casual player winning.

This brings us to our next example. Let’s again consider the situation as above, but this time, BTN does not subscribe to a data mining service. This time his trusty husng (.com) coach delivered some hot off the press population tendencies before he started his session. His coach informed him that he combined the databases of 100 of his students and he has discovered some ranges which the average opponent uses. There are two separate sets of ranges: 1 for recreational/unknowns and 2 for regulars. Again, our BTN min raises and when the BB shoves he sees that his coach has told him that the recreational/unknown population is shoving 22-99, A9o-AKo, KQo, KJo on average in that spot. The chart which his coach gave him shows that he as 41.83% equity vs this range so he folds. This time the EV for OOP to shove is 29.085 - 25 = 4.085 had our BTN called with his A9o. However, since he folded, he only won 2 chips. A difference of 2.085 or 4.17% of the chips in play or nearly $84 at the $1k level. These gains in EV come directly out of the profiled population's pockets

These kinds of things are happening on a daily basis. Regz.club, population tendencies and more. It needs to be stopped. It harms both recreational players and regulars alike. It harms regulars where the large samples available on data mining sites allow people to craft counter strategies that would not be possible through regular play. Even simply allowing one to prepare ahead of the time against players who they have not played is huge. Further, the tools and groups compiling these strategies are cheating. HUSNG.com regularly and openly sells products with colour coding based on population tendencies. They produce data charts compiled from student databases and sell them to their students (or at least they are included with coaching packages). There’s a stable called smart spin which says they update their charts on a daily basis based on new population tendencies. Presumably through the act of combining student databases. The situation is completely out of control. And it is completely unfair.



3. HUDs and Tying it all Together
HUDs have gotten insanely powerful lately. And even worse, they seem to be inconsistently excluded from rule changes and Pokerstars now have proposed rule changes with a vision in mind and the rules for HUDs and using your own data has not been adjusted for this vision. You’ve got tools like note caddy which give you borderline advice and automatic charts of opponents ranges and you have stats for every possible scenario. Broken down and easily accessible. The position always taken on this is that you are free to use your own data, but I don’t think it is that simple. HUDs currently blur the line between all of these tools. I’m not allowed to use a detailed chart, but as far as I understand, I can have a hud which displays my historical stats broken down in nearly infinite detail and which is automatically switched for the appropriate street. Is me using my hud to display my historical frequencies and playing off of those really that different than using a chart? These stats can be manipulated using an iterative approach by anyone who wants to accomplish the same. Most won’t bother because a few paper charts taped to their monitor will do the same trick, but those looking to play within the rules may well consider it.

Can I prepare a counter strategy based on my own data and place it in my notes on a specific opponent? It is unclear if there are content limits on notes and if 5,000 word notes are acceptable while at the same time I must only use a single A4 sheet as reference material. If I don’t have notes on a player, can I prepare a ‘default’ counter strategy? None of this is clear and there’s this inconsistency between the different ‘aids’ which doesn’t make sense.

The stated goal of limiting “too much guidance on how to act in subsequent hands within a playing session” is completely blown out of the water by a HUD. The Holy Grail of Poker provides after the hand analysis (as does my tool), but it provides feedback on very specific spots likely not tied to the player in the hand. Raise to 3x with KTo and then call a 3bet and float the flop cbet on 982 to shove in over the turn bet on the T turn is not that likely to happen again in the session. Yet it’s ok for a HUD to tell me that my opponent has folded to my turn bet 14/15 times? The latter is going to influence my play far far more than the former. What if Notecaddy tells me that my opponent never bluffs the river? Or helps me understand their timing tells?[2] Or shows me heat maps of my opponent’s ranges?[3] HUDs provide specific, actionable advice which can influence decisions even at very small sample sizes. They are going to have more influence on hands later on in the session than charts or after the hand advice. They provide a serious advantage over playing without one, which this author does not find unfair, however, with a stated goal described above, their purpose must be seriously considered and examined.


The Way Forward

As summarised above, there are issues and tensions on all sides and that leaves us the question of what should be done? Consideration must be given to the impact and the level of enforcement possible. Is it worth devoting significant time to issues such as charts when full on bot rings play millions (?) of hands undetected? Will this move away resources from such issues as collusion? The tools in use today don’t appear to have the best success rate in clear cut cases. Can we expect them to succeed in the more difficult ones? These are all important questions. Ones I do not have the knowledge to answer, but let’s consider whether we should be picking up litter when there are murders going on.

I think that above all, it is important to have clear, and defined rules. This thread is evidence of the confusion that can arise from unclear rules and the debacle involving my software is as well. Without clear rules speculation can run rampant. It can also lead to different standards for different people and in my opinion, the definition of fairness is when everyone has the same rules to play by and has them equally enforced.

The issue of charts, in all but the extreme scale, is in my opinion, litter. Enforcement is unlikely to succeed and methods of verification (videos/personal visits + after the fact analysis) are likely to be expensive, time consuming, and may not catch all cheaters. Rampant abuse of this rule by players continuing to use the charts they already have is likely to put honest players at a severe disadvantage. I think that drawing the line at static, manually selected content as is allowed now is a step too far, but A reasonable compromise between the tensions of enforceability and fairness is needed. This is likely some not insignificant but not too high number of charts. Perhaps a maximum of 20 charts, defined by area. They each must be of A4 size or less, and they cannot be used with magnification or any loophole to ‘manipulate’ the size. Policing the content of charts (beyond data cheats) should not be done as it is entirely too subjective and will lead to one person sneaking things by which others will be stopped with. They must be completely static and selected manually. These guidelines are completely clear and there is no ambiguity as to what is and is not allowed. Solving the solution space using something like ICMIzer and parading it around like static content would not be feasible.

On the issue of data mining. I don’t have much faith in stopping them at the user level, so it must be stopped at the source. Observable games for those not logged in must be completely killed or severely reduced. Logged in accounts should be tracked for data mining behaviour and appropriately dealt with. Only a small (which does not change by selecting a new game or allows some other way for someone to manipulate their way into seeing new games and this subset must be shared across all observers) subset of running games should be available to observe. However small the chances are, statistical methods of catching data cheats must be considered. Further, a zero tolerance policy must be adopted for breaches with progressive punishments. Something like a month long ban sounds like a good first warning. There must be a crack down on the sharing of data and population tendencies and the selling of such things must not be tolerated.

On the issue of HUDs, this is a more difficult issue, as I do generally agree with the idea of being able to use your own data, but if the goal is to reduce “too much guidance on how to act in subsequent hands within a playing session” then they must be simplified. No updating of the statistics used in the HUD while playing (other than to show the statistics for the correct opponent) and the database providers must simplify their offerings: No popups or street specific changes. One display mode. You can see the updated stats when you finish playing a session. Lastly, there must be no dynamic changes of which content to display (aka badges or hiding/showing certain stats based on the data itself). You can decide what is displayed on the HUD before your session and that is how it will stay during the whole session. Changing the information which is shown automatically as a result of data is advice on which data is relevant.

This brings me to my last point. If Pokerstars is to reduce “too much guidance on how to act in subsequent hands within a playing session” there is one obvious, simple and easy way to proceed. Do not write hand histories until after a session is over. Instead of trying to wrangle with the issues of what is fair in a chart and what is fair in a HUD and how it should be displayed and what technicalities are ok and how to deal with loopholes etc, they should simply stop writing hand histories during a session. If they are serious about this they will do so and then they can make a simple rule which is clear, obvious, and good: You are not allowed to extract any of the game state or history from the client and the only data which is allowed to be used is the hand histories which can be downloaded after a session is over. No ambiguity and no loopholes. It’s a nice middle ground in the evolution of software and it’s completely clear to all involved on what is and is not allowed. Technical steps to detect screen scraping and memory injection or anything of the sort should of course be taken.

I know my suggestions would impact a lot of people across a variety of games and formats even more than the changes which Pokerstars has proposed in the OP and clarified to me via email, but I think it's worth discussing. The solutions proposed by Pokerstars are ineffective and little more than a facade. They are worse than the status quo.

[1] http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29...tware-1533249/
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDc3Fz3-TNU 1:08
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDc3Fz3-TNU 1:30

Yep. And, for that matter, any other way of automatic filtering of relevant data.

I think this would cause players to leave the tables after playing for a while and rejoin later with the stats shown. It could be enforced if players weren't allowed to rejoin the same table that they left.

Perhaps it's best to just ban all the in-game software. I've spent countless hours creating custom NC stats/notes and this would definetly make me consider playing elswhere, but on the other hand, it would be quite liberating...

About the proposed rule from stars:

For them being able to enforce this rule they should be able to make the distinction between those that just use one A4 sheet of paper, and those that use a few more, or even a whole lot more. Are they at the moment able to estimate how many A4 sheets a player uses? This seems a very challenging and incredibly expensive task. Probably impossible.

Pokerstars, how can you enforce a rule like that and ensure that a huge gap won't develop between cheaters and non-cheaters with TOS changes like the proposed?

Yep. And, for that matter, any other way of automatic filtering in order to display just the relevant data for a particular situation (where "situation" is a combination of street, villain, hole card/community cards, action, bet sizing, timing etc).

What I'm saying is that the data is there for YOU, the player, to filter, interpret and act upon, based on your judgement. So do it! Filter it as you wish and according to your ability to read it, interpret it and act upon it. But don't wait for a particular badge to pop up (yeah, before the hand begins, I know) in order to make a particular game plan. Don't rely on an semi-automated river pop-up that only shows filtered hands that villain went to showdown with following a particular betting pattern/flop texture/bet sizing etc.

Do any of you have any pleasure beating a friend at online chess while using Rybka or a similar chess engine that suggests the (more or less) perfect move for the position? I'm guessing the answer is pretty much NO for all, otherwise it's just too sad. In that case, why would you want to do that while playing poker? Just because it's played for money? Well, in that case you won't be able to do that pretty soon, as is the case with online chess.

There would have to be some anti-abuse measures in place. Something like once you request hand histories you cannot request more for another hour. Up to a maximum of 3 times a day or something with some sort of punitive measures if you are consistently playing shortly after requesting histories. Or just put a 6 hour delay on it or something. There are loads of ways to achieve nearly the same effect and abuse like behaviour can be automatically flagged and reviewed manually. Even a 1-2 hour delay would be huge as recreational players often play for shorter amounts of time and that would mean that these tools would not be available in game for effectively 90%+ of the cases (or a number which makes that true). It may also be the case that losing your spot at a table to refresh your histories is enough deterrence in itself. Regulars would have plenty of history with each other anyways, so an extra 200 hands is not that big a deal.