hmm, there is a direct connection from HUDs to bots in that it automates certain aspects of the game. here its data mining. but what astounds me more is that there is* even a ban HUDs discussion on the premise that they are a powerful weapon at the tables.

i would be very surprised if they still are of any substantial use at the tables when used without add-ons.

what they are useful for is mass grabbing hands of the client (disable restriction on max observer hands ftw) and as a platform for additional functionality, even though i somewhat doubt that even NC is of much use when used by a human player in comparison to a software that runs on top of NC that outputs the best course of action based on NC.

but then again ..with the advent of GTO-bots even this use case may already on the decline. and what may be left is just mass data mining and the whole family HUD to NC as number crunchers for opponent modelling to optimize GTO-bots (whatever degree of semi-ness they may have).

tl;dr;
- HUD is a misnomer
- the ban HUD discussion is of yesteryear
- ban mass hand grabbers

additional thought:

"ban mass hand grabbers" may be attributed to a parrot sitting on the shoulder of man, even though the fix is know for quite some time now.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29...usion-1539119/

so i would think what HUDs actually are in 2015 is an excuse to not fix when at the same time they are on a rapid decline.

lol, present this to any CEO of any gaming company and they will fired you on the spot..
What your asking is 100% impossible, especially the merging of entire world. Have you been following a bit the way the market is going?
You really think they paid 6bn for PS just for the poker game?

As pokerstars I would stay neutral.

Let your player decide. Create a hud and a non hud zone. Or let people change their screen name whenever they want.

This way everybody is happy and you don't get to much unwanted attention of governments.

Absolutely. I watched a couple of streams for maybe 10 minutes, and after thinking how pathetic it all looks, I wouldn't want to return to online cash with the amount of details some people have

You do realise that some of us didn't play cash games at all until FTP introduced Rush? Including some of us who are bad cash game players?

Hello there NoteCaddy user, only just got round to checking your emails?

Any reason why a NC-user shouldn't be allowed to express what he wants? Not? Fine!

^ no, they can, but their contributions itt have been devalued by:

(1) Being begged to come here and post by the company
(2) The number for whom it is their first and only contribution on 2+2
(3) The obviously self-serving nature much of their comments without regard to the general health of the game
(4) The often weak and contradictory arguments they make

I say this as someone who believes that all HUDs should be banned (apart from anything the site provides) on the basis that I believe all competitors should be playing on equal playing terms rather than some enjoying the benefit of valuable in-game info on their screens whilst others (especially those we and the site should be most concerned to protect) do not. I'm not against NC specifically but I don't think the NC fan club are doing themselves any favours.

(2) and (4) apply in the same extent to posters in favour of banning NoteCaddy. For some of the posters against NoteCaddy you would also need to add: (5) Post blatant lies

(5) should have never occured and i'm sure you agree with me

(3) is difficult. Most of the people posting - may it be pro or contra NC - do that for self-serving reasons. Some just use the health of the game as a pretense. Others really do belief that limiting 3rd party soft will save the future of online poker. The problem is: beliefing is far a away from knowing and in this whole thread i didn't saw a single post backing this "belief" with hard data. Attaching the decline of online poker sloley or in any relevant extent to 3rd party software is unrealistic. There are a lot of events/developments which account more for the decline than software.

(1) sureprises me to hear from a man like you. Assume you would have made NoteCaddy, would have always sticked to the rules (current ToS), would have a family to support and suddenly your work and source of income might be destroyed or crippled. Wouldn't you notify your customers? I would and i'm very sure you'd do the same. Do the customers of NoteCaddy have a right to be informed and to express their opinion? Sure they have. The same applies for people who want to see NoteCaddy banned.

I agree 1000% with everything except the static HUD. If Stars is able to provide a HUD option for all users it would only just further bloat there software and make playing there even more unbareably laggy.

Otherwise bang on and you should be employed immediately

Fair point, it's not unreasonable for NC seller to defend his product. But lets be clear, he has an overwhelming economic interest to do so, its not about the health of the game. Ofc NC users have the right to comment as much as anyone else, I just feel users urged to participate by him have a bit less credibility/authority than others.

In any case I hope PS will decide this based on strength of arguments as well as their own interest in the long term health of the game. Many people obv feel strongly and, like any disruption to the status quo, there will be losers one way or another. One thing seems very clear: the status quo is not sustainable. NC will not have a market to fight over if we continue on the current path. A product which helps destroy its own market is always going to hit the buffers at some point.

Richas:

The only futiue for poker is signing up more new, depositing players, there is always going to be churn but when every kid gets to know before his 18th birthday that to start playing he needs $1000 of software plus a decent (illegal) database just to start his poker apprentiship with the same s/w interface as his opponents how many do you think will sign up?

- Thats just a total, blantant exaggeration. I have read it so often that I have to vomit. HM2 and PT4 cost 50 bucks, thats it. And that is what gives most of the regs the biggest advantage beside MAYBE tablescan 30 bucks. And MOST poker players, even RECS use HM2 and PT4 to keep track record of there games (charts etc.). Everyone who just googles once will find these programs and those "fishes" you are talking about simply deposit and dont care. You wanna tell me someone who plays 1-2 SnGs each evening gives a damn about "regulars". He doesnt even know what that is!

PokerStars is not thinking about banning all 3rd party programs. I hope people start getting that in their ****ing brain. And they definitely shouldn't be.

They are working on a solution for live advice software and NC Badges and people here are talking nonsense about depositing. Hilarious

Steve: When is a decision on this topic expected?

Second that question but for some sort of action against seating scripts, ring games are a joke and we haven't heard anything for 8 months, unless I'm mistaken...

p.s. I vote ban as much software as possible. Poker shouldn't be about who can pluck numbers the best from a databse.

I didn't even know about the existence of most of the 3rd party software mentioned in this thread and I am an old time grinder. Now I feel disgusted with what I think the direction of where online poker is heading to (I wasn't very happy before too). More and more greedy, scummy and clueless "players" who will do anything and everything possible to gain an edge and all under the umbrella of pokestars.

To pokerstars - You know about the use of all these 3rd party software and still allow it ??? A guy tells you he developed and uses (with some other players) a software that makes preflop decisions for him/them, and you consciously approve it ? How ? Why ?? It makes no sense. You just said 'Yes' to bots.

One thing is to not know about all of this and not doing anything about it. Another thing is to know and not to be able to do something about it. But to know, to be able to stop it, and still consciously approve it ???!?!?!?!

I don't know/understand your logic, PokerStars , but you yourself help to create all this scummy enviroment. And because of it a lot of people are stop playing on your site (both potential regulars/grinders and recreational players). Your traffic doesn't grow for years now, just goes down systematically. So maybe it's about time to make some changes.

YES - Ban ALL 3rd party poker software while playing.

I think those who want significant limits or bans placed on specific software are glossing over a key issue: Incentivizing cheating.

If I can sum up the argument: Some software offers a significant advantage. That advantage is so significant that it's not fair so it should be severely restricted or banned.

The problem is if the software is banned or severely restricted those that are willing to break the rules will have whatever edge you believe these programs provide. As Stars makes rules more restrictive the incentive increases. Obviously Stars ability to detect and punish cheaters is a key component. Given the difficulty catching bots I'm not overly hopeful that they can detect this sort of cheating.

An example:

I'm going going to use skier_5's program as the cheating work around is obvious and already mentioned in this thread.

Stars decides you're allowed x static charts.

Individual cheaters recreate the program and charts. They run it with voice control on a separate laptop.

They recruit good low stakes players.

Those cheating groups who have the best charts climb the stakes and become the cartels.

How does Stars stop that? Ban accounts and take the bankroll of players who have unusually good play/win rates?

I think the cure is worse than the disease.

Let's be honest here, the biggest thing killing the games today is segregation, not software. If we take the US, France, Spain and Italy (I don't know what other countries are also segregated) then they have a population of 450 million that used to be able to play in the one large player pool along with everyone else. Even if we use a very very conservative figure of 1 in 10,000 playing online poker in those countries then that's 45,000 people taken out of the pool. The reality is though it'll be much higher.

I believe ethics run very low in eastern europe where bot rings etc are also common, but i have to sign this as it is.

What you ask to prevent is rare and the cure is worse than the disease. Anyway charts that auto adjust to your villain must be forbidden. I mean thats not the usal "i am checking his vpip to guess what he might can have", its a clear solution delivered by skier 5. (btw skier if you should follow this thread. Thanks morron.)

Cheers

THATS so right. Imagine how many ppl would be online at PokerStars.com with USA .. on sundays you see sometimes 250k+ now, under the week its like 200k or less often in the evening. Then you cant even play with France and Italy Spain on the same client.. thats the biggest Poker killer.

So many people trying to compare the 3rd party software situation to a sports analogy in this thread. To me, the analogy I think of is the NFL. In the NFL teams have coaches up in press boxes, looking down on the field, relaying that information down to the coaches and players on the field, they also take pictures of the formations and coverages and send them down to the field. The QB and defensive captain have speakers in their helmets so they can get the play calls and other adjustments from the sidelines.

Now, imagine if one team had all this information, and the other team didn't. The other team had no headsets to communicate, couldn't see the pictures or couldn't communicate with the players on the field. That team would be at a huge disadvantage. Could they still win? Sure, but even if they were the better team, it would be damn near impossible for them to win. It is such a huge advantage that per NFL rules if one team were to lose their communication abilities during the game, the other team can't use them either. An NFL official will cut off their communications until the other team can get up and running again.

To me, one person using all the software playing against someone who isn't is the same as an NFL team having communication devices playing against a team that doesn't.

A lot of 3rd party softs are only symptoms of an ecosystem thrown out of balance by shrinking the pool due to legislation and a weakening interest in poker since the last boom. The popularity of online poker will very likely drop back to the level of the time before the Moneymaker-boom and Stars as a shareholder-company will very likely not be willing to alienate a not unsignificant percentage of their customers under these prospects.

I personally don't share your view that NoteCaddy destroys its own market as features like heatmaps help new players to gain a foothold in an environment where already on the micros people are playing for a living, but i guess in this aspect we will have to agree that we disagree.

So in your point of view since PokerStars cannot properly enforce and prevent cheating using a method such as skier's program on a 2nd computer that they should do nothing, and that this also applies to making changes to software and programs PokerStar's can regulate; HuDs, advanced HuDs, seating scripts, data mining, through anonymous tables or other means?

Again, so software isn't the biggest thing killing the game but rather segregation so we should just ignore the effects that software has on the games?

skyer has contributed a lot and was quite open on his s/w with ps support too..
no need to insult him

This.

Just like:

Most of the players playing the micros professionally are using this same software against the players you're referring would benefit from such a software. Your argument doesn't make any sense to me.

This, good post.

Obviously NoteCaddy is going to stick up for their product, they sell it and it makes them money.

But the players using it? If you go beyond the self interest of 'I just paid for it and like the edge it gives me', is there really any justification for supporting its contiuous use? It promotes an unlevel playing field, unless you want to pay 3rd party programmers $X. PokerStars is becoming like a game on an app where you miss out on significant features unless you pay $$$. Is that small extra edge it gives you really worth worrying about keeping? I use a Hud and I use NoteCaddy, but I have some sort of pride in learning the game properly, in some sort of pure sense if it doesn't mean those who want to program stuff to do it better than me don't get an advantage. Poker was never meant to be about heatmaps and databases, it was mean't to be person versus person.

Then again, you cannot get away from the fact that money will breed a lack of morality and selfishness. You only have to look at seat scripting, where someone wants an advantage and others have to follow suit, and you are left with a dump of a situation with ring games.

No one has so far come up with evidence that software is killing the game. Segregation having a massive impact is an objective fact. Software killing the game is just a subjective opinion of some. If there is real evidence out there then I'd be happy to see it. And obviously real evidence has to be stronger than some of the bizarre claims we've seen made on here (E.g. I had 6 friends playing poker who knew nothing about huds and then all quit as soon as they found out about them...etc)

My point is that this is a complex issue and not as simple as many are making it out to be.

I don't know the right answer. My best guess is making data mining and screen scraping impossible.

I don't envy Stars, this is a tough spot.