Truly outstanding. Please all quote and reference this from here on in.

You are not only outstanding in posting terrible stories about imaginary friends ....you are also a diligent claqueur. Chapeau!

If Stars doesn't deal with the more pressing bot crisis, this whole debate will prove to be a pointless diversion.
Regulators gonna regulate.

Whats up? Struck a nerve have we? Your little gravy train coming to an end? So now we start to pick on the less articulated posters because you have no arguments to put forth??
Get a kleenex sir.
My poasting comes from the heart and its the truth. You, your just selfish and looking out for your own bottom line. You post nothing but self serving delusional tripe.

I'm always concerned about my bottom-line. That's what separates me from a weirdo. Please post more stories about your friends....actually liked those jejune stories.

Cant stand the truth. Sticks his fingers in his ears 'lalalalalala'

Go and dissect and counter argue against Richas last post. Go on. Please continue to show yourself up.

While I can understand where you are coming from, you are off base and I am going to try to explain why. Arguments should be based on evidence and facts, not on blank statements and uneducated guesses and that is what you are giving us here.

You claim software aids make the experience for recs terrible. That is a subjective statement with no proof. Being a poker player I obviously know a ton of recreational players as well. Never have I heard in my life anyone complaining about HUDs. Never live, never on twitch, never in forums, untill now. So, from my subjective view I can claim the opposite. But I won't, because it's not on me to make claims and present proof because I don't advocate for changes.

Seatgrabbing and scanning software are not features of Notecaddy and are inefficient at stakes with a lot of traffic anyway. They may be a problem at higher stakes with small player pools, but on the low stakes, where the population of recreational player is the biggest they are almost useless. I don't have a strong opinion about scripts, I can agree they might be bad for the game. But I can also understand anyone who is using them. Especially when Pokerstars boned everyone with the introduction of Zoom.

You claim recs will have a better time if we control the advantage pros have with software. Proof? If the amount of fun of a recreational player (gambler) is having is dependant on the fact that his opponent is bad, should we ban every winning player then? Is a recreational player going to care if he loses at -50bb/100 or -48bb/100? Obviously, no. And I am being very generous giving Notecaddy credit for that difference.

I have to admit I don't understand this paragraph in its entirety. I have no idea what are you talking about and how it is related to Notecaddy/HUDs.

You continue talking about Spin and go's, unsocial environment and actually recognize some of the problems with online poker today, yet none are connected to HUDs and Notecaddy.

What you propose about a static HUD that doesnt show new data based on cards dealt - THAT RULE IS ALREADY IN PLACE.

What you propose about a HUD with no popups but any stats you can get is ridicilous. So, now the person with the largest monitor gets the advantage? Let alone the fact that is illogical and impossible to enforce. This also doesn't wipe out datamining. How exactly?! How is HUD connected to datamining? WHAT?

Again, no real arguments. Just wishes and blank statements.

I agree with all the changes. Just let people have a basic hud, at best!

The myopia of some of the rabid software supporters in this thread is quite staggering. (But not altogether surprising)

Gmiko, why do you need 'proof' showing software aids make the experience terrible for fun players? Isn't that ridiculously obvious? Is the fact that the most important poker demographic in terms of keeping the economy healthy - fun players who deposit - are losing their deposits quicker than ever before not proof enough for you? That sounds like a pretty terrible experience to me, no?

Seriously, let's get our **** together in here. I went through this entire thread yesterday to catch up and would be shocked if 10% of those posts contributed anything new/anything of value to the discussion. Put your self interests aside (looking at you, blind NC supporters) and start thinking about what we can do to ensure the long-term growth/sustainability of the online poker economy. Bots, data-mining, software that continues to improve at a blinding pace and push the limits of legality are all playing a part in its demise (to varying extents).

Most of you are talking in circles at this point and it's a damn shame because this thread and this topic seem ridiculously important.

Gmiko, I think we must be from a different planet not just a different country.

You seem to want to just talk about NC - I want to talk about the total impact of s/w assistance on the poker ecosystem and the experience of online poker for recs, you can't seem to see that they all fit together, the suite of tools and the cumulative impact of them on the player experience at all. For you it is just as it is so how it should be.

You have never met a rec that has moaned about HUDs, multitabling, regs software or slow play, I have not met one who hasn't!

I'm getting closer to 50 by the day, I first played 3 card brag and poker for what were significant sums for me then over 30 years ago. I was a tiny bit late to online poker, that was only a decade ago but hey, life gets in the way of new hobbies and I knew from 30+ ago and live play that it was a skill game so I'd need to work at it. The only time I was semi pro was from about 16-19yrs old in a kiddies cardschool game that ran at college that was so weak even I could guarantee regular winnings.

That's my decrepid and ancient history in poker, my experience as a rec who caught the end of the Moneymaker boom and still plays the odd hand.

Given that bio it may be that we will never be able to discuss poker in terms where we can both get what the other is on about. You seem to have no sense at all of the cultural background or change, the tremendous dynamism of the past decade, the excitement of something new, the historic roots of the game, the way that books like the Big Deal or the Biggest Game in Town had a cultural as well as gambling impact over 20 years ago. It seems there is no big picture view in you at all. it is all NoteCaddy does this, I crush, I'm clever everyone else is stupid.

Maybe with your bio and poker background we might try to bridge the gap in understanding. I don't want to assume too much but I'm guessing that unlike me you ain't going to be booking flights any time soon to enter the senior's event at the WSOP. That gap may be too big.

Ban every kind of in game software aid for all I care so long as you can 100% detect people who are breaking the rules. If people are going to continue to use banned software and get away with it then you should not ban it.

Personally I put 'reduced fun for bad plyers' down to multitabling. Ten bad/casual players ten good/professional players. Ten bad players play one table ten good players paly ten tables. Result most tables have zero to one bad player and five or six good players.

Comapred to this HUDs and Note canddy etc have only a minor effect. They are just tools that skilled players can use to get a little extra, it does not stop them being good players or stop bad players loosing.

And what made multi-tabling possible/much easier?

Why do I need proof? Are you being serious?

Why do you directly link fun players losing their deposits faster and faster (I would love to see some data supporting that and how big of a deal it is) to HUD's / Notecaddy? Would you be surprised if that trend continued after the complete ban of all software?

So basically, your main concern is crippling good winning players (even though HUD and Notecaddy users are mostly losing players, because even regulars are mostly losers, a HUD or NC does not make you a winning player). And do that by removing tools they primarily use vs other regulars. What if that had no effect on fish, but just lowered winrate of competent players (by reducing edges vs other regulars) and we all just end up paying more rake which makes Pokerstars profit in the short term, but bankrupts them long term? Do you see that as an impossible scenario?

You think you need a complex program to exploit fish? Fish are easy. Just play ABC poker and they can't win. All the videos out there, all the software, coaching etc. is aimed at improving vs regulars. Videos/courses/books that deal how to deal with fish dont even come close to 1% of all the material out there. Saying that notecaddy destroys winrates of fish, without some strong proof is dumb. Saying that it is obvious even dumber. And don't get insulted now, I am not saying you are dumb, I am saying your statement is dumb. It's not personal. This is what most people can't understand here. We are pitching ideas and discussing them. Some might be stupid. That is not important, what is important is that they are backed up by arguments, not emotional breakdowns.

In the world of grown ups, before doing something that affects millions of people and billions of dollars, you might want to do some hard research, and not claim that something is obvious and the solution is obvious when it OBVIOUSLY ISN'T.

One of the few "proofs" posted in this thread, the mpn blog - testifies exactly the opposite of your "ridiculously obvious" assumptions here. In a world without HUDs:

http://www.thempn.eu/blog/world-without-huds/

If you are from the planet Earth, we are from the same planet.

I talk about NC because people bash NC. Bash something else that I think does not deserve bashing, and I will defend it as well if I have knowledge how it works and believe is not bad for the games.

My bio? I am 27 and I started playing online poker as a profession the day I turned 18. Played in home games before that. I was here for online poker when it started. It doesn't matter though. Even if I started playing today, that is not important. I don't care about historic roots. I don't care about books. I am not a conservative right winger, I care about NOW and the FUTURE, about FACTS, PROOF, EVIDENCE and I will support what is ARGUMENTED and PROVED to be good for the games.

I am not blindly speaking against the anti HUD incentive here, I am speaking against it because I am reading extraordinary claims with no evidence. Now you can be god himself but if you tell me something and can't back it up with proof, go away.

Sites allowing people to multi table.

Not saying this is good or bad, just that it is the main cause of cash poker being less fun for casual players.

Personally I find the challage of making the best use of HUDs and the avalable stats fun. Whatever...

thats vague. it sounds good but it's wrong, you try to include many things that have nothing to do with poker. in poker, the goal of rules is to make the game fair for everyone. if a rule is leading to give an unfair advantage to a group of people then its a bad rule cause it's a competitive market (especially if its easy to break the rule and no way you getting caught).

i dont understand why you dont get it. maybe i dont phrase it well, or maybe you just try have the last word cause youd rather see some programms banned for selfish reasons

This is the conclusion of the study:

"Those are some pretty damning conclusions for HUD users. They are also damning for the ‘HUDs are evil’ crowd, because the data doesn’t support the idea that HUDs give you an advantage. In fact, the very opposite – the data suggests that HUDs make the game tighter, less fun, and make everybody win and lose more slowly."

So the subjective conclusion is the game is "less fun" but "fish lose more slowly" and "winners win less".

And while it destroys blank statements made by hud haters, I don't find the study as good enough proof that HUD's are not the devil. It's amateurishly done and is not good enough. It could be much better. Yet anti HUD crowd can't even produce 1% of that study, which is weak in itself.

Pokerstars will ofcourse recognize this, so we shouldn't worry the loudest voice will win.

If they could introduce anonymous tables without splitting the player pool even further (for example if they replace zoom with anonymous tables) that could be the solution to please everyone. Although I am not sure what is worse for the game, Zoom or Anonymous tables.

100 freaking %, start to finish

Again, you are reading this wrong. In fact you seem to be deliberately cherry picking from the paper in a way that is actively misleading.

The paper shows that without s/w assistance the games at that level of big blind play with higher variance and larger pots. This is precisely what those who criticise s/w assistance for players WANT to happen, the games are more FUN, there is more variance for all players and the pots are bigger relative to the blinds.

Making the games more FUN is exactly what those of us advocating limiting s/w assistance predict would happen, we also predict that the losing players will lose more and deposit more - in return they get more FUN and a higher variance game so on the annonymous tables in question sometimes, indeed far more often, they are on the winning side of that bigger variance and higher win/loss for the session.

....

While it doesn't deserve to be totally dismissed, it's not slam dunk because one population of players does not act as a control population for the other when the populations are self-selecting. In plain English, they may be losing faster because recreational players who choose anonymous tables are different in some other way (in terms of attitude to poker, gambling, experience level) from players who choose non-anonymous tables - or there may be a difference in the regs on those tables, or it may be that the reg/rec ratio is worse if recs don't like anonymous tables (btw this is why I support screen name changes not anonymous tables) so they are against tougher competition.

I don't disagree, larger pots with higher variance may indeed be more fun for the losing player. We can see with the popularity of Spins, recreational players LOVE high variance.

The post I responded to claimed "losing deposits quicker than ever" was the "ridiculously obvious" anti-fun. Because of Software aids. The mpn blog post states this is not the case.

So, first your argument was fish lose too much too fast because we exploit them with our super stats, let's ban HUDs so they don't lose as quickly. Now it's if we ban HUD's they will lose even quicker, but they will deposit more. This must be deliberate trolling.

No one would be against that science fiction scenario.