How do these programs track other players even when I am not in the table, or when I am but not sitting?

Thank you!

They have a HUGE database with their stats.

Yes. but how do they track?

The don't track other players except when you are sitting at a table with those players.

The only data they can grab is from the HH you generate when sitting at a table.

They don't.

Players who acquire such hand histories do so through illicit means and in violation of poker site's terms of service.

It's called data mining a lot of player's do it just open a bunch of tables you want to pull from and walla.

Back in the days it was possible...

You could datamine all day long, being breakeven if you'd play a 5% nit line. Make yourself ready for some good hours of folding 16 tables.

Okay.
But now what I don't understand about data-mining is that you can only log the hand history if you are sitting in that table.
Therefor the programs do so through illicit means and in violation of poker site's terms of service, am I right?

Yes. You can't datamine using approved tracking software (in other words, the software's ability to datamine has been removed). However, 3rd party sites track data and sell the hand histories that you can import into these same trackers.

I understand, thank you!

There are two ways I believe they can do this.
In order of likeliness
1. If you open a table and set dealer chat to verbose the text stream is all you need. So either you could pull that off the dialog box, or you could build a phony software that connects and pretends to be the actual client.
Neither is particularly difficult to do.

2. You could sell HUD software with built in hand histories and then subversively steal the hand histories from the users and redistribute them.


I believe that having a huge *3rd party* hand history on a player is not that useful anyway. Players change over time so 3 months of history is better than 12 months. Plus you don't care how they play against everyone else, stats on how they play against YOU is all that matters.

Or just buy poker edge?

I was answering the question How *they* get HH. Not how can *I* get HH's.
But on review I am not sure which OP was asking. We answered both.

Not true; I can set up tables on bodog and not even play and I can get all the hands played from any table and keep building it...but I see that as a waist of time for me personally all the stats I need are whoever i'm playing against!

Bodog doesn't give a **** about datamining, so the software wasn't changed. Stars (and Tilt, fwiw) specifically told HM and PT that if they want their software to be allowed on their site, they must disable observational tracking. Since that was 90%+ of their customer base, they changed the software.