OK, I hear you. And I guess you are right. When there is an opening for foul play there will always be *******s who will recklessly abuse the system. I just like the idea of playing 'natural' without HUD's.

And I'm with you guys with PartyPoker or any other site being able to catch bot rings or collusion effectively. They probably cant. Maybe because they dont care enough as they rake a lot thus having a positive effect on their bottom line. Although not sure that is the case in the long run.

So I'm officially changing my mind about not being able to download HH's. I still like banning HUD's though

No site can truly ban HUDs.
Those willing to break the rules will have HUDs Working on party in weeks. If you can see your cards, and see bet sizes/amounts with your eyes, then computer programs can too (screen scraping tech).
"Banning" HUDs just takes them away from those abiding by the rules, and gives rule-breakers an unfair advantage.

I've said it before ITT but so much this.

I've grinded on Party on and off for 10 years. I won't be playing another hand now because doing so without a HUD when others are using one scares me.

https://protectonlinepokerplayers.com/

Don't disagree with anything on this webpage, but to me this also looks like "protect our business". If other big sites follow Party's example and players don't move in masses to sites providing hand-histories it's literally game over for tracker-companies.

this pretty much sums up the thread. its so dumb.

how do we help fish who are scared to play against people with hud? oh lets make a rule outlawing it, now everyone is scared to play against a hud. trying to fix the problem created bigger problems, who woulda thought.

the only thing that stops a bad guy with a hud is a good guy with a hud.

hes protecting lazy fish who beg for this, thinking they will be winners now, sorry, the world doesnt work like that. they are too lazy to study, too lazy to win.

Do you say this with any knowledge on the topic?

HH converters would have seemed easier to detect (and Party failed)... but perhaps I'm wrong.

I would love to see some hard data that indicates that recs are put off playing online by the thought of opponents using HUDs on any significant scale. All I've seen so far are weak anecdotal arguments.

Even those against banning hand histories on security grounds seem to be accepting this "rec argument" of Rob Yong at face value. I'm highly doubtful; I would estimate use of HUDs would struggle to break into the top 10 reasons casual players don't play online and this will make virtually no difference.

Recs are put off by being wiped out when they play online. That they may not articulate a specific tool used to wipe them out more efficiently does not lessen the causal effect of allowing that tool. They probably have no idea about HUDs. They just learn that the online poker experience sucks for them ...

Fish in a pond or river don't know that fishing with dynamite is the cause of their demise, they will only know that they get to swim around a bit longer these days*( *i.e after dynamite fishing is outlawed.)

You don't need hand histories to run a HUD on a site. You can provide hand histories, and just have a policy of not allowing HUDs and check for running software that runs HUDs. It's quite easy to do.

Thats not the reason for Rob. He says that stables share HH´s and thats unfair for recs.

We get it. You work as an affiliate and you think HUDs are bad business for your "rec" players, thus hurting your business.

Having played only for over 15+ years now, I've watched every iteration of how poker has evolved in that time. When 2+2 was thriving, and there were actual posters here discussing strategy regularly, HUDs were active by everyone. Games were thriving, and fish could last a bit longer because a lot of the regs still sucked, and deposits / withdrawals were quick and easy.

I watched in real time the effects of black friday. The weeks and months after, there were slowly less rec players. Despoits were very difficult and there were few playing options for U.S, players. Withdrawals were a gamble.. literally. You had no idea if the check you were going to get could be cashed.

As other countries followed suit, the games got even tougher. As a result, the regs started studying harder because... well, they couldn't just rely on eating recs / fish any longer. Training sites got better, solvers came into play. People started understanding hand ranges better. The games just got way tougher.

HUDs had nothing to do with any of that. You can argue that recs hear about HUDs after the fact, and they think that's why they lost. All that matters is their perception of what happened, not the reality. In truth, you could tell them anything... about the bot rings (which is the #1 reason I personally hear why recs don't re-deposit), or the seating scripts, or color coding apps, etc... it doesn't matter. They will look to blame anything, and they weren't going to re-deposit any ways because they got crushed. It doesn't matter if you remove HUDs from every site. They will continue to get crushed and not re-deposit - except for the big gamblers.

#1 - Poker players need access to hand histories. It's a clear and present danger to game security for a poker site to remove these. It's not an acceptable position. Anyone playing there should move to another site. Having access to hand histories has nothing to do with HUDs. You can still go HUD ban happy and have hand histories.

#2 - The question should move to, what is online poker? Can it include stats on players and still be fair. I think Pokerstars is one of the best models to show that is the case, and online poker can be different than live poker, and for good reason. It makes the sites more profitable, the games more interesting, and allows - and this is the missing thing not stated here yet, it allows sites to advertise and bring in more rec players when poker players can play more tables and rake more money. Again... pokerstars is a good model.

Fortunately we're all smart enough to know several solutions to this problem right? Allow players to change their usernames. Make games anonymous, etc..

Its so obvious that this is just an excuse he made up.

I just asked him on twitter why he is so against sharing HH´s and still he works with Pads that illegally shares HH´s with his stable having an analyst working with them to get population tendencies. This Rob is just a shady guy...

100% agreed. If the reasoning stinks, it stinks for a reason. I don't know Rob personally, but nothing about this makes any sense.

Anyone who is familiar w/ Black Friday and the history of online poker should know better than to play on a site like this. There are shady people in this industry and they have stolen people's money and made off like bandits in the past.

You could not be further off on your read, what you pronounce as what "We get" is simply wrong. I am not now nor have ever been an affiliate in the 18+ years I've been around the online poker industry.

I just happen to think recs ARE the lifeblood of the online poker business and product.

HUDs and HH present very different topics for consideration.

1. You project that recs will always get crushed with or without HUDs .... yes, but getting crushed in 20 hands v. 200 hands is a huge difference. The former experience is bad for the online poker operator, which I have been, the rec player, which I have been, however good for marginally-talented regs who live on the margin of rakeback shares.

In contrast to your view, I think many/most recs have never heard of or seen or understand the impact of HUDs. Banning them is likely to cut down on multitable abattoir-like efficiency. What I CAN tell you is that a rec who gets to play an hour or so before being felted, will more likely return, re-deposit and play another session than will a rec who is continually crushed in under 20 hands.

2. We don't disagree about players having access to HH data from their own play. I think it does allow players to review their own play and learn from mistakes and certainly involves interested players meaningful input into game security.

(3. Anonymous tables hinder bot detection by players: The negative aside re bot detection, for which there are other means available, I also think HH, combined with anonymous tables are an interesting self-education tool for a given session review, yet hinders any value of "HH sharing", the evil reportedly targeted by Mr. Yong)

I can agree. I’ve never liked HUDs, even while having access to them. I was once the rec who disliked online before because of the “data wizards”. The fish in a pond analogy is spot on.

Has anyone played since changes ?

How is traffic ? How are games ?

they ran a 500k giveaway so the changes will take some time to reach an equilibrium.

Peak traffic before changes: around 2000
Peak traffic on promotion day: 2600
Peak traffic 18 june: 1603
19 june: 1485

(From pokerscout.com)

this is the beginning of the end for partypoker imo.

since no HUD, i did not play a single hand on party.

and btw, the 500k giveaway was also a joke, because i changed my screen name on exactly that day and i didnt get anything, no ticket nothing for the 500K race.

i really hate that to say but: now i have to go back to stars and i hate stars but no HH = no safety = no HUD = more -EV than 20% RB.

so to me its more +EV to play on stars without rakeback then play on party with rakeback but no HH/HUD.

RIP Party!

as a rec i would rather be protected from BOTS than players using HUDS

PartyPoker should fix their software before anything else.

Interview with Party about the recent changes:

https://www.spreaker.com/user/pokerf...w-with-partypo

lol.