Hi. I am a player with a lot of experience in poker. 24 years playing regularly and 17 as a professional.

The poker ecosystem is broken. It is far too difficult for recreational and beginning players to win. This is very bad for the health of poker.

There are many economic and political factors why the balance of fish and winning players is out of whack.

What I want to discuss here is software aids for online poker and how they are bad for the health of the game.

I use HUDS and player rating systems, because I feel that I am giving up too much by not using these tools that are currently legal. But I would much prefer if they were banned.


These software tools give a HUGE edge over players who do not use them, and place recreational players in a position where they almost never win ( and therefore do not come back).

However, I play a lot of mixed games where these tools are not available. These games are MUCH MUCH softer.

I know that many many players agree with my position. I propose that we use our power as a community, and speak to the poker sites through e-mail, twitter, and facebook about our concerns.

These software-tools are only effective vs REGs. Vs the typical REC (fish) you almost never get a meaningful samplesize.

The tools are symptoms, but the "disease" is the overall increased skill-level. The skill-gap between a complete beginner and the average player-population (even at micro-stakes) was never that big. This results in newbies getting crushed, losing their money in a short time and giving them a negative experience (no one enjoys losing his money in a short time). With or without HUDs & Co, the result is the same. People pushing for the ban of HUDs are pushing their own private agenda under ther cover of the "poor raped RECs".

bovada has the right idea in this regard

It's interesting how you make a bunch of claims (like mixed games are "MUCH MUCH" softer) and then unequivocally determine the cause must be HUDs and not one of the other dozen reasons that are far more likely.

I play on Bovada for this reason.

Gunslinger1988,

It seems that you make a lot of very bold claims in your post. Are there any objective metrics that you think can measure this stuff? Can any of them be correlated to these issues?

I said in my opening post that there are many other factors besides software tools that hurt recreational players.

It is just that software aids are something that would be easy ( relatively ) to remove, and these tools have no upside for the health of poker.

How do you measure the "health" of poker?

I've played a long time and never used any of the tools. I just joined Bovada. I like that they don't have them.

When I started playing LHE 5 years ago I was the biggest winner at my stakes for the 1st 100k hands I played... and then my win rate steadily dropped over the next million or so hands.

When I tried out sats to Live events the same thing occurred. At first I was very successful but over time my edges were reduced.

When I moved again to sats for online tourneys the same thing occurred.

When I switched to low stakes NL the same trend also occurred.

HUDS are a great equalizer for ability. A multi tabler without a HUD would never be able to pick up my style of poker. Sure a 1 tabler could but this is a recreational player and I only play a handful of hands against them so it's of little concern. Without HUDS I have no doubt that I would be one of the best low stakes poker player out there.

Since HUDS can make a poor player a decent player and a great player only slightly better, the gap between these 2 types of players becomes narrower. Thus win rates are reduced and it takes more hands (also rake) for the natural shift in money. It's the bracketed part why Poker sites are in favour of them.

people say the software doesn't help much against REC players because of sample size but there is still imo the biggest problem to deal with, the players that identify weaker targets and literally stalk and follow.

i don't mind losing some money on a sunday afternoon playing with people much better than me, my goals online are to have fun and get better. there is some predatory behavior with poker everywhere but it bothers me when someone can just look at my name and automatically see how i can be exploited because i might fold a certain percent on a certain street or to a certain size bet.

This is why Bovada>Pokerstars ainec

Wow

New copypasta material

This is true. I think that HUDs help good players play multiple tables better rather than giving those good players much of an advantage when they are only playing one or two tables. I think that HUDs give recreational players the biggest advantage. There was a time not long ago when rec players tended not to use HUDs but those days are over.

When Carbon starting giving their Odds Calculator (with HUD included) to their players for free, it wasn't done to give their regs an advantage, it was done to level the playing field.

Whether allowed or not allowed, many players will find a way of using HUDs anyway. Not allowing HUDs will only greatly amplify the advantage of those who will continue to use them.

The argument that HUDS just let you automate what you observe anyway simply is not true when you play many tables.

Of course ability to multitable varies from person to person.

Personally once I get above 3 tables, the HUD helps me identify information that I probably would miss ( mostly hands that do not go to showdown).

Winning players will win with or without HUDs. You just have to adjust ( like always in poker).

I just think the HUDS are bad for exactly the recreational players we need in poker.

I get the point some people have made about HUDS possibly generating more rake short term.

I would hope the poker sites will recognize that long term health of the game ( a decent ratio of recreational players to winning players) will be best for all long term.

HUDs are not the only problem, seat scripting is a huge issue also.

I think you have made some points !

Yeah Bovada is great... until you catch people colluding red handed and they shrug it off.

[IMG]http://s7.************/a0p6tf8rf/Tournament_3817772_Collusion.jpg[/IMG]

easy. the measure is called "logical reasoning". you know ..the black magic thingy where you throw around statements like ..if a and b --> c. this technique helps avoiding the correlation == causation trap.

you are welcome sir

I'm interested in whether there is an objective measure/number that can be compared over time. Do you think that there is one? If so, what would you think it is?

For example, if you wanted to measure the popularity of NBA basketball, you could measure the attendance and/or TV ratings.

If you wanted to measure the popularity of poker, you could measure the number of players.

Adding up all the 24-hr peak numbers at PokerScout, right now, you get a total of 89,850 players (10.50 GMT, 23 December). If you go to http://www.pokerhistory.eu/poker-statistics it shows that in December 2012, the peak number of players was 70,163 (and 82,812 in Dec 2011). That said, I don't know how reliable/comparable the pokerhistory.eu numbers are... but it seems a reasonable metric to me.

Do you think there might be a better metric?

ah, finally we get a peek behind the scenes of PokerScout. i always wondered how theses graphs are assembled. where do the numbers come from? and what significance has it that seats are measured and not unique players?

so glad you dropped by to give us the details.

For those who use HUDs, EAD...

I don't have any behind-the-scenes knowledge of PokerScout. I guess you'd have to ask PokerScout for that.
I understand that they're the number of filled seats at real money ring games. Thus, it excludes Sit & Go Tournaments and MTTs. I assume it also excludes hidden games such as Home Games. You'll probably need to ask someone from PokerScout for much more info: I don't know anything about them that isn't publicly available.
It is a smaller and more conservative number than the other obvious choice (number of players logged into the site) because there are a bunch of players who are logged in and waiting for their games to start, and thus, aren't counted.
Happy to assist!

how would they know? ..other than that, because i feel you may not be comfortable with interpreting those tricky little 0-9 chars:

say we have a site with 10k seats occupied. now say, the table cap is 50 tables max per player. given that, it takes only 200 unique players to make the site look like a 10k players site.

hope this clears up the math for you ;-P

I can tell you that's the case, because a very helpful official PokerStars representative posted that here on 2p2 several years ago:

That would be a super-weird site. Your posts here seem to imply that you think that multi-tabling is common. I don't think it is.

While I don't know any special information on this issue, I'd imagine that the average number of tables being played by a player at any of the big 4/5 online sites at any one time is under 2, and that the median would be exactly 1 table at a time.

Josem:

I think I know what you are asking now, did not really understand your first post. You are asking if there are numbers backing up my claim that the health of the poker ecosystem is in jeopardy.

I do not have specific numbers, however I know quite a few poker players and almost to a man we speak about how difficult it is to win online these days.

I know that some of this can be contributed to the evolution of poker knowledge. This is normal for any competitive game.

For this reason though, it is even MORE important to bring new and recreational players into the game, and try to give them a fun experience and at least a reasonable chance to win for a given day/session.

My contention is that HUDS and other tools make it too difficult for these new and recreational players.

For example, if all the regulars are playing 8 tables and using a HUD, a new or recreational player is going to have an experience where he is playing almost only with regulars and has close to zero chance of winning.

Plus there is less chance of enjoyable chat.