It is not minor, it is a huge restriction on the HUD, no drill down, no ability to access additional details just the static image on the HUD. No heat maps, spark charts just what can be presented on the screen by the static HUD.

You are right that it would allow someone to innovate, to develop stats of relevance to them but there would be a physical constraint on the amount of stats that could effectively be displayed as all would be displayed for all opponents. I could live with colour coding of those specific stats - the point is to limit the caability not end the usefulness of HUDs or legitimate data review.

If you can cope with 50 stats on every opponent, go for it but they would be static and shown for all opponents. In practice you would need to select the key stats you value rather than have hundreds and hundreds being worked in the background by the software and only displayed when relevant to that opponent.

The point is to impose reasonable limits upon HUD capability not to stop the best HUD users/customisers using them better than some opponents. It is a gradualist change to the ecosystem, a limitation on the current s/w rather than an extreme ban - it would allow multi tabling regs to adapt to the new rules and continue playing but also limit the transition to the CyBot world.

Feel free to innovate in the new rule structure - fixed displays that are the same for all opponents. No doubt some will make powerful HUDs from within those rules - good luck to you, meanwhile we have a system where Stars can check the data and display thanks to all approved HUDs signing up to that.

The absolutist ban all position is absurd, the absolutist let the S/W guys carry on running riot is not just absurd but fatal to the industry - that means finding a sensible set of rules in the grey middle ground.

What about an option that allows people who dont want to be abused by software to be displayed as anonymous?

I'd be happy with this if ticking such an option made everyone else anonymous to them too.

I may be wrong here, but from the little I've read I thought the reason bots were able to get so good was from 3rd party software? if not I would also be down with stars adding some kind of spyware to the client so they can see exactly what players are up to when they open up the client.

Is Poker Stars objective here to stop bots, or to restrict genuine users from using tools that other users don't like. It makes a huge difference.

Most of the stuff seemed targeted at humans not bots.

What I meant by "spirit of poker" was to always keep up guessing to some degree, since it's a game of change with incomplete information. And I also explained why I think HUDs are a must for online poker. It's simply a different breed, but we could (and should) keep its essence. The fact that HUDs help people play more tables than what would be considered reasonable and stall the game is another issue.

SO. MUCH. THIS. And I have to say it's really ironic how the NC advocates (or addicts), who use the tool and it's freakingly awesome capabilities to spot any unbalance in villains while trying be keep themselves as balanced as possible, are so unbalanced when it comes to evolution of poker software and live assistance, including live leak finders. I thought good players know to (or learn to) look at things without being results oriented and thinking long term. That's why I thought good poker players do..

Of course. That would only be fair.

Good points

The cartel or the scripts are probably 10 times worse than some software programs used

IMO

Stars should do some market research with theyr own clients although i understand posting here might get some ideas

I also imagine stars dont want to ask hundreds of recreational players theyr opinion by email because some might get frightened and think

Hey now thats why i lose so much i better stop playn in this site !

The truth is this

Recs will always lose just as we if we play against a chess pro we will always lose in the long run´

Good regs win cause they work more have better strats are more disciplined , and not because of softw
(at least in 95% of cases)


Its shoking that Stars allows , scrips , cartels and now its worried with some software that in pratice is less harmfull than the first 2


I would like to ask Stars what do u really want ?

Seems u dont want to die from a stab in the heart but you are fine with a shot in your head

All players are free of using the allowed software (although i can only peak of HM2 wich is the only i use )

So it should be better to do a specific analysis + evaluation of each software
if not this is a big mess


About this thread i see too much off topic and inaccurate remarks
its possible 4 or 5 players to manipulate a thread with some friends

ONLY MARKET RESEARCH WITH YOUR OWN CLIENTS WILL HAVE BETTER RESULTS OF WHAT THE PLAYER POOL THINKS

(although theres a sensible point i wrote above )

I do use a hud, but if banning all 3rd party software does help in preventing bots (which by the way I was laughed at earlier I'm not sure it does now) and help the games, then I'm for a total ban. if they don't affect bots at all and the games don't carry on dying a quick death i'm cool with them staying.

this is a great post

if you're not confident in stars' ability to detect bots and other cheaters then there's a simple solution - don't play on stars. don't hold back progress just because you fear you won't be able to police a game yourself.

Wouldn't an iOS app-only player pool really help in creating an environment in which people who wanted to play without HUDs/mass multitabling/additional software could just get on with it.

Somewhat equivalent to a Pokerstars OS, but that recs can understand.

Or am I underestimating the difficulty of getting custom software to interact with an app on iOS - I thought it was pretty well locked down/.

Trouble is banning 3rd party software aimed at helping humans play wont effect bots. Individuals using bots will be more computer aware than most other players, and will not have a problem with trivial work arounds like using multiple computers. And likely will have their own software to do the work of apps like note caddy. A Bot does not need to see a badge they can just manipulate the raw stats, only a human needs the visual clue.

Of course if you think using badges is bad and want to ban stuff like Note Cadddy to encourage a certain client base; That's fine, just don't make out you are doing it because of Bots.

As to banning Poker Stove – lol - I still cant get over it.

Lets say Pokerstars would ban NC or some other 3rd Party Software. And i would make my grind on differnt sites(like Ipoker Party ect) where those Programms are allowed.
And i would have Stars open too and they detect that iam use a prohibet programm
it would be so sick if theywould ban players.

So no varying fonts or pop-ups either? You keep using "static", can you define what you mean by that? No fuzzy feel based description though. Try to give a rule which can be followed.
All the stats are already displayed for specific opponents, their very goal is to highlight leaks. This is just a display trick: badges, colors, different fonts. It's all the same. The mechanism is:

(display opponent specific stats) -> (if something out of order) -> (make it more visible)

Displaying 2000 numbers with 0.1mm font and only using 5mm one for numbers in chosen range is one way to do it. Is it static or dynamic?

They don't need to be calculated in the background. They are calculated when you are not playing along with VPIP, PFR and Amount won in $ stats.

If you allow for varying font size depending on numeric value of the stat I don't need to innovate anything.

Really?

Other networks are worse, bot infested; PS is probably the site with the least bots/cheaters in % because they actually do something about it. But I want players to be able to detect bots as well and with anonymous tables and/or without stats it's impossible.

Under my proposal.

No popups - if it cant fit on the HUD you don't get a quick link to it, you don't get a popup only for some players/scenarios

I'd be ok with ant colour coding or font changes, anything to ease readability within the strict restriction that you get the same stats for all players, not stats selected by the s/w - the colour/font would have to be a function of the core stat displayed.

Now I accept thatthis might get messy, it might be that the rules have to include a minimum and maximum font size too but that is detail - no 1 pixel stats with only the relevant in a readable size.

Maybe they could allow a selected team of "player" representatives to occasionally look over and analyze the data, keeping the names connected with the data anonymous. After all the data is still connected to the players within their own network. In the end though it's as sixfour pointed out and players need to put more belief in the network that they are playing on's ability to properly police their own games or choose not to play on that network.

PokerStars has the resources to hire the right people for this job and with all the data(not just some of it) they should be able to police it much better on average than the player pool.

shill fighting like its april 14, 2011. +1 to punter. defender of the static

gl all

Any "news" on this one? Still waiting.....

For the one who asked. Its been 6 days so far plus however long they need to figure it out before making an announcement

For what?

There are two options. The makers of NoteCaddy type software either

1)Had direct commercial relationships with data miners
or
2) Have a business supplying tools to dataminers that only benefits indirectly from such cheating.

Persoanlly I believe 1) was the case once upon a time and 2) was always true and is part of the current business.

Does that make it clearer for you?

anonymous tables will make bots unpunished, impossible to detect. gto doesn't need stats much. and it's again all about regulars, cause recr. players would still lose loads of money regardless of soft, bots, anonymous tables and etc. all these talks about ecology are useless, cause u can't compensate fish losses enough without disbalancing conditions of the game. 100% rakeback wont help recs since their low volume and high loserate. mb starts should focus on banning bots and seating scripts

Are you not capable of understanding your own post?

I hate myself for responding to you again, but I can't resist because you are lying to people and you need to stop that. There are a few others speaking mistruths and making up stuff but you seem to be the loudest one. It's futile speaking to you, and it is probably irrelevant for the decision of Pokerstars itself because they for sure have some smart people working on this who actually understand how NC works and they will ignore your false concerns, but it's not fair to people coming here who don't use NC and might believe you.

You talk so much and try hard to sound intelligent (and on occasion make me believe you are for a second) but it's really a bunch of gibberish because, while it sounds smart at first, it's all based on false assumptions and complete ignorance. Are you a right wing politican? Your motives for spreading lies even though you have no idea what you are talking about are unclear.

From you posts I can only assume you never even used Notecaddy, yet you present yourself as an expert on it's functions.

You focus so much on badges, without realizing badges are probably the least useful function of the program. Badges are meh, every single person I know who uses NC doesn't like them and doesn't even use them. They really aren't that useful to most people. They give no new or different information compared to the HUD numbers, they only make the information visually pleasing while taking up a lot of space in the HUD, big trade off. They are probably the most useful to people who have slow computers and have to wait 5 seconds for popups to open so they use a much less detailed badge instead.

If someone had badges as the ones you are giving in your examples, he would have a HUD filled with 500 badges and would not even be able to find the badge he needs. For that matter, he wouldn't even be able to see his cards.

And the other example you give of a complex badge that involves 5 other stats - do you realize a stat definition can do the same thing, only showing the stat as a number instead of a picture? I know a child can comprehend this and realize they are writing garbage for days now, and I'm sure you are intelligent enough to realize it. I don't care about your motives, be it laziness, pure spite, jealousy of young people, you being 70 years old and not being able to process a lot of information at the same time, or whatever, just don't spread false information and make up stuff.

It is not important if you deem HUDs or NC fair, or if you think that is what online poker should be or shouldn't. It's not you who determines what something is. It's beside the point that you are wrong. In a game where you play vs maybe a thousand different players in one week without even being able to see them, arguing that the essence of such a game is reading a person is beyond ridicilous. The evolution of online poker itself tells you what it is and who should win at it - the player who learns GTO and theory, figures out his player pool tendencies (to battle unknowns effectively) and learns to use and interpret stats correctly and uses that information to exploit the known opponent without making himself very exploitable as well. It's not an easy thing to do. Remove all that layers you need to be skilled at to excel at this game and it becomes flat and boring. HUD and NC are the closest thing to a live experience playing one table and reading the player that you can get. I don't want to autopilot playing 24 tables while playing my best GTO strategy, not because it wouldn't make me money - but because it would be boring as hell. Same as playing 1 table and focusing on my opponents. Sure, it's fun live. Online? Hell no. But what I think and what you think about that is irrelevant.

It doesn't matter at all. What matters to Pokerstars is - will Pokerstars profit? What matters to us who make a living playing this game is the same - will we profit? And we can't profit if Pokerstars dies. If you want to write something smart, type an argument why would banning NC or banning HUDs lead to better games and increase Pokerstars profits long term? Stop typing your personal opinions of what online poker should be and what you deem as fair. No one cares about that, especially them.

Things that everyone agrees are unfair are already banned. Bots, collusion, card sharing etc. It's clear how games and online poker would suffer if that was allowed.

For the tenth time, if you write a good argument about why something should be forbidden even though it was fair game for 10 years (and that argument has to be flawless and based on strong undeniable facts and preferably backed up by a strong study) - and reason for the ban being that it would lead to more money for both Pokerstars and the players, I will agree with you in a flash.

As a professional poker player, it's not in my best interest to be able to use a HUD or NC regardless of the consequences, it's in my best interest for games to thrive. If your arguments were strong and had logic, I would be on your team. I hope to play this game 30 years from now. I don't want it to die. And if your proposals were good for poker, I would agree with them.

What does an anti vaccine lunatic do when you present them with arguments on why his views are idiotic and dangerous? He tells you that you are a selfish, greedy bastard, that you are a part of a conspiracy and that you want to kill your child, and his, that you support the new world order and want to make money regardless of consequences - while it's the opposite, you just want what is best for everyone - to be immunized and safe. Similar thing happening here. GIVE ARGUMENTS.

If you want to change something, you need to have a reason, backed up by strong arguments. You don't, you don't even pretend to try to make some up, but you sure do know how to make stuff up about the programs you don't like. You are shameless.

But no, let's cry and whine how those damn NC users have an unfair advantage because they are willing to do the hard work and learn how to recognize and exploit leaks. If NC is so powerful, and you are so damn smart, why the f are you not a poker millionaire? Cause your heart is made of chocolate and you don't want to exploit poor unknowing people? Hell no, that's not it. If you could, you would.

And no, conspiracy theorists, I am not a NC shill, I didn't even get the email. It's just a shame people are bashing on the program that brought online poker to a new level.

You are welcome to use it against me.

Oh right, despite quoting me you were not really asking me anything at all. FYI it turns out that in a mere 22 hours he has not returned to the fray, but you knew that already.

I suggest buying the attention span extension pack for your existing Patience 2.0 package.