Poker software with no huds ext allowed ?

[Honeybadger]

If I am going to open a Unibet account do I need to open it through an affiliate to get RB, or is the RB just an inbuilt reward program like Stars etc?

[shipitgood]

Not to sure about the rake back system, it's quite complicated and is pretty much "rewards", tournament tokens and cash.  It's designed to appeal to low volume players, to get anything decent some amount of volume would be required. Best place to look would be an affiliate site

[Evilpengwinz]

If I am going to open a Unibet account do I need to open it through an affiliate to get RB, or is the RB just an inbuilt reward program like Stars etc?

Inbuilt reward program, although might as well sign up through an affiliate for the rakeraces/freerolls etc that affiliates offer.

Rewards system is - https://gyazo.com/840d4eb54e0104c3a0b71c188d9b7445

Basically €0.01 MTT/SNG rake = 1 point, cash is the challenges you see in that screenshot. Should work out around 25% rakeback according to 2+2 rep, but there's obv variance there with the challenge system and the kind of challenges they have. Probably more fun for recs to do challenges than get standard rakeback though.

[tikay]

If I am going to open a Unibet account do I need to open it through an affiliate to get RB, or is the RB just an inbuilt reward program like Stars etc?

Inbuilt reward program, although might as well sign up through an affiliate for the rakeraces/freerolls etc that affiliates offer.

Rewards system is - https://gyazo.com/840d4eb54e0104c3a0b71c188d9b7445

Basically €0.01 MTT/SNG rake = 1 point, cash is the challenges you see in that screenshot. Should work out around 25% rakeback according to 2+2 rep, but there's obv variance there with the challenge system and the kind of challenges they have. Probably more fun for recs to do challenges than get standard rakeback though.

Andy,

Really loved the overall summary you produced. As you & I know, you have no particular reason to fly a flag for Sky Poker, so I thought it was really well balanced.

Moving away from rakeback & sign-up bonuses & the like, what is your view on the Promos available on each of the (HUD free) sites?

[tikay]

Can we all also bear in mind that blondepoker is sponsored by DTD, who are with Party Poker.

If DTD cease to sponsor blonde, then that's it, blonde will likely close.

So please take a look at what DTD & Party Poker currently have to offer. They do work very hard on coming up with a variety of Promos to attract players. We can diss Party all we like, but if DTD pull the plug on blonde, it's probably gg us.

So a little investment by blondes in playing a little more on Party is self-serving in many ways.

Even if you just open an account on Party (via DTD) it helps.

[TightEnd]

please also bear in mind that rob has asked for feedback on HUDs, scripts and the like

this may be the precursor to something happening in that area on party, i don't know

as everyone can see there is huge value on party/dtd every night, and i know many of us are participating


here is rob's text. please give him your views


OPINIONS NEEDED!

Dear DTD Members - there are 70,000 of you!

Join the DTD Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/1385555105105005/ - and post your personal view on TRACKING, HUD and SEATING SCRIPT SOFTWARES in online poker and I promise to print it off and give it directly to the partypoker Directors and Management.

Please use the thread on the DTD Forum so I can collate all in one place. many thanks to all that take the time to contribute.

Keep The Faith,
Rob

[RED-DOG]

I think everyone knows my views on Hud's / tracking software etc, but for the record I'm against them so I play most of my online poker on Sky these days, which is a bit restricting because I like to play the odd MTT in the afternoon.

I was hoping that Sky would start hosting full ring MTT's at some point, but I changed my mind after playing 6 handed for a while, full ring now seems kinda slow.

Now what was the other question...  Oh yes, promo's.

I don't like promo's. mainly because I either struggle to understand them or can't be arsed to meet the requirements to release the bonuses. I like simple stuff like "When you sign up we will give you a fiver" Or "We will give you x% of your rake back and you don't have to enter any codes or make an application to get it"

I don't like bonuses in the form of freerolls that I may not be available for or forget to play.

[Evilpengwinz]

Andy,

Really loved the overall summary you produced. As you & I know, you have no particular reason to fly a flag for Sky Poker, so I thought it was really well balanced.

Moving away from rakeback & sign-up bonuses & the like, what is your view on the Promos available on each of the (HUD free) sites?

Unibet have some awesome promos at the moment, although not sure how much of that is them throwing money at the promo budget to try and build liquidity on what is still a relatively new site. For that reason, I think it's tough to compare what they're doing to other sites. Really liked the concept of their "Cash drop" promo this month, which would pay out prizes a few times a day at random to a particular cash table, and everyone at that table would win a ticket of some description. Rewarded volume but still gave the lower volume players a shot at winning something too, because you can still be 1 tabling and win, which I'm a fan of. I liked when Sky ran the "Golden Tickets" promo in the past for that reason, because the 50 Poker Points a day that got you maximum draw entries was achievable for many, and even the players who didn't get close to that still had a chance of winning something.

Sky promos are generally pretty solid, for the most part. I like most of the ongoing stuff (Forgot Early Bird was there until I checked the promo page before writing this, though. Doesn't enter my mind at all when starting tables) and really happy to see a lot more live Poker stuff on there. Think we've had 2 x UKPC, Vegas and Punta Cana this year, then presumably more UKPC for February again, either after Xmas UKOPS or after Punta Cana. I really need to stop being lazy and get a passport sorted. Then win a Vegas package next year

Not a huge fan of this Premiership promo at the moment though, because "Oh, you have Alvez11 in your team, wp gg". Even though I'm on his team and the beneficiary of that, meh, I dunno. Just total luck with how many reg grinders you have on your team. Can't imagine the recs on the teams without the really high volume players are that happy with the promo. Doesn't matter what most people do, once they've got the minimum 50 points to get the free bet and MTT token, because what can they do to influence the result when half the points for the week are Alvez11 vs 200nl cash grinder? Zero incentive to play beyond the min 50 points for a lot of people.

Biggest problem with Sky promos is how badly they're promoted sometimes, and a perfect example happened very recently. I completely forgot about the 2nd part of the Abu Dhabi rake race promo this month for a couple of days (by which point, it would've been too late to have any chance at winning so I immediately forgot about it again), because it was hidden away in the Priority section of the promotions page, and a single forum sticky thread, despite the second rakerace being open to non-Priority customers. Who, outside of Priority Club, is going to think to check the Priority page for a non-Priority promo? And what about the people who don't read the forum? Where's the common sense in that?

Pretty tough to answer for PKR, because until a couple of months ago I didn't even bother logging on to my PKR account to check out the promos. They've got a pretty decent one this month which encouraged me to reload and play a bit of 25nl on there though. Basically see how many times you get dealt a pocket pair in the first 50 hands of cash each day, with extra points for getting dealt 2 or 3 pairs in a row, and they have a leaderboard where you can win up to $5k each week. Rake race next month though, meh zzzzz.

Much prefer promos where volume is rewarded, but recs have a decent shot at winning something. That's not to say there isn't a place for rake races in Poker from time to time, but keep the recs happy and the grinders will play if the games are good anyway, IMO.

[Evilpengwinz]

Sky promos are generally pretty solid, for the most part. I like most of the ongoing stuff (Forgot Early Bird was there until I checked the promo page before writing this, though. Doesn't enter my mind at all when starting tables) and really happy to see a lot more live Poker stuff on there. Think we've had 2 x UKPC, Vegas and Punta Cana this year, then presumably more UKPC for February again, either after Xmas UKOPS or after Punta Cana. I really need to stop being lazy and get a passport sorted. Then win a Vegas package next year

Worth adding that both sites do have their own respective live events. I think they've had a Unibet Open in Copenhagen, Cannes and Glasgow (Celtic Park) already, and I know there's 1 coming up in London soon, too. Think they're €1100, or €2k packages? Not 100% though. Think PKR is only 1 x $550 event a year now, and last couple of years it's been @ Aspers Stratford (I think?), plus Vegas sats around WSOP time.

Sky offers decent variety of live sats. Struggling to think of any time this year where there hasn't been something live to try and qualify for. Sky got a lot of stick when the SPT stopped, but have done pretty well to fill that void since with the UKPC, Vegas sats returning, and Punta Cana.

Re: My previous post - Probs turned into a bit of Sky tilt instead of answering the question haha, although I have seen quite a few things with Sky promos that made me scratch my head. Always going to be a mixture of stuff for everyone on all sites though. Can please some of the people etc...

[rfgqqabc]

Seating scripts are really bad, and enable to be targeted and this is something that I feel is a very negative thing for poker.

Huds are of negligible use against recreational players. This is because they rely on sample size. Over a sample of an hour, maybe 100 hands, I will very rarely play the actual stats I have worked out I should be playing. If I put in my hand selections then it might work out that I would play roughly 20/14 (vpip/pfr) but over 10 100 hand samples I might play as wide ranging from 42/36 to 8/8. Huds mean very little against a recreational player. I would even argue they provide a small benefit, as they allow regulars to play more tables and because of this, they will have a lower win rate. I'm not sure how many times LilDave, myself, or any other number of posters can explain this. I have almost no need to look at a HUD, I use one for decision making against other regulars, where I have a sample that is in the thousands and not the tens. I virtually recognize every regular mtt player on Stars at this point, so an unknown player naturally sticks out. Sometimes it will be a cash player or something of that sort which I might not recognise, but when playing against these players I give them a level of respect their playing style has deserved so far, exactly how I would do in a live table. I don't need a HUD to tell me someone limping every hand is weak. I don't need a HUD to tell me someone raising every hand is bad. Shit poker players will lose to better poker players whether you allow huds or not. I don't particularly care and was happy to play without a HUD on Party this sunday as it wasn't working, and I didn't feel like sorting it for 3 tournaments. Removing huds prevents people from playing more tables and that is bad for the sites and bad for the fish. This argument does make some assumptions, like players win rates are linear compared to table count, which is somewhat false. My winrate on 1 table will almost certainly be the same as 2 and even 3 possibly 4. The difference between 4 and 12 will be something.

Tbh, I don't really care whether Party get rid of HUDs or not, just smokeys argument is very flawed. Regulars who have statistically significant samples have huds used much more frequently against them.

[TightEnd]

from another thread

Because we were limited to one comment on the forum page and subsequent ones were deleted, I'd just like to take up a couple of gripes I had with that thread.

Firstly, I think it would be disastrous if Party Poker banned huds now. Most of the cash game traffic at 50nl and above seems to be regs multitabling, basically all of whom I would assume are using a HUD, and if they were suddenly banned then the traffic would become non-existent and everyone would move to another site. Party just isn't big enough to start a revolution like this, it has to be stars.

I have a problem with how the "pros" seem to be getting demonised in threads like this. Without regular players it would be very hard to find games in the first place for starters, and it's always going to be a fact that in games where it's possible to find an edge there are going to be people who hunt that edge for a living. Moreover, one of the overarching comments in that thread was how poker is not a "level playing field" because people can buy HUDs. Frankly, poker is already a ridiculously uneven playing field against the regs. There is no other game in the world where a complete random can sit down and play the best in the world and have as much of a chance of winning as you do in poker. The game is absolutely stacked against the people who work for it. It's outrageous that you can spend hours every single day slaving over making improvements to your play, sit down with a bunch of people from the pub and walk out as the big loser. It's even more outrageous, and beyond ignorant imo, that those same people feel like they are entitled to win, and feel like they can complain about the playing field being uneven when they lose. If poker was fair, they would lose every single time they sat down to the "pro". But they don't and for some ridiculous reason that's not enough. If you have a problem with losing all the time, GET BETTER.

There seems to be a real feeling on that thread too that HUDs somehow make you a better player just by having one, and that they can somehow tell you what cards people have. If I gave my mum a HUD and put her at a table she still wouldn't have a clue as to what's going on. HUDs help, don't get me wrong, but you've got to know how to use them. There's one reg I play with at the moment who's got a huge 4b stat, and I regularly see people 3b his button open because their hand is in their 3b range so they don't bother thinking about it, then get 4b, then look up his 4b stat and shit themselves because they don't want to jam 100bbs with a bad hand, get snapped off and look stupid and they don't want to fold because there's a good chance they're folding the best hand. So, they call and end up being heads up out of position in a bloated pot without the betting lead against a range that they have no clue how to define with hands like KJos that don't really flop that well and have some pretty horrific reverse implied odds. Just an example of how people can use stats from HUDs to play worse.

They're also not a secret, and this is a big part of this argument. Bunch of people on there are talking about "new players" being at a disadvantage because they don't know about HUDs, and this again is complete bullshit imo. If you google "online poker tips", the first option I clicked on which is like 5th or something on the list is this page https://www.cardschat.com/10-tips-for-winning-online-poker.php which explicitly recommends that people become familiar with HUDs. They are no secret, they are not expensive, there are extensive video tutorials on how to use and set them up, and they are readily and easily available. If you feel that not having a HUD puts you at a disadvantage, then it is a completely fair one, because you know they exist and you are choosing to not have one. Moreover this "new players" argument is a scapegoat for people who don't want to say "I don't like HUDs because people who win have them and I don't like people who win because I lose." The whole lot of those people really need to grow up and realise not only how pathetic the whole thing sounds but realise just how massively weighted the game already is in their favour.

End rant.

[AlexMartin]

Hi smoky,

Unibet has been mentioned, as has Sky Poker. I can't comment on Unibet's position, but on Sky Poker you cannot use HUD's or any similar third party software.

More specifically, a HUD simply would & cannot work on Sky Poker, they have modified the software in such a way as to render them unworkable on there.  

This is not flim-flam PR, it's a fact. From time to time, a few players try & design Heath Robinson workarounds, but they won't work. One was briefly available around 5 years ago, but it was soon closed down by a software modification.

The question was asked only last week on their Forum, & the official reply was as follows......



"Hi there
We do not allow any player assistance tools on Sky Poker, all such software is banned so there is no 'allowed list'.  We do not work with any 3rd party suppliers of such software and strongly advise players to avoid people who claim to work with Sky Poker.
We monitor for this activity, however, if you believe you have information that proves someone is using such software please send us a message and we will take the necessary action.
Anybody seen to be using such software risks having their account closed."




I gather from industry sources that various other sites are considering the same thing, & I know with 100% certainty that one very well known Online Poker brand will introduce the same restriction within the next few months.



As with so many things, this comes at a price, in that, related to the above, players have only very limited access to Hand Histories, which often causes negative comments.

However, if third party software was permitted there, traffic & liquidity would decline very significantly, so it won't be changing. Ever.

believe this is wrong

[Jamier-Host]

Frankly, poker is already a ridiculously uneven playing field against the regs. There is no other game in the world where a complete random can sit down and play the best in the world and have as much of a chance of winning as you do in poker. The game is absolutely stacked against the people who work for it. It's outrageous that you can spend hours every single day slaving over making improvements to your play, sit down with a bunch of people from the pub and walk out as the big loser. It's even more outrageous, and beyond ignorant imo, that those same people feel like they are entitled to win, and feel like they can complain about the playing field being uneven when they lose. If poker was fair, they would lose every single time they sat down to the "pro". But they don't and for some ridiculous reason that's not enough. If you have a problem with losing all the time, GET BETTER.


End rant.

But in those other games you're going to struggle to get anyone to play you for money (or not for long) if there is a clear skill gap with no randomness.

It's a delicate balance but has certainly swung too far in favour of the better players. The reason win rates are down for regs is because those who had a problem with losing all the time stopped playing, they were never going to make the effort to "get better". So the easy money is drying up and profits are now to be squeezed from the former small winners who have flipped to small losers. That's not a happy looking cycle to observe if you're relying on being one of the regular winners longterm.

[Rexas]

Frankly, poker is already a ridiculously uneven playing field against the regs. There is no other game in the world where a complete random can sit down and play the best in the world and have as much of a chance of winning as you do in poker. The game is absolutely stacked against the people who work for it. It's outrageous that you can spend hours every single day slaving over making improvements to your play, sit down with a bunch of people from the pub and walk out as the big loser. It's even more outrageous, and beyond ignorant imo, that those same people feel like they are entitled to win, and feel like they can complain about the playing field being uneven when they lose. If poker was fair, they would lose every single time they sat down to the "pro". But they don't and for some ridiculous reason that's not enough. If you have a problem with losing all the time, GET BETTER.


End rant.

But in those other games you're going to struggle to get anyone to play you for money (or not for long) if there is a clear skill gap with no randomness.

It's a delicate balance but has certainly swung too far in favour of the better players. The reason win rates are down for regs is because those who had a problem with losing all the time stopped playing, they were never going to make the effort to "get better". So the easy money is drying up and profits are now to be squeezed from the former small winners who have flipped to small losers. That's not a happy looking cycle to observe if you're relying on being one of the regular winners longterm.

Yh, I agree with a lot of this tbh. It's rare to find an old school fish who's limping every hand, stacking off with bottom pair or chasing every draw no matter how expensive it is. The modern day fish is definitely the person who believes they're good at the game and just getting unlucky, so they keep on depositing and keep on playing games that are too big for them, because they can't be bothered to work out that the reason why everyone folds when they've got AA is because their 3b stat is too low :p

I don't know how to stop this cycle, but I do think banning all this software would be a step in the right direction. HOWEVER, poker sites are just not going to ban HUDs, they'd lose so much of their player pool that the games would just dry up, because all those players would move to other sites. As Picken said, having regs playing loads of tables isn't necessarily bad for the recs because they're winrate on each individual table will be lower. They also keep the games open. I completely agree that seating scripts etc are appalling and should never have been allowed in the first place, but while HUDs aren't going anywhere we could really do with tackling the problem of the perception of these tools.