I would have thought so, and the provided example would seem to bear that out.

So this is allowed:
"• Raises 3xBB UTG and 2xBB on the button, upon a single key press"

but this is not:
"• Raises 3xBB + 1xBB for every limper, upon a single key press"

very weird.

Following is also allowed:
"• Bets 65% of the pot if on the flop, 55% if on the turn, upon a single key press
• Enters 50% of the pot as the default bet amount"

So TN/SH with preset bets is allowed or not? too confusing for me

Indeed very weird. Instead of prosecuting cheaters, they get rid of pure ergonomic helper tools.
As if it needs a mental effort to manually see if you are otf, ott, otr, in position, out of position or whatever and make your sizing accordingly. Like i said, i think this is a terrible ruling and a slap into the face of a lot of players trying to play high volume. I am fine with banning seating software but prohibiting inconvenience reducing software is the wrong direction.

What's so annoying about this is that Stars are obviously aware of this thread because one of their reps started it. All this confusion and anger and not one response to clarify anything.

I mean, I don't really get why anyone would need more than 3 colours. 1 for reasonable range, and the others for too low/too high.

Hello all,

As most of you know, there has been a lot of discussion lately regarding our third party software policies. This post is made with intention of giving a detailed summary of the main changes that we have made to these policies. We are aware that these points have already been posted in this thread, but for clarity's sake, we are posting them again:

Summary of changes

• Reference material, such as starting hand charts, now have to be “basic in nature”. Anything considered to be sophisticated in nature can no longer be used whilst the client is open.
• HUDs are no longer permitted to display non-numerical data, categorize players or dynamically display statistics specific to a certain situation.
• Hand or Situation Analysers, such as programs that compute equities of various ranges of hands against one another, can no longer be used whilst the client is open.
• Game State Reporters can no longer automatically or semi-automatically retrieve information from an otherwise permitted reference material. For example, tools can no longer notify an end-user that their starting hand lies in Group 1 of a statically defined grouping of hands.
• Table Selection and Seating Scripts can no longer time a player’s registration into a global waiting list. They must register players into specific tables or tournaments.

If you would like to access to more details and clarification, you can download the Third Party Tools and Services Policy Reference Guide that we provide for software developers.

Consequences of these changes

We would like to draw your attention to the last point above, and from page 31 of the reference guide:

The game type where ‘players are unable to select or register to a specific table’ is, of course a reference to the Spin & Go tournaments. And as a result of this policy change, effective October 1st, SpinWiz and other related software that is aimed at game selection in these games, will be prohibited.

The main reason for this decision is that one of the most significant features of Spin & Gos is that there is no game selection and that it should be random who you play against. Software of the type we are now banning systematically bypasses this feature to the detriment of those who are not using the software. Some might also see this as disingenuous towards the thousands of players who go into these games thinking that it is entirely random who they are drawn to play against.

In accordance with our usual procedure, our first objective will be to educate people who do not realise that this form of software is now prohibited. Consequently, we will have sent a notification of these rule changes to players who we know have been using such software in the recent past. None of these players have broken any of our rules, but we want to make sure that everyone has first-hand information so that they do not inadvertently end up in a situation where they break the rules in the future.

Moving forward

While seat-selection programs will be prohibited in Spin & Gos, we are not changing our policy towards generic seating scripts at this time. However, we want to strongly emphasize ‘at this time’.

Whilst our historical stance has always been to permit these tools due to the fact that they do not include any gameplay logic directly, we have never been fans of their existence due to the impact it has had on the game selection process. As these tools have continued to evolve and their impact is felt more and more, we are going to be looking at prohibiting all seating scripts in the future once this round of revisions has settled down and we are able to discuss the most effective solutions to limit their ongoing usage.

In short, we feel our policy towards the use of third party tools and services must remain fluid and adapt to the increasing level of sophistication of external tools for the overall betterment of the online poker ecology. We believe this stance is evident with these impending changes.

How long it will take to find the best solution to these issues is an open question. The process is in motion, and if you have input and ideas on this topic, we would be very happy to hear from you.

Datamining

This is another issue that is very much a concern to us, and lately we have been able to make some progress in stopping the sites that are involved in this activity. On September 1st, we implemented a feature that was directed at stopping datamining in the Zoom games, and the time of writing this, it seems that the feature works the way it was intended.

As for our other games, we are currently working on finding solutions that will have the same effect. One of the challenges is that different games needs to be treated differently, but we are hopeful that we will be able to make further progress on this towards new year and beyond.

We will leave it at this for now, but will keep an eye on the thread, and try to come back to you on a regular basis to reply to your questions. We do not want to create expectations that we cannot keep, so I would think that something like a monthly Q & A post is what we will aim to do. However, if there are questions that are particularly urgent or easy to reply to, we might come back with an answer sooner.

In these Q & A posts, we will also give you information on decisions that have been made on specific points of programs and tools since the previous post. Hopefully, this will give you a good understanding of our process on these issues. We would like to emphasize, however, that the proper channel of communication regarding Third Party Tools, is still via email to support@pokerstars.com. You will be helped much faster by writing to support, than posting a question in this thread.

Thanks,
Baard

I should post in here more often

Baard - does this mean that the changes have now come into effect? Is there a new list of prohibited programs?

Looks like Poker Stars don't realize what they are doing or trying to fool people.

From PDF linked in Baards post

"HUDs may not:

• Have statistics which are split based on card values. For example, AGGRESSION FREQUENCY
is fine, AGGRESSION FREQUENCY ON FLUSH DRAW BOARDS is not. Similarly, COUNT OF AKO
WHEN 3-BET would also be prohibited.
"

This is the biggest change and WHYYY it is not mentioned in the summary??

why do you ban features of tableninja now that had been available and legal for 5+ years?

Hahahaha, stopped reading after this

Does this kill Jivaro?

"HUDs are no longer permitted to display non-numerical data, categorize players or dynamically display statistics specific to a certain situation."

Bunch of graphical things in it that states how agressive/loose or tight instead of raw numbers etc.

Baard, could you comment on this please? Was restricting preset bet sizes intentional? It seems a very odd thing to go after, it's something no-one complained about and restricting it only adds more clicks (Pokerstars have bet size buttons already in the software). I understand restricting reading of game state for HUDs/charts but hopefully you can see why preset bet sizes are OK and make an exception for something that's been used for a long time. Everyone knows what their default betsizes are in each spot, all you've done is add some clicks (while permitting seating scripts of all things!).

Hi,

so is sharkystrator still allowed or not?

so I assume that notetracker in PT4 has to be turned off? not that I ever looked at it, but it is active by default for me.

what i gather from this is that they are pretty much in teh endphase and shortly before organizing stars cashgames like they doing on FT hence they are not banning scripts. if theyd ban scripts now people would accuse each other left and right of scripting if one guy gets 3 jesus seats in a row and support would get bombarded by mails. so they just save it for now and leave script allowed. once teh big change comes into effect they already have a ban on waitinglist scripts (like spinwiz) so that developing and implementing spinwiz for cashgames will be forbidden from teh getgo...

once again, you heard it here frist

When stars released spins they just thought they had made a money spinner for stars, they didn't realize that regs could actually make money in them. They just assumed it was a new rake machine for stars. In a months time when they realize a couple of regs are still making money in spins even after these changes how will you then change the goalposts again to make them unprofitable for everyone? They already put the rake up not long after releasing spins because they saw that they could squeeze a little more out of players. As for detriment to others, games are now more likely to be 2 regs one recreational way more often than when wiz was allowed thus giving recreationals even less chance but reg win rates will be lower so more rake for stars. Trying to disguise the fact that this is a rake play by saying your doing it for the players is just a flat out lie!

deal with it

good job looking forward on doing what you did on full tilt cash games also on stars.

dunno why you left jesus seating script rats out of this rules update but i guess is what timstone said above . gl and thanks for the good news

The banning of spinwiz is very ridiculous, but as i read it there is an easy workaround for the players to assign them a certain timestamp every minute if they want they have X tables to press reg at 15 seconds in a minute, 15 seconds in the next, etc.

The real problem with banning spinwiz is not spinwiz but the horrible seating algo of stars that they are too lazy to fix.

People will still manually hide from each other, create mini spinwizzes for small groups, or take the legal solution i just offered to avoid each other/


Whether is a good or bad thing (obv bad)to have blind lobbies, 5% rake, lowered bonusses en now no spinwiz is up for debate but if you want to make it truly random you should change the seating algo by letting everyone reg for a minute or 30 seconds, and then hussle them around in a big jar and make it by chance who sits with who.

By banning spinwiz programs you do not solve the problem but you make the inequalitiy between players bigger.


I dont know what hud stuff exactly is forbidden and what is not but it seems werid to ban things that have been trivial and allowed for many many years like preset betsizing and classificiation of players. It shows pure desperation from Pokerstars trying to show that you are able to handle the bad press you have had recently.

Further, you need to explain the reference material thing more. I have been friends and coached over 200 players lifetime, which, no doubt, will all still have no clue what is allowed and what is not even after reading that document. Does everyone need to send in their reference material to pokerstars support? (we all know how confedential pokerstars was previously...) It opens up all kinds of problems and it completely takes things too far. How will you make sure that players dont use advanced material (whatever that may be) agianst me while playing?

Thank you for posting Baard.

While the response is lacking in clarifying the vagaries of the PDF, it is at least nice to have an official rep post that the document is in fact real. If you weren't aware - this is the first time in this thread the document has actually been acknowledged by PokerStars.

So, question - the most time-pressing one for me and many others right now. Is the "two (three including default) color ranges max per stat in a hud" PT4 interpretation the correct one?

The preset betting rules appear to have been developed with little/no experience of playing poker. There has to be some subtlety in the rules. It's understandable to ban NoteCaddy displaying the "Iso" badge facing a limp (telling you the player limp/calls then c/f flop a lot). However it's perfectly acceptable for software to see the limp and move your openraise size up one click. If the aim is to reduce mass tabling then reduce table caps, introducing deliberate annoyances into the playing experience isn't the way to go.

Looks like it is a new direction of Stars policy. Just fool those who are against software but are not aware of how software works and naive enough to believe that everything would be fair just because stars writes on their site some text.

Does the third point mean, say, in a turbo MTT, if a guy shoves 11bb i cant put my hand vs his nash range in equilab to decide if i wanna call?

Not if u arent using a 2nd laptop

How i hell you will be able to enforce this?

"And as a result of this policy change, effective October 1st, SpinWiz and other related software that is aimed at game selection in these games, will be prohibited."

How about updating your list of permitted software ? Spinwiz is still on there.

https://www.pokerstars.uk/poker/room/prohibited/

And what else shouldn't be on there as a result of the changes ?