I've been running the PT4 trial, getting used to the different software (ran HE Mgr back in the day) and now I don't even know if I'm gonna purchase it. Seems like a waste. I'm pretty frustrated with this whole thing. I really don't want to play on PS but I may be forced to. I can handle no HUDs I suppose, but no saveable HHs and anonymous names? Hell no.

Even in live you can say "oh ya, I remember this guy" - now you're totally in the dark.

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Are they going to anon names? I thought they are just removing the hhs and you still see the playernames like before and can make notes.

If they do so i bet within a week there'll be a software for handgrabbing on the market.

Yea, but now they have this amazing algorithm that already caught every single bot on the site and will catch everyone trying to use illegal software from now on..

I genuinely want to know why party poker can’t improve their software to the level of PokerStars? This is in no way meant to be a troll but i am sure (like many of you here) despite loathing some of the changes on stars that they have unquestionably the smoothest software. Why is it so hard to improve the software? WhAt does it actually require?

I’ve tried a few times to move over esp after some update has been made and they say it’s better (admittedly it is) but still doesn’t quite get as good as stars.

You first put me on massive tilt but then I realized you are joking.

I reported like 10 bots to their VIP skype guy, who forwarded it to the fraud team. Some of them got banned after like 3 months. NOW, there are new bots from Bulgaria and Russia back on and grind it like they used to do it. They also collude like hell.

i mean that was obvious sarcasm lol

russia and those other eastern euro bot ring/stable scum countries should be region locked.

Botters will find a way to play so you just lose recs

On Party, there are no recs from Belarus/Latvia and even Russia. At least not in my games. I doubt botters from Russia will have a super easy time to play if they have to relocate to let's say UK. Some will make it certainly, but it won't be as easy.

think there are some recs from russia, but never from belarus or latvia or ukraine

Let's be clear. Having no HH without making it anonym is total nonsence.

So it is either

A: it is not going to be anonym, and everyone is going to use illegal softwere, makes no sense.

B: it is going to be anonym, would be much harder to detect bots, as users would have no clue, couldn't help the bot hunting hero team.

so they are either this stupid, and did not think this through, or they belive that short therm gain in traffic with bots is higher priority than long therm healthy ecosystem. it is ****ed up for regs anyway. RIP Party.

Partys aim is to keep the money longer in the game and convert it into rake and so they do everything to reduce the hourly of better players (other thing is for example this new Cashgame/Leakbuster-Report in the software...). Huds are part of online poker over the last 10 years, nobody, even the most fish, likes to play 1-tabling, its just boring, but without hud multitabling is very hard. So traffic and the amount of players with a good hourly will be going down, but both is essential that online-poker works (winning-player works like a multiplier who send a message to their friends and to the world, look, I'm no rocket scientist, but I can make money with poker, try it too and maybe its possible for u too...).

And in past u dont have to be a real top-player to make at least some smaller money with poker. If there would be a world-ranking list u could be for example around place 1000 and it was still possible to make some money, because even a fish could find games with bigger fishes (and that was a hope/vision that keep the games alive, a fish-players inside truely know that he is probably not to greatest player in the world, but it dont matter, if it still possible to make money and find worser opponents) and this has poker make great and both sides, the players and the providers gains from that. Nowaday providers change the conditions more and more to increase their short term profits but in long term view it will not work and its like a shoot yourself in the leg.

If this changes are made, I withdraw all my money and never play one single hand again on party poker. And additional I advise all my buddies (and some are big fishes who spend much money so far) to do the same!

So does this imply that I won't even be able to use PT4 to review my tournament sessions to improve my play?

Sorry for posting anonymously, but there would be repercussions if I didn't. If that means you disregard what I'm saying then so be it...

Party are being disingenuous about their reasons here. In the last 3 years Party's poker traffic and rake generation has nearly tripled whereas the rest of the players in the industry are flat or declining. Does anyone really believe that a company would mess such an amazingly successful business model and trend if there wasn't a serious problem underlying it?

They have essentially admitted that most of this growth is from bots playing on the network. Bots can be caught but its very tough, bots will always go to the network which is the least able to detect them. Its an arm race amongst the various sites. If your detection ability is worse than PokerStars say, the bots owners will target you.

That leaves Party with 2 options. Massive further investment in bot detection (trying to be better than e.g. PokerStars which would be near impossible), or silently embrace the bots and try and make more money out of them. It appears they are going for the latter. These changes gives them 2 massive benefits, first removal of hand histories will reduce the win rates of bots, forcing them to play even more (thus generating more rake for Party), and second guarantee that no-one will ever be able to externally prove there are any bots/colluders on their network.

I can see the announcement now, there have been no refunds to players for bots caught on our network since the changes because we have caught all the bots. Trust us.

Hi Submersion,

No worries for posting anonymously imo if these are your genuine thoughts.

Your concerns are legitimate in my view, based on multiple, high profile public instances in which "player-policing?" of issues/dubious activity on sites (i.e. Ultimate Bet/Absolute Poker/Cereus, but there are plenty of others) resulted in (a) exposing malicious activity to intentionally cheat/mislead/hide critical information from unsuspecting players, and (b) protecting other iGaming patrons from being victimized by such practices -- thus creating a consumer-facing (some might argue industry-facing too) net-benefit.

In the past, relaying of such publicly-available information to corroborate/disprove high profile player suspicions was openly applauded. Posters simply wouldn't have felt any need to post your view anonymously. But times have changed, so I do hope others who may not feel as burdened will chime in if they have something to add.

To also present another side of this debate, see this recent post, which outlines why a much larger competitive online peer-to-peer gaming service (Epic Games/Fortnite) has modified its "Streamer" and "Anonymous" modes in reaction to "game integrity" and "community toxicity" issues. In my view, these are also legitimate concerns -- and understandable measures -- being trialed/implemented by competitive online peer-to-peer gaming platforms.

Your concerns merit debate imo. Serious debate. Perhaps in collaboration with regulators. Out of consideration that this doesn't turn into a jaded back-and-forth that results in further distrust between such views, it may be helpful for engaged players (regardless of skill level) to more completely familiarize themselves with what all sides/methodologies are saying/thinking.

Obviously there's no guarantee that any large-scale, nuanced player/industry collaboration is going to happen at this point. Some of this stuff has already been argued for well over a decade now. From my experience, the more x-person/x-company understands the issues from each perspective, the more consideration can be put into a possible solution. Whether that results in a correct/effective solution in the end might still be in the eye of the beholder though.

-David

Would love to see a podcast with Joey talking to a few of the Party reps (Fedor, Jason Koon, Pads, Ike) about this.

If all is above board then Party should delighted with the free publicity.

FWIW I have a lot of respect for all the players I mentioned and its their continued association with Party that makes me think that its possible that the site really is trying to do the right thing, but there are a lot of unanswered questions and there's a whiff of shadiness hanging over the whole operation, particularly on the cash game front.

In particular I'd like to here from Ike since he is probably one of the most technically minded of the Party pros, and he has already abandoned a high profile, well paid sponsorship for reasons of principle.

Remember when a bunch of new regs showed up over night all from the same country?

Or these bots/superusers that played the lowest stake? https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...ostcount=36639

Party was always shady but they somehow found a way to make it even worse.

imo it would be more interesting to actually hear the poker manager and/or rob yong talking, or someone, who actually had the plans for this bull****, if those rumours are true.
but I guess it would end up in a straight out lie promotion/conversation to make the changes look ecologically, even when everyone knows, that this is never the reason behind their decisions. they still try to defend this **** and lie to us.
i mean, just look back at what partypoker already did - e.g. pool segregation without letting anyone know and they only admitted at somehow, after they got caught by the players.
nowadays i wouldn't be surprised at all, if those still playing bots are from partypoker, or at least affiliated to them. depending on how good the programming team is in 2019 (back then they didn't know ****), but it would be still super easy to talk to some russian bot developer to get this going.
then you wouldn't need stupid regs anymore to start tables, so it makes a lot of sense for them. there was also one post, where they admitted, that they were using own bots, if that post is legit

@ poker reps.

Fedor doesn't care, would be my guess, same with jason, does he even play online, like more than 50 tours a month?

pads - 100% wouldn't ever say anything, with all the stable connections going on

ike - not sure

PS: i'm not playing at partypoker atm, but I was about to make the switch, but I won't with those changes coming

Submersion, I think you're right.

When and where did Party admit that their growth is based on bots generating rake?

Also, what makes you think that the removal of hand histories will reduce bots winrates? Bots don't need any hand histories if they play a fixed strategy, if they play exploitable then they can grab hand histories during the play.

The bots I see at PLO 200 right now are for sure playing a fixed strategy at least mot of the time and they crush.

Great, all the russian rings will have hand grabbers and perfectly fine working hud, while the rest of us play hudless. So many good decisions lately by Party Poker, just to f**k it all up.

Why were these 277 bots closed then?

True. But the argument is faulty. Party has to draw the line somewhere. Wherever Party draws the line, cheaters have an advantage.

The only thing that matters is how well Party enforces that line.