when posters say, pay stars a 5 figure application fee, are they talking about rake or something else?

They are talking about the rake paid as a result of needing to grind v other regs to gain membership I think.

it's not true of course, many have been able to climb divisions while making profits.

A good quality, accurate and constructive remark - I think you may have gone to the wrong thread.

My only issue with that comment is that the edges are already quite small for Hyper HUSNGs.
So once we include a significant portion of mandatory reg battles (through blind lobbies), it may not be sustainable for anyone at current rake levels which is probably bad news for poker as they are a game that recreational players love as they are almost like flipping a coin.

However, as games played would surely increase, if pokerstars decreased rake, the game would still be viable and pokerstars would still be earning the same profit from the game PLUS the game would be completely transparent.

The things to do with sharing databases/datamining have **** all to do with cartels. It's a separate, and more dangerous/prevalent issue within all of poker.

Its interesting to see a couple of headsup hyper players come into the thread at the final hour. Would you guys be so kind as to reply to the following?

1) What is your opinion on the way Skier's+Co+software was ostracised to the overall 2p2 community by the husng community after stars had made their first decision?

i.e. Do you think any other sub community of 2p2 could have achieved a similar cohesive result.
-Why do you think the husng community was able to achieve this?
-Your community basically took a pokerstars decision to appeal and won, which is very rare indeed. Especially for a community so reliant on Software, the level of irony is kinda lol, given what it has led towards

Thoughts?

2) If Skier had made this software available for all husng regs for $100, or, on a monthly subscription basis (instead of a profit cut to a few) do you think the same outcome would occur regarding the software in question?

I have more questions but lets see how this goes first.

+1 to all of this.

Agreed, those stating this in the anti-cartel camp are spewing and range merging slightly.

This is a question of player ethics across the board not just husngs.

Firstly I have to say that I'm and was not part of any cartel for any period of time. I'm currently playing only spins.

I've refrained from posting (or reading) in this thread since the previous one in NVG was completely pointless with mindless accusation from people who have no idea what's going on.

Like most people at the start, I thought that the skier group were basically bots with automatic decision software (as widely posted). However it turned out just to be a tool that is completely legal and not dissimilar to other available software in the market. It's just so that skier worked hard, and it ended up working well (results speak for themselves).

In the original thread many people were just mindlessly attacking skier, not least because of the husng.com leading article (they have incentive to protect their own interests, as well as incentive to cause sensationalism). You can notice that soon the top husng guys who originally were part of the complainers stopped posting in that thread- they finally got what skier was doing and just ended up feeling a bit bitter that's all.

The thing is tools are already available (publically) which, if theoretically used for an infinite amount of time each hand will beat any human at <25bb hu. Stars either finally realised this, or finally stopped ignoring it after the skier thing brought it to light.

I don't know what stars will do and it's not an easy decision. I would like to draw your attention to some of the solutions skier himself and some others posted ITT.

On the subject of cartels again- it's the best system that ppl came up with which reduces bumhunting regs (you can suggest a better one if you can).

With or WITHOUT the cartel system, regs will share reads with each other when they are friends/living together, or have financial incentive (backing). Richas mentioned how shady it would be if a higher cartel member tried to get his horses into lower cartels. What's the difference when cartels do not exist? Would the higher stakes reg stop giving all his notes/reads on the regs who the horse may be playing?

Tell me one thing shady the cartel system brings that wouldn't be there without the cartels. The only unfairness cartels bring is that the original members have it easier. Considering the membership has almost completely changed since the creation of cartels, no one can really complain any more.

Lol. Questions werent intended for u!! But thanks anyway

LOL, I think you need to work on your game theory.

Now clearly this is more complex than the prisoner's dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Prisoner%27s_dilemma but are you really sure that the sitlist group does not include data cheats preying on the cartel members via shared data, that the cartel does not have an inner cabal using datasharing/mining to combat the sitlist, that nobody inside the cartel is working with their stable on the sitlist vs the "weaker" regs in the cartel? That a group within the cartel is not data sharng to help guarantee their position in the cartel, oh yes and to make money?

You have set up a game theory problem where the participants are actively helped to communicate with each other in a broad conspiracy to benefit the insiders to the detriment of the outsiders, a group made up of people with special expertise in the power of illegal data to earn them money and you seriously think that......

oh no, all the cartel members are angels, all the sitlist applicants are saints, none of them will use the same inner conspiracy tactics to screw over the rest?

Remember, you have linked the group via a shared list of participants, regular skype and IM contact between them - you have regular contact between the participants, you have ongoing personal and professional controversies with others in the group at your level and in the groups above and below your level, with the applicants, the only thing throwing you together is that grinding HU is what you do for a living.

You also have setup a system where nobody tries to stop you and if you do need to indulge in some datasharing to prove which crowd you are in the default is to ask PokerStars (who are close to co-conspirators) for a clean database. Hmm what a convenient coincidence.

Your financial interest is to screw everyone else in this network, except potentially your inner cabal of allies and the whole creation is based upon teamwork to screw over "outsiders", a lesson easily applicable inside the cartel and vs the cartel.

Now, applying game theory - what on earth makes you think that the prisoners (allowed to communicate) all work in your personal interest and never resort to an easy, undetectable cheat strategy....that the rules of the club make absolutely explicit how to circumvent (well we prefer a nice clean new fresh database from Stars, that whole risk that the scumbag we are vetting might manipulate the data is too much, new and clean and trusted is better.....ooops you mean my stable get to hide our data sharing, oh well never mind, we can trust the new clean file from Stars) rues apply.

Can you not see that the whole scam is st up to maximise the benefit not of the whole cartel but the "leaders" of the cartel - can you seriously with all your poker and game theory experience not see that the whole sham is a dishonest bit of thievery? With the sharky operator getting a chunk, Stars ex managers giggling "well when we sold it the revenues were fine, we never made a dodgy compromise with cheaters to kepp the revenue number up until we could bank a few millions, oh no not us, the pre Amaya owners are heroes of online poker........"

Seriously, when the school bully came up to you and punched you in the face (or you did it to some dweeb outsider) did you not see the punch coming (going)?

Cartels ahave nothing to do with data mining or dtat sharing or using Stars to let people clean up their test paper.....yeah right sure...anyway I have this great bridge to sell you....

Anonymous play.

with no cartels there aren't the inherently shady thing called cartels. come on now

I'll save my other questions for later, hopefully the right people answer.

In principle, I actually do not oppose the cartel format that strongly as others in thread. I do however think the structure is something that PokerStars could easily code/control themselves via an in-house husng ladder ranking system and their own sharkeystrator. To better improve the integrity of their games.

Both of which are not hard to program but I am at a loss as to why their would let a group of players dominate a section of online poker to the point where someone grinding $30s cannot legitimately take randomly shots at >$100s without a swarm of regs 24/7 collectively defending their patch of land.

I am not saying that all regs within the Cartels lack integrity. Actually the opposite. But there's always bad apples everywhere.

Richas you seriously don't think skype groups exist independent of cartels? It's not perfect, but it was designed to drive out bumhunters, and it's worked decently well in that respect.

I agree people can try to cheat within the system, but if detected they would be kicked out. It's not a sure +EV scam. Cartel leaders change often, and as I have said cartel members currently are vastly different to when they first started.

As games dry up for sure there will be more scamming, but there will be more scamming with or without cartels.

Good suggestion, but it changed the nature of poker, and brings additional problems. I personally would be cool with it as long as pokerstars lowers rake. Many regs and recs won't like it.

Do you think the average rec is going to happy that game integrity is left partly in the hands of a self appointed third party cabal?

The sad thing is that people will read that wall of crap and say "great stuff", "+1" or maybe even "keep smashing those cartels".
However, I suspect you know that is full of blatant exaggerations. You even admitted to being "grumpy" in an earlier post until your fans pumped you back up.

I'm pretty sure any interested independent reader can see through your histrionics. I've taken time out of my busy schedule to try and inform you but I actually can't be ****ed anymore as I'm not sure you are looking at this with any authenticity - you're just chasing the next "+1"

Prob not. Primarily because they have no chance of being in the group as recs. The cartel members are not self appointed but are there by merit.

Not sure about recs as a whole. I know a
Number that quit the game because they felt huds etc were outright cheating and I think they would come back for anonymous tables.

Lol sample size of course.

They were also players that felt you were up to something if you suggested a change of structure to their home game but nonetheless they came in with the boom and left when they heard about huds etc

Where's Steve? Would like to know how Stars is going to handle it.

As your "time out" seems to boil down to trying to tell me I am a naughty boy rather than address any of the issues I will instead raise you to multiple years of lobbying for cleaner games.

In case you have not noticed for some years, and even now, I am busy making myself disliked by being a founding (and thus far only) member of the awkward squad cartel. I don't measure a good post by a +1, for me your response is spot on. Bluster, antipathy and walking off in a huff....for some reason my little inner devil calls that a win.

They've collected ideas from this thread and now they will go away and have meetings where they work out what to do. I for one am not expecting to hear conclusions from them for about two weeks and tbh I prefer it if they take the time to decide properly what to do instead of reacting quickly.

Richas - I agree with you about cartels but except insofar as it relates to sharkystrator and other lobby bots it's getting off topic for this thread.