I think a lot of you guys think this is a lot harder to implement than it actually is and that is with existing tools, much less something purposefully made as a smartphone app to assist between hands of an MTT.

Even putting your exact stack into a nash push/fold calculator between hands is IMO cheating. Which is the literal least you could possibly do.

Main event prohibits all devices after bubble, right?

Well yeah, if the bar is set as low as using snapshove, then yeah it’s easy. But using actual RTA in a live setting, giving outputs for each street, in the moment?

Maybe the tech exists with Google glass or similar technology. Otherwise, the player would at the very least need to have their phone out and oriented in such a way that the camera can see the board. And then they have to be able to read the output without being obvious.

I think people in this thread have differing opinions on what constitutes RTA.

Suppose for a moment that people who would consult a push/fold calculator or chart already has a pretty good sense for such strategy. (I'm not saying it's true, just suppose this for the sake of argument.) How much of an advantage are they truly gaining by having this info at the ready?

Consider two archetypes:

Person A is someone who has a decent handle for short stack strategy, but sometimes needs a quick refresher for some of the closer decisions. e.g. "I've got 12 BBs and I'm in the hijack on my next hand... what is the bottom of my shoving range?" And now they can confirm that, say, Q8s is a shove but Q7s is not. Or that J7s is profitable from the CO but not the HJ for that stack size. Stuff like that.

Person B is relatively inexperienced with tournament play. Not a total noob, as they've scored a few cashes in the $100 nightly tourneys at the local card room over the years, and maybe they're the best player in their home game. But their tourney expertise is quite elementary. ("Nash? The basketball player? Or the guy with Crosby and Stills?")

It seems like Person B would see a larger uptick in results/performance with a push/fold calculator compared to Person A because A is already so much closer to the mathematically correct play. But in reality, the B types barely know these resources are out there, let alone are using them.

But again, I'm posing this much more as a question rather than an opinion. I really don't have a good sense for the actual value of this type of aid.

Unless casinos are willing to completely ban all electronics/phone use (even between hands), there is no practical way to enforce anything.

As much as electronics are prevalent nowadays I cannot imagine any casino would consider it.

All Electronics including headphones should be banned during play and only allowed on breaks.

it's sarcasm right?

You ban software tools on computers and punish anyone who is caught using them. There is something to be said for making something unacceptable officially and making it harder to get away with regardless of whether you can stop 100% of people.


It's not any easier to catch people using sophisticated assistance in-hand via head phones either, but we don't allow that. Collusion is 1000x more amorphous and hard to enforce and it's still not allowed/endorsed.