Same goes for bots if you are into this kind of argument. If you ban HUDs a lot of people stop using them and many more will get banned with time. This makes the games better and more fair for recreational players.

If they share HHs when not playing at the site and share reads while not in play then it's not cheating. Sites don't have jurisdiction over what happens outside of them when not using their service. They can "request" that you wear only blue, wake up early, floss and don't share HHs but it all is similarly valid - that is not at all. They probably don't even have copyright to HHs (although that would need a challenge in court, one precedence is that chess tournament organizers don't have copyright to the games played) so requiring people to not share HHs is just baseless.

If that's not cheating then the ethics of online poker are dead and this whole discussion about protecting/not protecting players is pointless.

The fact they apparently had “in house bots” makes this very likely

Oh and they have a stable run by an ambassador of the site lol

In any other sport and game it's solved long time ago: you can do whatever you like to prepare including all research, training methods you can come up with but once you come to play you use very narrowly defined equipment everyone has access to, your body and your brain. No 3rd party tools or services allowed during play.
It should be the same with poker since the beginning. Unfortunately site owners didn't care for years and reversing the resulting mess is going to be difficult.

Does Rob Young plays the online cash games that trickett puts together?? I think i saw him playing last year!!! WTF is the owner of the SITE doing playing the highest of highest stakes if that is the case??

Patrick Leonard - Team partypoker

partypoker screen name: Patrick_leonard

Patrick Leonard is nothing if not determined. Having grown tired of his friends stuffing him in their weekly £10 buy-in Friday night poker game, Patrick began studying the game and by the time he’d graduated from the University of Sheffield he was ready to go pro. As Patrick himself says, “Poker is a kind of world where you have to be completely immersed in it if you want to be successful”. It took just 18 months for the Geordie to be ranked world number one on PocketFives.

To date Patrick has amassed more than $2.5 million in cashes, almost half of which was won during a five-day Las Vegas heater in July 2017. The Englishman outlasted super-tough fields and took down three separate high-stakes tournaments, pocketing over $350K in each event.

Interestingly, Patrick says he no longer pays attention to his poker ranking and will instead be focusing on much more important matters…like cooking dinner for the first time in nine years!

Scroll down for our Q&A with Patrick or to check out his poker stats click here.
Learn more about partypoker ambassador Patrick Leonard:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xTqpP_XJnA
-Patrick Leonard
-British
-Male
-Cheater
-Weasel
-Stable owner

Open a new account on party now! Win and fun is guaranteed when such guy is the ambassador.

You always manage to show up and offer one of the worst takes in the thread. Like, it’s actually impressive.

Every single point made in the OP is valid and relevant

Like in my other post, each point might be valid, but the purpose of this thread don't relate to those points in the slightest. This is just a ploy to get OP to sell more products.

Actually you make the worst posts.

Couldn't agree more with OP. Party is taking a massive step backwards, I hope they realize that in time.

If Party made a decision thats not good for the players but does not cost too much $ to Holdem Manager company, I dont think we see any threads as this started by Holdem Manager. Starting a thread and making themself a possible enemy is not good strategy ( think : they can start harassing your 3rd party software, making up problems about it to make you update it unneccesarry, and so on and on)

Sorry, maybe I missed but I know several cases when players were cheated by poker rooms (stars VIP changes etc) and I dont see holdem manager showing up. So if someone saw could give me a link pls.


But I agree with Holdem Managers all points tho

You guys both have valid cases.

Regarding the quote you did in reply to me, as I said, feel free to report them to the sites they participate on and the sites will determine if they are violating their rules or not. Really that simple.

Nothing changes the fact that these changes are regarded negatively by the vast majority of backers who plan to move most or all of their business on Party elsewhere. Now, that can be seen as good or bad (both valid points of view), but your earlier hot take about the opportunity this allows stables to share hands easier (when even your example is not directly that) is not accurate to the actual industry, rather it is just you being bitter/whiny because you like to whine in literally every post.

All the best.

Seems to me like you're whining about these changes. How does it feel to have your income dependent on shady operators, scummy people and a shrinking industry? Would explain a lot. Actually don't bother answering it.

I think it is adorable you think making personal attacks makes any difference. Your condescending personality makes you feel superior and you love that bubble you create for yourself. I bet nobody would show up for your funeral.

All the best.

Impressive little whine from a little person, but as usual you are completely wrong about your assessment. I back a handful of players on Party Poker, but there is no intention to move them because I trust them completely, so I will be curious to see how the games change (softness, guarantees, volume) and from that will determine if it is worth putting more guys on there or moving them off.

I would say hopefully your little rant made you feel better, but given literally every single post of yours has been similar in nature for years here, I can only assume at this point you enjoy being the bitter, whiny, "Get off my felt" guy as a hobby or lifestyle choice. No difference to me in the end, its not like you or what you say ever matters, but it is good for transparency sake to explain your mistakes (on topics that are worthy) when possible for others.

Also, you have recycled that funeral bit with others, so even your bitter takes are getting a bit stale. Guessing your tombstone will say "He was angry"

All the best.

Never realized we have 12 year olds on 2P2, hope your moms know you're here boys!

I cashout in partypoker.com and uninstall the software ....

I didnot play too much there but im totally disagree with this.

RIP PP.com

this is a fair argument. "we should allow colluding because people will do it anyway" . the person you are responding to was agreeing with me, fwiw.

what % of hud users will use an illiegal hud after the ban? anyone have a guess? maybe hud usage does go down 75% 95%?? more?

i spent a while reading about screen scraping and other bot technologies, its doable and for sale. i debated whether or not to post this here, opening a pandoras box, but its already open.

as far as removing huds making the games better, i disagree. fish will have the same lossrates, they are fish and thats what they do, if their opponents have huds or not it doesnt matter. yea they might be happy for a day when huds are banned, but will still be huge losers and complaining about something else tomorrow, colluders or w/e.

live players are NOT coming back to online. they have lost too much, know they are outclassed, and if they do they will just be beaten down again. new college kids and targeted advertising is what sites should be focusing on.

"Diamond Club members enjoy a fixed 40% weekly cashback, which is topped up to 50% once players meet the required rake target of 100k. "

I bet couple players lose on this, players who mass multitabling and relies on hud. I know its legally not deceiving / cheating players but doesnt look too good from the outside, since diamond vip club was introduced in PP's website Jan 31, 2019.

Guys just cashout xd

That's pretty offensive to the fish. A lot of them are smart people who don't take poker that seriously and want a fair game where fair game includes having the same chance as others to play vs another rec (which is greatly diminished by predatory table selection tools) and to have a battle of the minds in actual play (which tools like HUDs make unfair). If the view is that "fish are fish, they don't deserve a fair game cause it doesn't matter" then I don't mind even smarter and more resourceful people winning all the reg money with their bots.
It's not a pool set in stone once. There are people who may want to try poker for fun and expect a fair game. Advertising gambling to college kids is just immoral. Maybe we should start advertising cigarettes to them as well as that's the easiest demographic to manipulate. Making the game fairer to the recreational players on whom the whole eco-system is based is exactly what the sites should do. I think you also should have more respect for people who provide you with a chance to make living playing a card game and you shouldn't oppose measures so they are not manipulated into the situations they don't even get a small % shot they hope for when sitting down to play.

I'm a 5nlz grinder, slowly moving up. I came back to poker this May after a year off. I came back to pokerstars and have been unimpressed with many software glitches. Their impressive software has got worse in my time away from poker.

I was considering moving my action to partypoker because of these software issues. I am not longer going to consider playing on partypoker due to these changes and this thread.

punter do you really think illegal 3rd party software wont pop up out of the woodwork to replace the lack of HH/huds? i put the over/under at 2 months.

so then not only are you limited by lack of HH/hud, but other people WILL have functioning stats.

this wont level the field at all, in fact it will give the guise of a leveled field whilst giving the exact opposite.

i also dont understand the problem of marketing to college age people either, 18-21? These are adults, not children. thats the age most of us started getting into poker back in 2005-2009..... its the biggest future market..... not olds.

this

Phil Ivey owned Full Tilt Poker, and coincidentally just so happened to win $20M on his site, in daylight robbery, whereas he has consistently lost on sites he does not own. Odd that.

Inspirational for Rob Yong though. Though removing hand histories covers up ones tracks nicely.

So fish don't have access to the internet? How are they playing online if they don't have access? I assume they do and that just like any other hobby or sport, the people that put the work in and do their research rise to the top. Do you not agree with that? HUDs are available to everyone, fish/rec players included. There are free HUDs out there, and paid ones are pretty cheap.

I think what you're not understanding or acknowledging is that HUDs are always going to exist in online poker. It's just a matter of whether you want to take an extreme position that forces them into black markets or not.

GOALS -
1) To keep the games as fair as possible online.
2) Encourage rec / fishy players to play at online poker sites and maintain a healthy online poker eco system.
3) To ensure the safety and integrity of the games online.

Thus:
1) Whether you agree with HUDs or not, removing hand histories eliminates the possibility of goal #3 to have a third party that can safeguard against collusion, super users, and other shenanigans.

2) Online poker games have become more difficult and player pools have decreased because for several issues, but PRIMARILY because of only one issue. That issue is government banking regulations across multiple countries, the largest being America. I can verify this as a business owner who has sold online tools for the past 10 years online. Social media ads to average joe poker players sell considerably less in countries that have cracked down in online poker. Like 80%+ less.

Rec / Fish players won't jump through the same hoops to make online deposits, as professional or regular poker players. They want a simple and safe solution to deposit and withdraw.

HUDs and hand histories existed during the poker boom, they did not effect the poker eco system. Bad players are going to lose, whether a person has a HUD or not.

3)The way to ensure the games stay as fair as possible is to allow people to have access to all of the same tools. If you ban hand histories or HUDs, they will just go into black market. I remember 5-6 years ago a person here on 2+2 selling access to a banned tool to high stakes players for $3k/mo. It was a small number of people who had access to these tools (I was not one of them. I have no desire to cross ethical boundaries in this realm).

Just as in a tennis match or golf game, people have access to the same tools. It's on the competitor to do their research, find and use the best tools to win. And in the case of online poker, you don't need a $3k club to have a better advantage.

That's my 2 1/2 cents. I sell a HUD so I realize my view can be seen as slanted, but I consider myself a poker player first. Before I sold these tools I always thought hand histories and HUDs were great tools for studying my own game, tracking my results, and ensuring that I was playing in an honest game.

My personal solution:
Keep hand histories, and allow HUDs. Create fair regulations for what HUDs can contain in them. Provide a free basic HUD to all rec / fish players on sites and/or make them aware of available tools. Allow poker players to change their player names whenever they want. Do not allow observed tables to track data / hand histories. This will ensure the integrity of our games, while allowing a fair playing field for everyone.