Dear Pleno.......Best Regards, Richard

[Kmac84]

Totally agree with the above.  I hardly  play online these days as I think there are too many tools used.

I suppose had I learned to use them myself a few years back I may feel differently but I prefer being able to try and put the information together myself.  Previously if bored I had never bothered about opening up Stars and firing up a few HUSNG's haven't done so in a while but definitely wouldnt now having read this thread. 

[arbboy]

they will be playing each other very soon.  No one else will be left.  Just let them kill the games themselves.  They are doing a great job of doing so themselves.  This news breaking just makes it even more likely it happens sooner rather than later.  It's not about what actually happens and whether it's automated compared to manual.  It's about the perception is gives to the casuals when they find out what's going on.

[DMorgan]

It was the same pre Sharky, but the program has just automated the process

This is absolutely untrue

Before sharky, the pure bumhunters knew that they couldn't open sit higher because they would instantly be sat by a reg at the higher stake. With the sharky blind queue system anyone can buy the software and it'll let them grab a lobby at the higher stake when they get to the front of the queue.

Word gets out that they can do this, get lobbies unchallenged. Now imagine the heads up hypers lobbies where it takes just seconds to be sat by a rec, to the point where it is impossible for an establsihed reg to police the lobbies on his own. You get a situation where there is a queue 50 players long for a lobby, filled with players that could never hold their own at that stake if challenged by the regs. So there are now 35 players in this queue that are getting maybe 5 or 6 games per hour (because they have nobody marked to sit, they only ever go for open lobbies) and taking that EV out of the pockets of the established regs that fought their way up the stakes in the 'traditional' way before the creation of sharky.

These 35 players that are pure bumhunting would never have had a shot at getting that EV before sharky, so it isn't just an automation of the process, it creates a problem that never existed pre-sharky. Hence the solution (forming groups to fight off the tide of bumhunters) is something that would never have been necessary pre-sharky when the bumhunters knew that they never had a shot to get good action in games in which they couldn't hold their own against the regs, and so the regs could just act independently and the games would regulate themselves.

[Honeybadger]

Dan, I don't fully understand how it all works - I only heard of the seating script and cartel system today! So can I ask you a question?

Is it the case that the cartel system actually might make things slightly better for a recreational player? Because it keeps a lot of the weaker bum-hunting regs (who would beat up the recs) out of the games, and so there is a better reg/rec balance. Which means there is at least a TINY chance that a rec may occasionally get to sit with another rec. Or have I misunderstood?

One thing I am pretty sure I have understood correctly is that it is the seating scripts that are causing the problem, not the cartel system. Seating scripts, HUDs and other such things are very bad for the long-term health of poker. It would be better if they had never been created, and it would be better if they were banned. But Stars are not going to do that are they?

[Woodsey]

Maybe stars should set up 2 divisions, the winning players and the losing players, and one cannot play the other 

[Rexas]

Dan, I don't fully understand how it all works - I only heard of the seating script and cartel system today! So can I ask you a question?

Is it the case that the cartel system actually might make things slightly better for a recreational player? Because it keeps a lot of the weaker bum-hunting regs (who would beat up the recs) out of the games, and so there is a better reg/rec balance. Which means there is at least a TINY chance that a rec may occasionally get to sit with another rec. Or have I misunderstood?

One thing I am pretty sure I have understood correctly is that it is the seating scripts that are causing the problem, not the cartel system. Seating scripts, HUDs and other such things are very bad for the long-term health of poker. It would be better if they had never been created, and it would be better if they were banned. But Stars are not going to do that are they?

Surely it would be very difficult to ban HUDS, since someone would be able to figure out a way in which one could operate through the bans? Like I'm fairly sure it would be possible to get a HUD to work on sky poker, and I'm sure if a site as big as stars came along and banned them someone would work out a way around it.

[Honeybadger]

One way of stopping HUDs would be to stop HHs being stored locally, basically give players no access to their hand histories. That way, PT/HEM would have no data on which to create its stats.

I am sure this is not the only way though.

I do realise that if HUDs/seating scripts etc are going to be banned then it must be possible to police the ban effectively - either to actually prevent use through technical means, or to make sure there is a reasonable chance that someone using it can be caught. Or both preferably. Because if something is banned but people who break the ban are very unlikely to get caught then all that you are doing is giving a massive edge to the minority of unethical cheats at the expense of the ethical majority who follow the rules.

I guess one issue with policing a ban on HUDs and seating scripts is that this likely requires Stars to spy on peoples' computers - have software that tells Stars what other programs are running on a users' computer whilst they are playing on the site. I imagine that most people would find this an invasion of privacy.

[arbboy]

One way of stopping HUDs would be to stop HHs being stored locally, basically give players no access to their hand histories. That way, PT/HEM would have no data on which to create its stats.

I am sure this is not the only way though.

I do realise that if such software is going to be banned then it must be possible to police it effectively - either to actually prevent its use through technical means, or to make sure there is a reasonable chance that someone using it can be caught. Because if something is banned but people who break the ban are very unlikely to get caught then all that you are doing is giving a massive edge to unethical cheats at the expense of everyone else who follows the rules.

I guess one issue with policing a ban on HUDs and seating scripts is that this likely requires Stars to 'spy' on users' computers - have software that tells Stars what other programs are running on a users' computer whilst they are playing on the site. I imagine that most people would find this an invasion of privacy.

Why not have a poker site with no hand histories full stop?  Why do you need them?  You don't get recorded hand histories when you play live.  No casual player ever looks at HH's just the winners. You would make more money getting rid of HH's in rake as the pro's edge would be smaller and the rake would churn more plus you could sell it to the casual's better saying they had a better chance of winning.

[Honeybadger]

Why not have a poker site with no hand histories full stop?  Why do you need them?  You don't get recorded hand histories when you play live.

I think this would be a great idea.

[scotty77]

Dan, I don't fully understand how it all works - I only heard of the seating script and cartel system today! So can I ask you a question?

Is it the case that the cartel system actually might make things slightly better for a recreational player? Because it keeps a lot of the weaker bum-hunting regs (who would beat up the recs) out of the games, and so there is a better reg/rec balance. Which means there is at least a TINY chance that a rec may occasionally get to sit with another rec. Or have I misunderstood?

One thing I am pretty sure I have understood correctly is that it is the seating scripts that are causing the problem, not the cartel system. Seating scripts, HUDs and other such things are very bad for the long-term health of poker. It would be better if they had never been created, and it would be better if they were banned. But Stars are not going to do that are they?

Surely it would be very difficult to ban HUDS, since someone would be able to figure out a way in which one could operate through the bans? Like I'm fairly sure it would be possible to get a HUD to work on sky poker, and I'm sure if a site as big as stars came along and banned them someone would work out a way around it.

Someone did.  It was stopped within a day.

[tikay]

Dan, I don't fully understand how it all works - I only heard of the seating script and cartel system today! So can I ask you a question?

Is it the case that the cartel system actually might make things slightly better for a recreational player? Because it keeps a lot of the weaker bum-hunting regs (who would beat up the recs) out of the games, and so there is a better reg/rec balance. Which means there is at least a TINY chance that a rec may occasionally get to sit with another rec. Or have I misunderstood?

One thing I am pretty sure I have understood correctly is that it is the seating scripts that are causing the problem, not the cartel system. Seating scripts, HUDs and other such things are very bad for the long-term health of poker. It would be better if they had never been created, and it would be better if they were banned. But Stars are not going to do that are they?

Surely it would be very difficult to ban HUDS, since someone would be able to figure out a way in which one could operate through the bans? Like I'm fairly sure it would be possible to get a HUD to work on sky poker, and I'm sure if a site as big as stars came along and banned them someone would work out a way around it.

Someone did.  It was stopped within a day.

Correct.

It did not require any invasive software either, and the system cannot be circumvented.

It does come with some drawbacks, but it works perfectly, and those drawbacks would not bother any recreationals.

[scotty77]

Why not have a poker site with no hand histories full stop?  Why do you need them?  You don't get recorded hand histories when you play live.

I think this would be a great idea.

The sad fact is that we are all drawn to the huge prizepools that stars offer.  It has to be stars to change.  There are a couple of small sites that don't allow any third party software and work to make sure that is stays that way.  Hopefully this way of thinking catches on within the industry IMO.

[KarmaDope]

One way of stopping HUDs would be to stop HHs being stored locally, basically give players no access to their hand histories. That way, PT/HEM would have no data on which to create its stats.

I am sure this is not the only way though.

I do realise that if such software is going to be banned then it must be possible to police it effectively - either to actually prevent its use through technical means, or to make sure there is a reasonable chance that someone using it can be caught. Because if something is banned but people who break the ban are very unlikely to get caught then all that you are doing is giving a massive edge to unethical cheats at the expense of everyone else who follows the rules.

I guess one issue with policing a ban on HUDs and seating scripts is that this likely requires Stars to 'spy' on users' computers - have software that tells Stars what other programs are running on a users' computer whilst they are playing on the site. I imagine that most people would find this an invasion of privacy.

Why not have a poker site with no hand histories full stop?  Why do you need them?  You don't get recorded hand histories when you play live.  No casual player ever looks at HH's just the winners. You would make more money getting rid of HH's in rake as the pro's edge would be smaller and the rake would churn more plus you could sell it to the casual's better saying they had a better chance of winning.

Hand Histories have some good - all the major collusion problems that have been solved have been because we have hh's to analyze. Shitty trade off I know...

[Machka]

Dan, I don't fully understand how it all works - I only heard of the seating script and cartel system today! So can I ask you a question?

Is it the case that the cartel system actually might make things slightly better for a recreational player? Because it keeps a lot of the weaker bum-hunting regs (who would beat up the recs) out of the games, and so there is a better reg/rec balance. Which means there is at least a TINY chance that a rec may occasionally get to sit with another rec. Or have I misunderstood?

One thing I am pretty sure I have understood correctly is that it is the seating scripts that are causing the problem, not the cartel system. Seating scripts, HUDs and other such things are very bad for the long-term health of poker. It would be better if they had never been created, and it would be better if they were banned. But Stars are not going to do that are they?

Surely it would be very difficult to ban HUDS, since someone would be able to figure out a way in which one could operate through the bans? Like I'm fairly sure it would be possible to get a HUD to work on sky poker, and I'm sure if a site as big as stars came along and banned them someone would work out a way around it.

Someone did.  It was stopped within a day.

On Sky Poker I suspect the traffic volume and user base of Skyscraper wouldn't make it worth keeping up the effort to rewrite the hand history capturing method, whatever it was, as and when Sky Poker blocked it.

Now if PokerStars or Full Tilt were to ban the use of tracking software / locally stores hand histories I'm absolutely certain someone would just write a screen scraping program to create them on the fly.  

I'm sure some enterprising programmer in Croatia would be on the case.  

[arbboy]

One way of stopping HUDs would be to stop HHs being stored locally, basically give players no access to their hand histories. That way, PT/HEM would have no data on which to create its stats.

I am sure this is not the only way though.

I do realise that if such software is going to be banned then it must be possible to police it effectively - either to actually prevent its use through technical means, or to make sure there is a reasonable chance that someone using it can be caught. Because if something is banned but people who break the ban are very unlikely to get caught then all that you are doing is giving a massive edge to unethical cheats at the expense of everyone else who follows the rules.

I guess one issue with policing a ban on HUDs and seating scripts is that this likely requires Stars to 'spy' on users' computers - have software that tells Stars what other programs are running on a users' computer whilst they are playing on the site. I imagine that most people would find this an invasion of privacy.

Why not have a poker site with no hand histories full stop?  Why do you need them?  You don't get recorded hand histories when you play live.  No casual player ever looks at HH's just the winners. You would make more money getting rid of HH's in rake as the pro's edge would be smaller and the rake would churn more plus you could sell it to the casual's better saying they had a better chance of winning.

Hand Histories have some good - all the major collusion problems that have been solved have been because we have hh's to analyze. Shitty trade off I know...

the company could keep these for collusion reasons but not make them available to all.