I can hear Tom Jones

There is a difference between being able to save hands you actually play and being able to see a players entire history.

To those of you defending PTR, do you genuinely not understand how detrimental the concept of tracking people's results and posting it publicly is to attracting recreational/new players to online poker and keeping games healthy? If someone started tracking people's results at your local cardroom and posted it on the wall the games would die in a month. If you don't understand this then you don't understand human nature.

The odd few benefits that have come from PTR in exposing irregularities/cheating doesn't even come close to balancing out the damage it has done to the games and will continue to do so. You like it for purely selfish reasons and don't realize that its actually very -EV for you in the big picture, regardless of the convenience of it that you've become accustomed to.

What do you think it did to the poker economy? I'm curious.
Not trolling / sarcasm.

and @stay classy.. elaborate please?

Hope they shut it down for good. **** PTR

Nothing would work under french laws (pokerstars.fr is tracked, note sure if they could fall under french laws tho) in term of copyright/ip there is enough work to collect/organize/analyze/show the data to make it "something new".

There could be a way, if they were able to somehow prove that the collect of data by PTR prevent their IT system from working properly (which i doubt).

Im sure they'll figure out something based on their TOS (not just the quote I posted but it clearly breaks their legal rules. They should be allowed to enforce it in some way)

"5.5. EXTERNAL PLAYER ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS (EPA). PokerStars prohibits those External Player Assistance Programs ("EPA Programs") which are designed to provide an "Unfair Advantage" to players. PokerStars defines "External" to mean computer software (other than the Software), and non-software-based databases or profiles (e.g. web sites and subscription services). PokerStars defines an "Unfair Advantage" as any instance in which a User accesses or compiles information on other players beyond that which the User has personally observed through the User's own game play. We encourage you to read our Prohibited Online Software FAQ."

ffs.... noooooooooooo!

Location: HUPLO HUNL


lol'd Strong main game to topic-and-opinion relevance

Isn't it good for finding scammers?

+1

I'm undecided if I think these are good news or not

I mean, it prob is but it makes life a bit easier for lazy ppl like me, lol

Such great news, what about poker-edge?

Great but really late. Fwiw I've always thought every tracking site is bad for the game and should be shut down, same with any tracking/hud software.

This last year in poker has been so damn crazy.

I hope poker gets legal in the near future already...

What does this mean for sites like HSDB?

Stars tc are not legal rules.

Really can't think of what ip claim they have. Analogy in real life would be: say u watch every NBA game and make stats and post them. Obviously ur not stealing any ip. It'd be slightly diff if the games were in private and u broke in unallowed. Ie stole. Maybe Internet law is different, but it seems Hard to say they r stealing something which is publicly observable and in the public domain

this might be me but every NBA/NFL game, I always hear "content and likeness cannot be used without permission of the NBA/NFL" etc, idk if thats broadcasting rights but maybe something similar?

Even if jcl is right, maybe they figure they can afford to legally harass PTR for a lot longer than PTR can afford to be legally harassed. I wonder how much money PTR actually takes in?

I really don't know if this is good for poker as a whole. It is 100% better for keeping fish on sites, however, this was a valuable tool for spotting anomalies. Secondly, TOS is not the law and stats are not copy written. Does the TOS site damages if broken? I'd also like to throw in that I hate Zynga and since they backed PTR I have not been using the site.

I agree with this.

Even if PTR stopped getting Stars data, most serious players will just buy datamined hands instead and get the same info.

The problem is that people who are coluding, botting or doing other shady stuff will be celebrating.
It might make them more brazen if they feel that their results cant be looked up.
How many time has shady stuff been spotted by players using PTR to confirm their suspicions.
As good as Stars security is I would bet they only catch a certain % of cheaters.... we also dont know what % are caught by them and what % are caught after getting reports of cheating from players.

ATTENTION PEOPLE.... WAKE UP !!

Data mining is like internet poker.

You can make laws against it, copyright your data, sue each other, or even kill the data miners, but at the end of the day you cannot stop data mining from happening.

If PTR gets shut down, someone down the street will open up shop and take all their customers and continue down the same path.

For example, in the US: Stars/Tilt/UB get shut down and Merge/Cake/Bovada took their place.

It is the internet... the wild west if you will of modern times. There is no controlling it or its users (unless you live in china lawl).

I have something to add.

It all comes down to the old economic principal of supply and demand.

As long as the demand exists for mined hand histories, someone will be there with their hand out supplying them.

This is to protect people ripping off their brand and passing it off as their own or as affiliated. It's why games like pro evolution have to mispel player names. They don't have licensing from FIFA. Ptr is obviously not doing anythig like this.

To be clear I'm not defending ptr, I'm just genuinely curious what this action is

I'm pretty sure this is right on the money. A gigantic corporation like PS can sic it's lawyers on PTR long enough that they will likely voluntarily withdraw even if they're legally in the right. A small business doesn't have the money or the manpower to fight a bajillion dollar company and it's army of lawyers. PS may already know for a fact that they'd lose if it ever went before a relevant authority, but they can make life an expensive hell for PTR in the meantime with injunctions, cease & desists, and whatever the hell else lawyers do. For most businesses, the costs of winning far outweighs the benefits.