I've come up with a method of cheating that is 100% fool proof and I am going to expose it live in this thread.

Before the cash game session, I look at the charts and remember them later on when I'm at the table. Even though it looks like I'm totally clean, I am essentially using preflop RTA with zero evidence of my transgression, even if you knew it was happening!

Preflop charts are a much bigger problem in mtts than cash.

In cash you should follow the rules but if someone does use them they don’t gain a significant edge because every reg knows the chart well without looking and all the edge is in postflop decisions.

In mtts preflop is the most important street and using charts should be dealt with like postflop RTA

Been asking myself this question a lot. Where I draw the line is hand sharing, where to me it depends on the extent it happens. I think most players would agree that the Hastings Isildur case is cheating, discussing players‘ tendencies without extensively sharing hands or using datamined hands is still ok.

Clear cheating to me is using solver based interfaces in game, which I believe at least 20% of players with access to said tools did at some point, probably more.

It's crazy because all those solver based interfaces would have to do is create a system that detects the use of a poker app in play to stop people from using RTA. It's not like they don't have the resources to develop something like this and it's beyond me why they haven't, but realistically speaking it's probably just bad for business.

People can just use second device.

All of them

Yeah, I'm in the same boat. When I first started playing, I had a printed chart of "Group 1, Group 2, Group 3, etc" hands on the wall next to my desk. It wasn't even a chart so much as it was a color-coded list of starting hands. In fact, I think the groupings were defined by our own Sklansky and Malmuth, years before I ever joined this site. The funny part is that the chart was intended for limit HE, which means I was very likely overvaluing certain holdings and undervaluing others for NLHE.

To further illustrate how much I was trying to soak up the game, I even had that chart handy when watching televised poker. So yes, I was using an LHE starting hands chart to aid me as I watched people make decisions with 15x stacks at NLHE final tables. Shows you how soft poker must have been that even I still ended up being a winning rec. Yeeesh.

Was this cheating? By the OP's definition, yes. On the other hand, if any opponent knew that I consulted an Excel sheet to decide if I should play KJs or ATo, then they'd be salivating to join the table to relieve me of my whopping $25 buy-in.

Is it cheating if one player used a chess openings book when the meta was that it wasn't allowed? Are some baseball players allowed to use aluminum bats, because they aren't good enough to hit with a wooden one? Anytime you're using something other than your brain that isn't explicitly allowed, you're cheating. I even consider HUDs cheating, even though they're allowed most places. Laziness is no excuse. If you can't put in the work other people do to memorize, you won't win, and rightly so.

Over 80%

Another reason not to consider these kinds of debatable actions cheating is that it screws up the poll. We should want agreement that the definition be only the clearcut stuff, so we know that when someone says he estimates x%, we need not wonder whether he is including the less clearcut stuff.

Cheating is when you are doing something or using information that opponents cannot easily duplicate. Suppose a complete beginner wants to use notes telling him what beats what. That's cheating?

Honestly if we are real rule sticklers i think basically everybody has cheated in some minor way.

For example i always enjoyed getting drunk with my brothers and donking around in a few tournaments and would just sit around the laptop and discuss and all that.

Back in the day I when actively played everybody bought hand histories and standard procedure for coaching was playing session together and talking through the hands as they were played.

None of this was frowned upon at the time but it was against the rules.

That being said I think the number of players that cheat big time is way way higher then most people on here seem to believe.

i used to take husng rather serious for a while. At some point some form of cheating was so common that I would say beside me there was maybe a handful of regs that would not use banned tools, rta or at least banded together in cartels.

At some point in time it became so bad that you had to expect that you are always playing against rta when you played against a reg.

I dont think this changed and if you play a hyper turbo husng above 10$ buy in you should assume you are playing against rta.

Read the first post in the thread. It was defined and the fact you disagree with the definition does not mean we should not use that definition. Others do feel these are clear cut cheating.

Huh?

I would think a 7th grade Calulus class isn't that hard and I could easily pass such a class, but if I choose to not to put in the effort and instead cheat by subtly on the sly looking everything up instead of memorizing it, then I am still cheating.

Yes, having weak, lazy players use charts they don't properly understand might be preferable to enforcing the rules, but it is still cheating.

Cheating means breaking the rules. Yes, a superior player might not mind a weaker player breaking the rules in order to get a misunderstanding of what to do in the situation, but the player is still cheating.

If it is against the rules to consult charts when faves with a decision then it is cheating to do so. That is independent of whether the cheating is effective or not.

What if the rules are stupid and/or unenforceable?

What beats what are the basic rules of the game. Having access to those is not even close to the same as solved preflop ranges (incl. frequencies).

Referencing solved preflop ranges is both of these at the same time. Everyone assumes you aren't using them (1) so you are being dishonest and unfair. Also, you are, without any effort at all, avoiding preflop mistakes that increase geometrically postflop (2). In this context HUDS are also cheating, especially if you're using them vs. opponents that don't even know they exist.

Having preflop charts is like using a book to write an exam. It's 100% cheating.

Having access to the rules is like asking what kind of pencil it's ok to use.

With those criteria it's a really high percentage. I haven't used automated algorithms to enhance my play, but I have discussed strategy during an active hand, which violates One Person To A Hand.
Also lol at thinking a preflop chart is cheating. You can straight up have an opening range chart open for your entire session and no rule is broken. But what do I know, as a OPTAH breaking scum myself!

Suppose the chart is seriously inaccurate?

Depends on what the rules for the test are. Exactly the same as with online poker. If there's no rule against it in the ToS, it's not cheating.

Half my grad school tests were open book, including math classes, and you could bring whichever printed materials you wanted to or write your own. Unless laws are broken, poker platforms can allow and disallow whatever they want.

Gonna go ahead and assume it's at least as frequent as people cheating on their significant other, or, at least 25%. In this example, looking at porn to remind yourself what proper play looks like or to get warmed up does not count as cheating.

That said, I also believe people, especially male gamblers, would be more likely to cheat at online poker than they would be to cheat on their spouse. Also believe the fact it seems nobody would find out or nobody is watching would encourage increased frequency as well, so I'm gonna go ahead and assume at least 50% have probably colluded with a buddy and shared hand information.

Never really worried about bots nor RTA as much as two or three dudes all sitting in a room sharing hole card info on separate VPN accounts, pretty positive this kind of cheating is rampant online.

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On the other side of the coin one could make the case that those who memorize the output, of a computer that they could not explain logically, while having no clue how to program how that computer is, in a sense, cheating.

Where are you where kids are taking Calculus in 7th grade?
I knew two kids who took Calculus as 7th graders, but they were in a course otherwise filled with 10th graders.

Was thinking the same. When my 8th grade test scores came back higher than everyone in my school district, they offered to bump me to pre-calculus. As far as the data I've seen goes, our children have gotten dumber every year the last thirty years so we must be talking some pretty rarified air with this observation.

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Suppose the book used to cheat on a math exam is a history book? Still cheating, just a really stupid, ineffective way to do it.

I don't believe anyone could make that case. 1200 rated chess players can memorize chess openings without having one shred of inference into why they're making the moves or how the chess engine was designed. It's part of the natural learning curve of chess. The second they use a chess opening book during a tournament against the rules and without their opponent's awareness or consent, they're cheating.