There have been many software using poker players who say they are against software but I have yet to hear of a non software using poker player saying they are for software. A pro of all pros who doesnt use software will say that its an unfair advantage.

That would be a great question if any top tier online pro who doesnt use software can answer.

While I agree that setting the rules where the line is between a fair helper and an unfair aid is important, the main problem is the enforcement of these rules, as it has been mentioned by others a few times in this topic.
If Stars decided skier_5's helper has crossed the lines of fairness and banned it, someone could just set up another computer for the same program. Banning it would have the message that you need to move these helpers somewhere where no one could see it, and then we can pretend that the problem has been solved. It is completely pointless and wasting of time to make any rules that cannot be enforced but just forces the players to work more on hiding their programs.

So instead of setting the fairness line first, I suggest to ensure that those rules can be enforced and the whole tool usage has better transparency. I have two suggestions:

First, I suggest complete transparency of the used softwares. This should include declaration of all the softwares used by players during the play with detailed description of their features if they are not commercially available (and also screenshots or images of the software outputs, and process names list). They should declare this to PS and keep it updated, and PS should make the list (and their detailed features) public for the opponents so they could see what they are facing. Of course, any helper could be used after it has been declared (and is within the rules laid down by PS) and the list has been made public.
You want to use an advanced helper, do so, but leave the opportunity for your opponents to know what computing arsenal they are combating against. I guess if a software is enabled, there should be no reason to hide that it is being used. If someone does not want to fight a player equipped with tons of helpers he could decide not to do so, or to get the same tools to fight back. This way all the used softwares will be also open for public discussion and could be forbidden from further use even if it has passed PS's initial judgment. It also simplifies the Ps's control of the used tools - what you declared and is legal - you can use, what you did not declare you can't.

Second, if someone makes money on regular basis, he uses PS to make money professionally, than he would have to comply with strict rules to prevent unfair advatages. I don't see why PS could not ask from the professionals to have working microphone and turned on webcams set up by some rules (at least from two angles) so it could be checked by PS from time to time that the player is not using any unfair advantages. I know this might raise some privacy concerns, but if you sit in a casino to win other player's money, I bet you have less privacy. If someone is making money, he has to accept that he has to give up some privacy, but these rules would be there to ensure that the games remain fair for our own good in the long run.

I know applying the above rules for everyone is unrealistic, so I would make those rules mandatory only for the group of players who play poker professionally/ are regulars. Once they get into the professional / regular status, they would have to be subject of different secutity rules than the recreationals.

I don't understand why most people are in »pro HUD« camp or »HUDs should be banned« camp – IMO HUDs make online poker more enjoyable and interesting so banning them just doesnt make much sense to me.
I think that a very nice solution would be for Pokerstars to integrate something like Jivaro HUD in their software for all players to use if they want to (just like you can enable/disable AI%). Give all the players the same basic (for example: VPIP, PFR, 3b, aggression and number of hands played together), visually presented and easy to understand stats. All the players will be on the same level playing filed when it comes to software you can use during play (so no rec players can say that they would be winning if only they had a HUD, and regs wouldn't constantly be in a race between each other for who has the newest and most effective HUD). Any other 3rd party software wouldn't be allowed during play (seating scripts come to mind first). Some people will make the most use of taking notes (as most notecaddy supporters are saying that they could just make notes of everything that is served to them by NC – well we would see if this is true), rec players would actually be in a bit better spot than they are now because they might understand table dyinamincs better than some stats depraved regulars; but massive multitabler's winrate would suffer because without actively paying attention to every table they play they couldn't know how much some guy folds to 3b, they wouldn't have a badge on players on the blinds that tells them who to steal from, they wouldn't know if some random guy is capable of 4betting them light or not, and so on...
I think this kind of environment would favor actually good poker players and would disable some of the 16 tabling human bots that are infecting microstakes and are cashing out massive amounts of buyins out of the poker economy every month for their living expenses - this money then never reaches higher stakes games, players are less likely to take shots because skill gap is becoming increasingly bigger between different stake levels, and rec players are way less likely to redeposit when they lose their money being tilted by very slow table action and nitty games at the lowest stakes possible (not to mention their fears of some magic HUDs they think other people have, and their fear of bots – which is sadly becoming a reality). This situation is slowly killing the games.
HM2 and PT4 and Flopzilla and all other software should be allowed so you can work on your game off the tables and to track results (Notecaddy with its powerful filters is a great tool, I just think it is an overkill to have available during play). I am aware that catching players that would still continue to use banned software would be a tough challenge for Pokestars, that is why players that would get caught should be punished pretty harsh just to discourage other possible offenders (something like 6 months ban when caught first, and if caught for a second time a lifetime ban). If they would enforce such rules they should have the terms of service agreement when the client starts so that player has to accept before they play, so no one could say that they weren't aware of the changes.
As a side note I think that players should get one change of screen name per year just to satisfy some people and give them the feeling of starting over, and I think that table cap should be lowered just to speed the games up.
I've been playing online for last 5 years (and own pretty much all the software that might get banned; and then some) and over this time I know for a fact that a lot of people that used to deposit hundreds of euros (some considerably more) on a yearly basis just don't do this any more because mostly they feel that regulars have an unfair advantage over them, not because they think they are bad at the game itself – they would never admit that. They still pour their money into live games just as they used to. We don't need new players for online poker to get better games. We need players that are still playing the game to get back online with a promise of a level playing field and a promise that there is still money to be made playing poker if you are smart, without having to spend 1000€+ as a initial investment on different software and training sites.

notecaddy devs see that stars may ban it
notecaddy sends mass email saying we're all going to be working at mcdonalds soon unless you come and moan on our behalf stars are going to affect YOUR bottom line, go to 2+2 and air "your views"
dozens of june 15 accounts ensue

i think it's a step forward. so many players only sit nowadays when there's a fish that they dare not leave the table because there's a waitlist of 20 waiting to take the fish's money rather than play each other

Great point about reg poker IQ at these levels compared to cyborg poker IQ. Also, to lean on that all these people saying that these tools are most valuable against other solids regs are full of it. These tools are used to find exploits in your opponents. Weaker players carry the most exploits with them. Sure it's great when you can find small deviations from the optimal frequency and exploit some other solid regs from time to time but most of the large benefits are finding deviations that fall far outside the optimal frequency. That's why a lot of the tools discussed are so huge for a lot of lower to midstake's players where the player pool is often playing well outside the optimal frequency in a lot of spots.

Exactly this point. As someone else said awhile back. It's a lot different seeing a 70% Fold to flop cbet stat and then knowing that if you cbet that opponent it is a profitable play than it is having a exploit badge on your HuD that basically tells the HERO that this villain can be exploited by cbetting more often. Notecaddy basically reads and interprets these statistics for the HERO.

Hello Dear Pokerstar,
I am player on your website since many years, i play regurlarly but i am not professionnal;
First of all i dont understand how you can suggest to ban these kinds of software,
for me playing poker is for fun but i want to have a challenge, so i start using an hud and
i bought also a notecaddy package so i can play with my brain but this software dont make you a winner player i assure you ahahhah;
It just allow you to progress in your poker game to have a different thinking process and for me even if i am not a winner player yet to have FUN with it
Also if you decide to ban the lists of the software you are listed, will you give the money back to all players who buy this software in complete legality?
Best regards
I hope you will take the right decision

Lol

It seems to me that it would be best for Stars to come back on this question once Bots and data mining have been removed from the equation.

First it's not about one product, it is about what a suite of measures, HUD, NC and more result in. I doubt that a big winner at decent stakes could be identified based on s/w alone (apart from the out and out bots or CyBots of PLO fame). At higher stakes the tools and decent knowledge are required to win (or mere superb talent).

Now I don't know what you mean by big money so let's look at big impact instead.

If we take the micros and have a look at Eastern Europe we have many new grinding players making what for them is big money and having a big impact. They use the HUD, add the NC and then add some illegal data to get the sample size of their opponents up to where NC has real power and a pretty ignorant newbie becomes a low level Cybot grinder making his daily wedge from it - without a great deal of poker knowledge or skill.

The impact is partly their financial drain on the ecosystem, partly the impact on game action by making it so slow, boring and nitty but the impact is churning through potential new players who basically stop adding to the poker ecosystem. In many ways I'm not really bothered how mid-high stakes regs keep adding a bit more software edge to their game, that's not the bit destroying poker - it is the bottom end where overly powerful HUDs, supplemented with various NC style bits and bobs and made worse by data cheating that the real damage is being done..

Now each one of those many many micro players using NC as part of their package to grind does a bit of damage, collectively they end up killing poker and collectively they are big winners.

Now maybe they start to learn and move up but the easier route is for them is to act like people that flog stuff door to door, recruit more, set them up, give them a bit of coaching in the s/w and then take a slice from them, run a team, a stable.

Reducing the power of the third party software by imposing better rules on what is allowed can slow this process. Stars can't really do it alone, they would need HUD supplier cooperation, need new technical standards and ultimately need to get regulation and legal powers behind those s/w limits to increase deterrents and criminalise the supply of illegal software.

We need to get sites the power to check what data is being used, to limit the dynamic capabilities of the software to tailor advice to specific players, streets, spots and that means lmiting the dynamic on screen capabilities of NC and getting the sites access to the HUD to check the version of s/w used and data used.

A way to check the data, a way to let the site capture what the HUD is displaying - all built in to the HUD. Use a HUD that cooperates with the site's integrity team, then multitable away. Go HUDless or use a HUD without that interface and face strict limits on your number of tables.

This is a war of attrition. The proposed changes from Stars are a start, a recognition of the problem that software has become too powerful but there is a huge amount more to do to find how to clip that capability and how to enforce the software rules.

You, me, noone in this thread will live long enough to see that.

+1 for the NC ban (ban scripts and bots asap as well).
But let's be real here,
from the given list here most of the bans don't seem enforceable, people can use a second computer to have pokerstove, equilab, flopzilla open.
That is ok in general since they have to manually input hands there and you have to know what to put there (proper ranges) and also there is no way you can use them while multi tabling, but they are probably ok for checking spots after the session.

And I don't see the point in banning leakbuster/leaktracker during play for those programs you need significant amount of hands played to get relevant data,
maybe above 10k hands at least.

The only way for making it really fair here is if pokerstars adds their own hud implemented in their software(give a free software developed by them/buy off PT) where the stats are based on the hands you played with your opponents.
Put it so you can enable it and do some customization in settings and turn it off by default. Then you ban all external huds and third party software and forbid any messing around with the pokerstars process and ban all injectors and memory readers from trying to read the process memory at any time(will have problems sometimes with antiviruses but I believe they can find a way here).
This way you can keep the regs happy so they can multitable the fish are happy most of the time they won't even enable that thing, and even if they do they will see numbers there and get excited and say wow this guy plays 18% of hands and folds a lot I will run him over he should play 60% or something ridiculous.

Just make it annoying for people to datamine, people will say you can use a second computer where you can look up your opponents on trackers and stuff but there is no way you can be as efficient doing this if you are multi tabling. You are not getting an overlay right above your opponent with a database consisting of every hand he ever played on the site.

When they added all-in percentages a lot of the fish god excited like 30%, 40% to win (You could see some streamers on twitch it was so funny to me)

No need to say those new rules are good.

Now its time for pokerstars TO REALLY help detect trojans and hacking...

I can understand you viewpoint, but I have different experiences and expectations.

I follow twitch quite a bit and I don't see people complaining about stats. If anything, it fascinates them.

HUDs I remember everyone using since I started playing online 10 years ago. It's nothing new and not the reason for games getting tougher (although games look softer and softer too me every day). I don't understand why you think multitabling is bad for the game. Multitabling is why online poker is as big as it is. Also stars being the hardest site online, I disagree, no site can compare with the amount of fish playing on it and the amount of soft tables available.

Lower table caps - that would increase the winrates of regs who are forced to play less tables, not sure about the effect on the ecosystem. Maybe lower the reg:fish ratio? I don't think it would be a popular decision for stars, that is their money machine. You can play more than a 1000 hands per hour on zoom, close to 2000 actually. How would capping max tables below 16 or 12 be fair to the people actually playing the real game - regular tables?

It would be great if Pokerstars, having all kind of data available to them, would educate us as what would really happen if x or y were changed. But that is a topic for another time and place, because they were interested on our thoughts on software that helps the player dynamically and I am not aware of that kind of softwares existence and agree it should be banned, as it probably already is. This was not supposed to be a anti HUD and anti NC thread. They did not even ask about that.

If you want better games on Pokerstars you should advocate for banning Zoom. That is the only thing that is obviously destroying online poker.

Pokerstars is not NSA. Let's not make suggestions about violating basic human rights.

Not fair to use mining. NC stats such as HM and become only more accurate and selective for different situations.
It is also not fair is that the players do not spend enough money to buy legal software, as a package to him, and the time to deal with all this. And block the use of the software at least as fair to them
Anyone can buy NC and packages to him and spend time and money power, whether recreational or player registration. In this respect, everyone is equal and no one gets priimuschestv. Lazy people, instead of having to buy and study tool will act trying to make it impossible to use it all.
Currently, the poker problem is not NC. mining sites, which really gives edge, those who use it. And the exorbitant rake, which deprives 80-90 +% of the players play in the + or 0. If I play +3 bb / 100 on NL25 $, due to the rake will play -2bb/100 and -1bb/100 with rakeback.
The vast majority of the players in these conditions are doomed to bankruptcy.
Traditionally, it was in the poker games was a rake. but now in terms of availability of Internet poker, great abundance of material for learning and level of knowledge of poker in general. The depletion of the field of players will occur at very high speeds, which will adversely affect everyone.
Players to play a plus, you must Huge edge over the field.

I've happen to have played a ton against gmiko and also happen to have discussed a lot of pkr with him, lol at him not being able to beat the games w/o a given software. In any case I am not his advocate, just felt like mentioning what I believe is true.


I doubt that the average rec wakes up one day and decides not to play pkr again bc gmiko uses NC. Unfortunately the Moneymaker times are long gone and edges between regs and recs are massive. The field has simply evolved like every other field does, and is atm bloated with resources, tools, information, coaches, study groups, forums, and so it goes. Everyone who is at least somewhat serious about the game has got smarter.

As for the reg to rec ratio keeping increasing, I can come up with a number of reasons why this is happening, the utilization of a couple of tools is defo not topping the list.

Countries that were relatively wealthy and have a relatively soft pool have been excluded from global networks. Other countries are experiencing a financial crisis and rec plrs cannot afford to lose more than a few pennies. 9-5 job salaries are going down and many ppl have decided to take up pkr full time, and thus are working hard on their game. Let's not simply blame a couple of badges popping up

I don't see a single reason why offline range vs range analysis tools like PokerStove or Odds Oracle should be illegal.

These tools exist to improve your individual game as opposed to processing data on other players and make you think about poker more scientifically. Fish will continue to play the way they do but those who do want to work to better their game should be allowed the opportunity to do so.

This is not the way to approach the problem. As soon as you lock down the operating system, cheaters will move to a second computer or paper or w/e. This is an example of a level of enforcement which is going to be so over the top that the activity it is enforcing is not worthwhile anymore, and which will not have much effect in terms of enforcement. You do realise that someone could still intercept the monitor feed and screen scrape that way?

I did not insult anyone specifically, if you found yourself in the ape category, more power to you. Self awareness is a step to evolution.

There are some smart people on both sides of the fence, but most anti HUD/NC posts are by trolls and are presented with no arguments at all, and that is a fact.

You may be a NC user, but you obviously have no idea how to use it. I will not triple barrel you because of some badge because I am not an idiot. First of all, I don't think anyone has a "triple barrel" badge, because it's not useful. If I want to see your fold to river cbet I can look at the HUD, pretty much everyone has that stat displayed (and it's not very useful often because it needs a big sample size). Badges don't interpret the data for you. They just present it visually. If I made a badge that shows up when you have a fold to 4bet of 60% or more, and if I gave the number of 62 displayed in the HUD, what is the difference? Both give me the info that you generally fold to 4bets too much. You need to be able to interpret how to change your range based on that and when. It also doesn't tell me if you fold a lot to 4bets vs me or in what position, or in what position vs what position, or what is the dynamic of the table, or how you view me. If most users are like you than maybe NC is good for the games because users misinterpret the data and use it wrong which makes them worse players.

From my high horse I can at least see the fact that no one will crush poker after learning it for one month, and that HUD and NC can't make a bad player a winning one. Your statements are not based on reality and with all the emotional outbursts of hostility and aggression, calling yourself an ape is the only thing we can agree on.

I'm in complete agreement with you that there are lower hanging fruit than what I discussed, which I would also prefer to see dealt with first and that are much more important. I don't personally see a lot of the software as a problem and my treatment was very much in the context of what I interpreted as Pokerstars' proposed new stance and some of the issues in HUSNG today. I do think that if they move forward with these changes, they should focus on clear and objective rules which have a realistic probability of being followed by nearly everyone (for reasons of enforcement or other). I think that the disconnect in ability between aid 'types' is problematic as it will lead to people repurposing one type for another and just create a spiderweb of loopholes. I think some of the issues which I discussed are truly a problem (specifically data mining and the very extreme static content use case, which I think a less semantic interpretation would simply call a human assisted bot) and I think that if Pokerstars wants to reduce "too much guidance on how to act in subsequent hands within a playing session" then my solution is far superior to trying to fit a bunch of pegs into that hole.

Imo forbid any tool that shows info based on non self-collected hands like a central database. It's not an achievement to buy hand histories or grab any data someone else has collected.

But if I play tons of games against good regs or whatever ppl, I wanna use the data I have collected on them in whatever way I like w/o having to fear consequences, cause it was hard work to play them and I want to be at least rewarded with being able to use everything I collected.

To play devil's advocate...

What's the difference between that and programming your HUD to display the following:

fold <50: Check Weak, Bet Value
fold <70: Bet Weak, Bet Value
else: Bet Weak

Surely there must be a line somewhere here?

Sorry for my English. Personally, I'm against the ban on the NC program, as I believe that its functionality is the same as in the HM2, but with the ability to create more advanced statistics. Therefore, it does not see anything wrong. To change the existing rules are not beautiful.

You can't use it dynamically based on actions on the table (the rules forbid it), so I don't see a problem with this. You can write what you wrote here on a sheet of paper.

You're not using it dynamically. Instead of displaying a badge, you are displaying advice based on the frequencies presented (and this is a very simple example - what if you write a complicated logic statement which includes things like turn and river statistics which consider the various paths when you check and and when you bet, and what if said logic statement further considers the preflop range you have observed an opponent to have? And on and on..).