Which are these useful rules?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPin5LRBfZo

It's frowned upon.

The dynamic avatars will indicate vpip, pfr, and 3! and most recs will not even know what any of that means. Surely this is enough to discourage risking being banned/confiscated for using an additional HUD? That’s the point of it all, they dont want recs afraid of streams and videos of “hackers” using “cheater” software. Hell, a good portion of fun posters on 2p2 actually believe HUDs are cheating. These are people smart enough to go to a forum about poker to try to get better at poker!

While waiting for a response I came up with 3 categories:

1)Moral rules. It is wrong to murder someone, even if it is difficult for the police to catch killers.

2)Utility rules: Drive on the right side of the road (which is obviously morally superior to driving on the left). The rules police themselves.

3)Rules that when you break them you break the spirit of the game itself. handball in soccer.

The only category that using huds may fall into is category three.

I never thought a poker site would cheat its customers. Why slay the golden goose? Then I read about the Ultimate bet scamdal.

If you gain an advantage by breaking some rule, some players will break it.

I’m not sure what this is supposed to mean. I understand that it’s true, but what’s the argument.

And whether HUDs are “cheating” is just a semantic argument.

Phil is going to make every effort to stop HUDs, few people will probably manage to bypass the rule, such is life.
No cringe worthy defeatist appeals to futility please.

Market reality is the opposite to almost everything you put in your post ...except that recs are the biggest revenue drivers for the business.

Your distain for "some ******ed recs" reflects a personal bias at odds with business judgment.

A general gaming site that is "rec rich" in its poker channel will draw more revenue from regs than a site which depends upon "reg v reg ego battles" for revenue.

There are always more prospective recs than regs, provided the product appeals to what recs want. Regs, even those presumed to be ego-driven, will go where the money lies.

If by "mindset of 2003" you mean building a gaming business that maximizes revenue, but where poker is a sole legally offered channel, then you are correct; "2003", when virtually all the poker providers were "poker only" is definitely NOT the future of poker.

The future of poker, for most prospective players, is among a suite of multi-channel entertainment offerings I fear that your purist, anti-rec vision of the "future", to the extent is is a poker only channel, however is really a vision stuck in 2003 ....

Yes, it's like saying "some people get away with speeding/vandalism/theft, therefore let's allow everyone to do it".

Something that disciples of the "sweet spot" theory appear to be overlooking about Limit Games is that whilst the skill edges and more importantly the skill edge combined with pot sizes is smaller than pot limit or no limit games, the hands are played out much more quickly in limit games so this somewhat cancels out the effectiveness of the sweet spot theory.

Also if you've ever railed Gus Hansen getting destroyed at Limit 08 and 2-7 you might not think that skill edges are really always that small in limit games.

I seem to be in the minority on this thread, but I still believe that most people are barking up the wrong tree regarding the poker eco system.

At any given time there are a finite number of on line or soon to become on line poker players and making it harder for recs to lose quickly is not going to change that number of players because recs simply are not that sophisticated. I firmly believe that saying that they are is a BS line given by Stars Group and echoed by DNegs.

So I think many are over thinking things. It is simple, you need to aggressively take a chunk of those players from other operators, or encourage a chunk to multi table on your site along with other sites that they already play on.

Yes, in addition make your product superior to others which will help the aforementioned and greatly help in player retention and in procuring new players to the game, but first and foremost you have to grab market share from others.

I maintain that the key way to achieve this is to get the regs to your site first, not the recs.

Go to a lot of live poker rooms and it is the regs that start the games, play degen hours in them and have lots of extra buy ins always available in their pockets. The recs, in cash games at least, are a more transient breed who don't do much if any of the above.

It feels to me as if RIO Poker are far too focused on creating a playing environment that protects recs, when all you need is loads of great games at competitive rates of rake and the recs will follow.

Who makes the games? As I've said, it is the regs.

I stopped reading at “whilst.”

Yeah sorry for my 0.3% grammar error rate, but I have been working hard on my grammar game and putting in tons of study and the twoplustwo writing skill field is as soft as $hi£ anyway.

Expanding on the myth that many believe, that protecting the recs helps the game..... Well I feel it's pretty obvious that Amaya (now Stars Group) deliberately went out of their way to get rid of winning reg poker players that were winning from recs and shifted that money to themselves via recs now losing less to regs in poker and more than they used to on casino games, slots, sports betting and on lower skill poker variants.

So this does not help the game of poker, all it does is changes the profile of players so there is a higher ratio of recs to regs than there used to be. The recs are still losing just as much, possibly more, but they are losing for example 40% on poker and 60% on other Stars Group gaming products when it used to be 80/20 the other way.

All it results in is cash games becoming very capped at higher stakes, so not running much if at all.

The evidence is there with the destruction of most of the high stakes cash games on Pokerstars and obviously on Full Tilt.

To assign the demise of high and higher stakes to there being a problem with recs losing money too quickly and being far too out-skilled, with all due respect to those that disagree with me, I think is nonsense.

An idea on how to deal with bots and collusion: Create two divisions, the "normal" division and the "wild west" division.
- In the "normal" division, bots and colluding are not allowed. When a player is identified as a bot or caught colluding they are still alowed to play but only in the "wild west" division.
- There is no bot control in the "wild west" division. Bots are free to play there.

Normal players can still play in the "wild west" division if they want, but they are warned that it is a place full of bots and colluders.

In addition to this Phil has mentioned that you're getting vpip/pfr/3b% stats as a default in the program which are the stats that people want the most and the first two converge the fastest. And since it's anonymous, skirting the HUD rule really isn't going to make much difference because of that built in HUD. idk why people are so hung up on this HUD thing.

lol

Not sure if the extra stats making it closer to a proper built in HUD was included in the initial announcement or whether those features have been added more recently.

But I agree that having some stats makes sense so that the opponent analysis part of the game is retained. I still think though that real screen names should be retained for similar reasons.

Can I put forward some other suggestions.

For games with a bring in, can there be a check box you can optionally tick where it auto brings in for you. I've never understood why this feature doesn't exist on sites, because having it would speed the game up. Unless it's a legal issue that prevents it.

Also, as well as straddling which others have already suggested, why not replicate live poker even more closely by being able to bet in the dark, check in the dark and to play blind on the flop or on any number of streets.

Phil said in his post and yesterday on the podcast that the only stats will be the three I mentioned.

He went over this stuff on the podcast yesterday.

Live poker rooms are driven by non-pro regs. Most of the business comes from small stakes that are not big enough to make a living off of.

I'd look at the live poker room promotions that bad regs like and pros hate and try to understand how those appeal to players. The nature of online poker could allow for a different implementation of a high hand bonus, for example.

The disdain is only for people that see huds during a live stream and then reacts like "Uh-oh that looks complicated. it must be some cheating software" If you are under 50 there is really no reason to react in that way. Older folks might not be so computer savy so I guess it is ok for them.


If this was true everyone would play at Ipoker. The games are obviously softer than the games at Stars, But the software is horrible. Not as many poker variants are spread either. So there are more factors at play.

I still think the future for poker lies in adjusting to edges being smaller. Which means that the rake model has to go. If there is no rake, sites don't have to try to invent games where the edges are even smaller or by banning huds in an effort to keep the recs in action longer.
Variance would be enough protection, especially when there is no rake that artificially removes money from the poker economy.

At least they can see it being used on a live stream. It's not hidden.

The worst aspect of HUD use imo is the fact that many casual players don't know their opponent is using one against them. Poker sites at a bare minimum should warn players that a HUD may be used against them. Even better would be a HUD icon displayed next to a player's screen-name/avatar whenever a HUD is being used. This could be made a built in feature requirement for HUD providers.

Then there is no grey area, it's all out in the open.

Thanks for clearing that up, sonny. I'm 64 but no Luddite; I just consider use of HUDs to be more like fishing with dynamite than fair competition among players to catch the most fish based upon personal exercise skill at playing.

On the other hand, you appeal for subscription based sites in place of rake out of abject fear of a future where the ability of pros to beat the game based upon skill edges disappears. Your solution is not "adaptation" to the effect of smaller edges on the game of poker; it simply seeks to forestall the evolution of poker toward more evenly matched fields of skilled players.

By shifting the cost burden to time charges rather than taxing the winners of each hand, you think this preserves the status quo of "poker" being beatable for a living. You are rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic of online poker playing as a profession. Diminishing skill differentials may or may not be an iceberg that sinks "poker" as an online game, regardless whether it sinks online poker as a profession.

Literally millions of people play poker as a game for entertainment. If the skill differential is closing, so be it; the game then is probably more entertaining for more people playing it. It is the playing, not the overall winning or losing that defines poker as a game.

"Next best thing to playing and winning is playing and losing. " Hard Times (1975)

Anything on whether or not sweepstakes poker like ( global poker)... could work for RiO?

The sweepstakes business model is born of legal necessity, not choice.

[QUOTE=Gzesh;53816643]The sweepstakes business model is born of legal necessity, not choice.[/QUOTEe in the

I was thinking if it truly is legal poker, it would be a decent way into the US for now.

Hi Donkey:

I think you may have a misconception relative to protecting the recreational players. If the sweet spot can be hit, recs would have more fun playing and more winning sessions. But they would still be losing players who would (hopefully) play more and lose more in the long run. I don’t think that’s protecting them.

Best wishes,
Mason