Richas,
I'm just reading your UKGC submission.

I like the way you described a "spectrum of behaviour" from ethical table selecting to unethical bum hunting to cheating based on data mining etc.

One man's table selection is another man's bum hunting is another man's cheating.

Thanks to all for your input.

The 10 days allowed for input have concluded and we are now discussing internally. There is quite a lot to read and consider. I expect a conclusion next week.

Bolded bit clearly outlaws SpinWiz sharing all licensees userid's with all other licensees without any care or concern about whether players know these other players are likely strong players from their own game play or not.

If it is in fact not an unfair advantage that SpinWiz and its users should have no objection in removing the shared info.

Explain it to me pls.

I am a reg. I am indifferent about HUDs. Ban or not, I don't care.

I'm sorry but I don't understand you. As regards Zoom there are many successful strategies but a fixed strategy and discipline is not one of them. You would get raked to death.

Thankyou but I don't think I have much poker talent at all. I work hard. NL1K players are super good at observing and counter-adapting. I win because while I may be bad other 100NL Zoom players are terribad. I only have to be better than the others at my average table but I make no claim to being any good in an absolute sense.

Most expectations Ive had in the forums the last 4 years, Its going to be interesting...

Pokerstars TOS:
IMO all group-based seating scripts are inherently collusive because they involve sharing of information unknowable from the player's own play about strength of play. PokerStars TOS need to be expanded to specifically include player avoidance based on information not available from one's own play as a form of collusion, too as player avoidance implies colluding to target those not avoided.

and during the intermission we can all watch the Brian Hastings "NoelHayes" row.

I just don't understand your indifference to bots yet you are so strongly against game selection tools. It just seems so out of whack.

There's an easier route to fitting ALL seating scripts within the existing ToS - as bots. They automate a skilled part of the game (table selection).

I am not indifferent to Bots. Long term they are a potential killer of poker. I am strongly against Bots. As an exception I would approve of Bot-identified play money games on Pokerstars that allowed visually identified Bots to play such as say, Uni of Alberta's Limit Holdem tool or Claudico NLHE HU tool or entrants in the World Computer Competition or PokerSnowie or NeoBot or ... I would enjoy the opportunity to try to beat them. Maybe Pokerstars could charge a participation real-money fee for challenging them at play money. I do not think a Bot should ever be allowed to win money at Pokerstars.

I am not against game selection tools for individuals based on past personal play. I am against all group-based aka collusive game selection tools. I am for Zoom-like lobbies that deliberately focus on rendering all game selection tools impotent and redundant.

My focus is on the recreational goose that lays the golden eggs: the depositing recreational player. Whatever makes a recreational player's experience more enjoyable I am for regardless of its impact on professionals. Pros should constantly adapt to the changing nature of poker but it is short-term folly to continue protecting Pros by killing the recreational goose.

It does seem bizarre that a player cannot have a script that auto folds 72o and yet they can have a script that colludes with 100s of other players to avoid each other in Spin&Go's or that sits every green-colored player in the cash lobby. One tiny action at the table is illegal but massive actions away from the table is OK.

As a zoom cash player I find having to table select non-Zoom games a freaking annoying thing to have to do.

I don't think of table selection as necessarily part of poker. It is not part of Zoom poker. It is part of some other forms of poker. I'd rather focus my scarce time on getting better at playing hands, not getting better at table selecting.

I believe Pokerstars TOS restricts automation illegality to in-game decisions ie when already seated.

So far Pokerstars approach away from in-game seems to be that if it can be done manually then it is allowed to be automated so all seating scripts are OK.

I think that is naïve as you simply can't do manually in practical terms what is being automated.

You can't manually click open 24 tables at once. You can't manually find all green coloured players and sit them like lightning.

And you can't manually collude with hundreds of mates to one by one feed off a pool of unsuspecting recreational players.

as i said in my blog, better solution is to just ban "strategy"/HUD software.

software such as my StackAndTile and TableNinja should have no reason to be banned

of course i'm biased.

The Golden Goose is depositing recreational players. They deposit when they are playing fast, quick starting volatile games that they win say 5x of their deposit from time to time. Some also like the idea of being able to make money out of poker if they work hard enough (but they never do).
HUSNGs and spins meet that criteria a lot better than many other games - including 6 max cash games.
One of the reasons these games start quickly is because there is always a reg ready to play anyone at any time.
The system works well, it's profitable for the best players, it's quick starting big action for recreational players.

Repeatedly using the word collusion is inflammatory (particularly when any member can play any other member at any point in time without any risk of exclusion).
This isn't helpful and confuses multiple issues when all we really need is pokerstars to focus on making fair, consistent enforceable rules across all software types and games (and doing a better job detecting bots).

It won't be banned unfortunately.

I contend a Zoom-style registration pool for starting and repeating HUSNG's & Spin&Go's would start faster and be better for recreational players. I contend a recreational player's idea of fairness (and arguably a legal definition as Pokerstars supplier to client consumers) is each player having an equal chance of sitting every other player in the player pool.

Sometimes factual statements are inflammatory. It doesn't help to call a spade a shovel. Deal with reality.

Group-based seating scripts are inherently collaborative aka collusive. Pokerstars is potentially facing a law suit with even worse bad publicity damage from some Spin&Go recreational player luckily playing for the biggest prize but feeling cheated by facing two regs he claims colluded and further claiming that Pokerstars engaged in deceptive marketing when claiming Spin&Go's involve random seating when in fact they knowingly approved third party software that actively prevents random seating.

It is in Pokerstars best interests to avoid the appearance of collusion by instituting Zoom-style Spin&Go lobby.

This isn't helpful to users of SpinWiz but calling out the illegality of group-based scripts is helpful to game integrity.

Focus on bots by all means but also ban SpinWiz's group-based seating functionality that violates TOS.

I agree with the above. In what other game would we attribute it a skill to one's ability to best avoid other strong opponents and/or spot out weaker ones to play against. I don't think it's a necessary part of poker. It might be necessary for some players to continue being profitable/professional in these games but that should not be the target audience for making change in this area. PokerStars should work to create an environment where every player has an equal chance to be seated with any other player in the player pool.

Agreed. Also if they don't take a long term view in terms of software another place to look would be stock analysts. Their job is to work out the net present value of the future profits of Amaya, which is going to be traded on NASDAQ.

So if PS take a short term view and act in a way that threatens the health of the future games and jeopardizes the possibilities for future licensing, in order to get people playing each other with 3rd party software to rake off money against each other in the short term ... well uninformed stock analysts will just see that revenues are up this quarter, but better informed ones will take account of these decisions and write reports including this as a reason why they are changing their recommendation to a sell - that would affect the stock price now and put pressure on them to change and save the game. So the next step should be to help analysts get better informed.

+1, Recreational players are here to play poker not get disgruntled at angleshooters trying to stop them from getting a fair seat.

+1, Analysts and the media and recreational players need to be better informed about game integrity scandals at Pokerstars not to be nasty but because transparency is the best incentive to encourage the highest standards of game integrity.

There has to be something wrong with this type of logic when HUSNGs have table selection yet have more reg vs reg games compared to any other form of poker so if it's "collusive" (as timtam says) or all about avoidance (as you say), the effect is completely negligible.

Whatever, just give me a Zoom-style lobby for Spin&Go's and HUSNGs programmed such that truly random seating and reseating occurs with zero opportunity for third party seating scripts and all players getting an equal chance to be sat with all other players in the pool.

I'll play in that format and you can take my money all day long but you'll never get a cent off me in today's formats.

Under Australian Consumer Protection Law the seller (Pokerstars) has a major problem:

The Spin&Go lobby gives the impression of random seating. PokerStars support replies to consumer query that seating is indeed random.

But if the consumer knew seating was not random due to third party software that they would have stopped from purchasing the service.

How about the court orders a remedy of Pokerstars emailing all players of Spin&Go's offering them a refund if they expected random seating and alters the description in the Spin&Go lobby to inform would-be players that seating is not random due to allowed third party software.

But despite all the above, live poker is strong pretty much anywhere it's allowed. So what online-specific problems are there other than 3rd-party software?

this one is interesting. online specific is that every flaw can and will be exploited to the max with minimal effort. the less analog world it has the easier it is to exploit.

If there's a class action in that, the lawyers are going to have a field day suing the RSL's, Pubs, casinos etc given the $15bn+ Australian's lose every year on the pokies.
I'msure some of that $15bn comes from people who think pokies are a skill game and they have a chance to win.
Seems to meet the criteria of "a problem stopping someone from purchasing if they had known about it " a little bit better