I don’t really get the point of view of the majority of more or less influential people in the community regarding the latest innovations in the GGPN network (Poker, etc.). For my part, the least I can do is note everything that is going on right now.
It all started with Holz’s post on Twitter, where he enthusiastically announced the start of cooperation with the information security department of GG network and voiced 3 points that he wants to focus on in the near future:
1. Fight against RTA (real-time assistance)
2. Fight against MDA (mass data analysys)
3. Fight with Collusion (collusive plays/ghosting)
The only respond I got to my question under the post was a ban. That’s the behavior worthy of a network ambassador and a representative of the Poker Integrity Department, which should serve as a connection between Information Security Department and the community, isn’t it? But let’s put this one aside for now.
I would like to focus the reader’s attention on point number 2 (MDA). To begin with, we will dive into the background of the issue; the Holdem Manager Twitter page was created in October 2009 and we will use this date as the point of appearance of hand history tracking as such. After all, it is the moment Security Department of rooms allowed the use of tracking software that set the entire course of industry development up to this point. One can argue endlessly about how exactly the number of stables and use of MDA during development of a player in any poker school affect the industry, but the fact remains that the networks are responsible for the chosen course themselves.
Yes, the presence of trackers has given rise to a certain number of scammers who use them to write strategies for bot farms, etc., but also the presence and ability to use trackers is a guarantee of fair play for the player.
Speaking of fair play: the poker community has shown its effectiveness in the fight against bots and identifying super-users on various sites precisely thanks to the presence of trackers and MDA. No one, of course, can tell who does more percentage wise, the Information Security of rooms or community enthusiasts; but if you compare the number of refunds from rooms with the public cases where enthusiasts had a hand, it seems that it is at least close.
However, the security systems of the rooms and GGPN in particular, have shown their incompetence, both in the fight against bots (how can your strategy be effective if the community identifies bots better than you do?) and in the fight against super users (moneytaker69 and who knows how many more people have used the ineffectiveness of the software).
Among other things, don’t you think, my dear reader, that introducing rules into the user agreement of the site that go against the
PUBLIC rules of other sites and forcing this way
law-abiding players to choose between playing other sites with tracker or playing GG and other sites without one (while
lawbreaking players just find a new way of bypassing the security system), is - to put it mildly - an action that is aimed not only at maintaining the purity of the game?
Now let's return to where we started for a short time. Probably everyone knows that Fedor Holz is the owner of the Pokercode. I bought a subscription to his wonderful product to check one thing out (in reality, I got the invaluable experience of buying crap for money). And, OH GOD, WHAT A SURPRISE, in the very first random video I open in MTT course from Fedor I see the following:
For those not understanding what you see on the screen, on the left there is a GTO 3bet range in the MP vs BB situation, and on the right, there is an average 3bet range in the MP vs BB situation obtained using MDA.
This is how awkward it is, while Fedor declares a witch-hunt on Twitter and claims that using MDA to create strategies is unacceptable and should be forbidden, he actually sells a course that is based on MDA.
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Yes, I get that it needs time to sink in. Let’s go over it again. Fedor, being poker ambassador of the
highest level, announces cooperation with the security service of the
leading platform, while at the same time selling courses (not cheap, by the way, at the time of publication it is 1.2k USD/year) content of which is
based on MDA. The screenshot above is not a lone occasion of using MDA, the word “population” appears in most of the videos.
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Now let's try to figure out together how sincere Fedor is in his statements and whether he is really interested in fair play or maybe he just sold out and now pushes forward what is beneficial to the site he represents?
Simultaneously with these innovations, the site is introducing a withdrawal limit of 5k USD/day funny coincidence, right?
I said it before in platinum community in Discord, but I’ll repeat it here as well:
A huge request to the GGPN management and specifically to the Information Security Department from me personally and from the entire community: find competent people to start an open dialogue with a competent representative of poker community, so we can move together towards the solution, if you really are interested in fair play.
And another request to the community: spread the information as much as possible. I really want the average player to think critically and to evaluate the news looking at the whole picture, not just the beautiful part where Fedor Holz (Poker Star) joins the Security Council and announces radical changes => Sure thing the changes are good for us, Fedor himself watched over every step.
Maybe then, through maximum publicity, we can convey the dissatisfaction of community to the management of the site and, for once in a lifetime, defend the interests of the players.