Finally someone credible states it.
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...&postcount=442

PokerStars, Party, Pre-BF Full tilt, iPoker etc all ruined online poker by not allowing the format of the game to evolve and kept the variant format placid to milk the cash cow for as long as possible. This allowed them to continue with the same old holdem BS tv format to attract fresh deposits. If they'd had just been more mix game forward thinking and let player traffic determine the route of online poker evolution - games would be much healthier now.

I really hope RIO Poker lay every possible type of poker possible, keep the rake balanced across the board and let player traffic determine the evolution of poker.

Actually disagree with this comment. Ben86 is potentially (and maybe conveniently for Doug) being made a scapegoat here imo.

I refused to post in that doug/86 thread as it's a trainwreck but in my (humble-noninformed) opinion; Doug burnt Ben86 pretty hard by outing the software details,,,, which was in fact quite a self destructive move imo for all high stakes beasts. (Say top 2% guys at HS -- ce la vie though as online hs poker dead now).

Doug, by outing the info regarding an NDA & Software basically just gave the game away on the entire high stakes population of players that have been crushing in different orders. These guys now owe it to poker have an honest discussion about how useful their independent software technologies have been in their poker career advancement. And ability to survive in the hardening climate of online poker. (I'm not talkin about real time use-thats a different topic completely)

Because essentially, for all us minions know, they have been pitting training software against training software for god knows how long. Whilst everyone else has been pitting gut instinct against gut instinct+.

Lets just use some satanic deductive logic here, Ben86 destroys all opponents at PL, Doug is destroying all opponents at HE. Whatever Ben86 is doing in PL, its fair to say Doug could be using similar (but not as optimal) training techniques for HE. Ben86 allegedly worked quite heavily with Alix Martin to develop his software tech. Alix Martin was previously a coach at Phil Galfonds training site Bluefire.

Who's to say an older variant of this training software wasn't used by Phil? Phil is about to develop an online poker platform for RIO.... imagine what this could do to Ben86 and Dougs #1 spots? If Phil has access to some training tech + all hand histories?? (I'm playing devils advocate here... but can you imagine? hence my sadistic opening one liner)

But I honestly think there's a lot of high stakes players that owe it to the poker community to have this conversation on "training tech" in an open and honest heavily moderated thread in the internet poker forum. These guys need to realize whether they like it or not, their ambassadors of the game. If they want the game back in an evolved variant in the future, they need to be honest and talk around a table openly about revolutionizing this issue for the good of poker, not the.... the.... detriment of poker.

Sorry, got a bit long in end. Should've put this on a blog or something with some better structure. apologies for my hard to read writing style.

GTOmachines and dream machines does not always mean the same thing.

You don't need full solved game tree for NL/PLO to be more profitable than others.
You just need better approximation.

David Essex had a silver dream machine in 1980
They made a film about it.

The nerds won. It's time for the fanboys to move on. Go play live or a home game if you want your fix. If you don't have the brain power, resources, or time to compete at online poker, then find a new hobby. I hear DFS is unsolvable ANYONE can win!

It's hard to go in detail here without saying things I shouldnt say in public
They play almost identical pre, not as identical post.

Stars never lets 2 of them play at the same table, which is somewhat remarkable and soothing and worrying at the same time.

Apparently they're all trained by the same program and are supposed to be beating 500 for 1bb/100 (heard that from guys with bigger samples)


Taken From OtB_RedBaron

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/17...43/index8.html

In spite of the news, the high stakes Stars games have been going nonstop since WCOOP started.

What postperpage setting you have as I atleast couldn't find anything on that page with my 40 postperpage settings or as logged out.

This is spot on. Cant believe anyone could disagree

Np Post #720 http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...&postcount=720

Seems a little odd to create an account here after you lost interest in online poker.

is there a reason seating scrips haven't already been banned by pokerstars? especially after they said they were going to ban them a couple of years ago?

The Baron was talking about the people in Montenegro that had access to (and trained with) an early version of Snowie. Snowie doesn't work when the Stars client is open, and I don't think it would be practical to use it as a real-time advice tool on a second computer either. (Building scenarios takes too much time).
I think it's fairly likely that some people have alternative real-time pseudo-GTO advice tools running though. Apps like Skier's voice-activated HUSNG "advice tool" are bound to exist for cashgames too.

Hmmmmmmmm... How 2 gain unique insights into advanced PLO theory with moderate computational power... - Ben86 2012 (the dream)

Ahead of da ***** game imo.

Yea... I don't think Snowie or any version close to it was beating midstakes nl in 2013, lol. (Or today for that matter)

This advisor would be synonymous with a winning bot minus some play on later streets if this were the case. Perhaps there could be some that use heuristics that are good enough to guide some humans into playing better. But we don't have the computational power (yet) to solve flops on the fly (and also later streets), and so unless the solver uses some exploitative heuristics (aka a winning bot), it wouldn't add anything to the humans play.

+1, great post. Precisely because of this I only play donkaments online, not that there isn't money to be made at cash tables, but the predatory atmosphere and knowing all the software being used just makes it feel scummy and not fun.

wouldnt it be more logical (and more easy to program) to have a custom software that contributes to the way a player plays the game..?

i dont really know what that means for HS players, I couldnt poker my way out a paper bag...but for a HS player, if they have software that automates a large part of how they think about the game would be very valuable.

I mean a sort of equilab/pokerstove app real time using stats from the players.

That would need customers who also are technological savvy. I think there are a lot more potential new players out there if this game hadn't become this math/software heavy. Can you imagine a beginner having to learn for months to enter a game with less and less edges?
I began watching High Stakes Poker. It's just a whole other game. Sadly one I have no intrest in.

Problem with new games is that they don't attract enough regulars. NL and FLHE are very easy for beginners to learn, and PLO too even though it's bit more extreme. I've played like <3k hands of FLO/8 and I still can't read board/low draws just by taking a quick glance. So there's a reason why 2-7, Badugi etc lobbies are empty.

So I think there should be a way to modify existing popular games, so that bots & computers won't be able to use pre-generated equilibriums. One solution I came up with is random blind structure in every hand dealt. E.g. 6-handed game, button moves normally. Before a hand is dealt, software takes an ante of 2/3 blind from every player. These antes are randomly spread on the table in a random fashion as blinds, dead blinds, straddles and antes, but so that there's still atleast always big blind and small blind left of dealer button.

Here's some examples
#1 BB of 1bb, SB of 1/3 bb, straddle in CO of 2bb, 2/3 bb antes in middle
#2 BB of 1bb, SB of 3/4 bb, dead blind in BTN of 1bb, 5/4 bb antes in middle
#3 BB of 1bb, SB of 1bb, straddle in UTG of 2bb, dead blind in CO of 1bb
etc...

I haven't yet figured out if there's some caveats to this. Obviously it creates some extra randomness in the game, but hey, so does Stud games with the random bring-in. Also multitabling becomes harder, but that's probably a good thing.

This might also positively affect the "sit out next bb" table breaking issue, because everyone in the table is contributing towards your big blind, not just yourself.

punter, what's your thoughts? Do you think that computing power is, and will be, an issue for years to come to generate real-time solutions for these random structured games?

EDIT: Also HUDs become basically useless. Game trees will change so much from hand to hand, and no distinguishable patterns should emerge in hud. Poker will become more of a game about intuitive skill & GTO understanding, than game of pre-preparation.

Badugi has to be the easiest form of poker to learn

this is a reality i would want to see, HARD offtable work would pay off so hard. Sadly just a dream but if we actually live in the matrix, can´t you ****ing robot researchers make it happen, fix the glitch. Brains and studies. Also would enpower my fav jungleman even more. In my eyes hes the king in poker, when you take into aspect that he is so ****ing good in all variants, all stack depths. He would not only be king, he would become the mother of dragons, breaker of chains and sauce probably the sadistic prince(close second).

nah i guess live poker is the next natural step, as online dies I hope the need for bigger live games would emerge, and perhaps some method of speeding the tables up are put in affect, semi automated, or automed shotclocks with timebanks etc....Dream would be if someone smart came up with a system that actually worked where fast folders preflop were rewarded more time into their timebank.

Ive been using rock straddle in the games i host for 6 years.

What about :

- Playing 1000 BB deep

- 2 street PF ( 1 card is dealt, players plays , that first betting round is pot limit and then the other private card is dealt, the second betting round and all the other are NL)

- The flop is dealt in 3 streets (one for each card)

- We doesn't change anything turn/river

I think that this game tree is really huge

How about playing fixed-limit poker pre-flop and no-limit post-flop - maybe even with antes pre-flop if necessary? If 4 people are priced in to see every flop the game tree is too big to solve and there isn't really true GTO solution anyway.

This also has the advantage that it would be easier to get people to switch over because its similar to what they already know.

It's kind of interesting that Bobby Hoff was talking about pot-limit preflop and no-limit post-flop all those years ago in Harrington on Holdem* and we're visiting it now.

*I am not publicly admitting to owning or having read HoH and will vehemently deny any direct questions.

holdem and plo are by far/were the best candidates. I like plo hi/lo actually, its confusing as hell to think of how to play properly.