"The Online games are not fair anymore"

[rfgqqabc]

Do like the way EvilPie has rolled itt, nailed a lot of points.

Anyways, it appears that serious players use software so they can play a lot of tables without paying full attention. The amateur however plays less tables so can concentrate on the action more closely. That's what I've learnt over the last few pages. So what exactly are dem mad poker skillz the serious players have?

Betting/calling/raising/folding

After not paying attention and seeing if the computer says so?

Yep.

[SuuPRlim]

Anyone can get the info that a HUD provides is very easy, anyone can.

Knowing what it means, and how to use it is a really serious skill and one that a huge number of experienced and successful online players have never mastered.

[teddybloat]

 "Name me one other industry where the customers have to put in the same amount of work as the professionals selling them a service?..."  


you  dont have to put in that work though.

you can play for fun and accept that you are gambling without an edge.

plenty of people enjoy gambling where they have no edge: casino games, bingo, lotto, sports betting are all fulled by millions of people willing to pay money to play.

poker is the same. i enjoyed poker on play-money apps, i enjoyed it as a losing player and i enjoy it as a winning player now.

its a competitive game with a huge luck element.  most players are losing players, most enjoy the 'gamble' and competition and the swings that come with playing with little or no edge.

if you want to actually compete with the best in terms of results, and make consistent money, then you arent in the same mindset of most players who just like a punt every now and then

of course you have to work to achieve the results of those that work hard. there isnt an area of life where that isnt the case.

[MANTIS01]

Anyone can get the info that a HUD provides is very easy, anyone can.

Knowing what it means, and how to use it is a really serious skill and one that a huge number of experienced and successful online players have never mastered.

Hey mate, if this huge number of experienced and successful players haven't got to grips with how to use HUDs and they don't pay attention what accounts for their success?

[Jamier-Host]

plenty of people enjoy gambling where they have no edge: casino games, bingo, lotto, sports betting are all fulled by millions of people willing to pay money to play.

poker is the same.

The trouble is it's not the same though. People play BJ with a -1% edge or roulette with -3.5% but it's small, static and over short periods you can have a decent run of it. With poker that % has effectively been growing every year as the skill gap widens.

Most players would be FAR better off playing table games than playing poker.

[teddybloat]

thats always been true though

rake will make average players losers [and games are raked > blackjack], and below average players lose to rake and their peers. thats fundamementally built into poker - theres never been a time where below average players or even average players would be better off playing poker than table games

poker seems different though and you are playing people. there is a competitive edge that people will always enjoy. games are beatable, in theory and practice. unlike table games.

but to suggest that poker is a special place where you should expect to match the rewards of hard workers without matching their work seem incredibly naive which is the point i was challanging

[dwayne110]

using a HUD gives you access to relevant, additional information that a player not using a HUD does not have. The degree to which the HUD is used effectively is irrelevant really, the key point is the HUD has gained additional information over the non-HUD user which can be used to their advantage.


So use a HUD, put yourself on an even keel?! Sounds a simple solution, but the majority of recs either can't be arsed or are unaware of HUDs. Those who are unaware are at a disadvantage, indisputably. Those aware but not inclined to use a HUD I would suggest are the bulk of recs. this group are not stupid or ignorant, they just want to play poker in its simplest, most enjoyable form. Using a HUD involves data analysis... not so much fun. Now when you factor in that most recs are not stupid and appreciate they're at a disadvantage by not adding data analysis to their poker entertainment, the game has a problem.

[teddybloat]

its an image problem then as using a HUD would not put people on an even keel.

its not the lack or presence of a HUD that makes you a winning or losing player.

tufffish used a HUD

olivier busquets one tabled HUSNG's without one and have won a few million $$$ doing so.

[EvilPie]

but to suggest that poker is a special place where you should expect to match the rewards of hard workers without matching their work seem incredibly naive which is the point i was challenging

Pretty sure nobody on here thinks that.

[teddybloat]

"Name me one other industry where the customers have to put in the same amount of work as the professionals selling them a service?..." 

sort of implies it if you are comparing recs to customers and regs to professionals.

you don't have to put the same work in, unless you are wanting to achieve similar results to them.

and if you want similar results... you will have to put in the same amount of work.

its true of most competitive areas of life.

else do as the vast majority of poker players do, and play for the sheer enjoyment of gambling on the turn of a card / pitting your wits against someone for a portion of your spare cash

[Rexas]

Sorry I didn't reply earlier, I was busy playing live cash where the people who were losing were complaining about how the good players were cheating and they were just really unlucky. O wait, sorry, that's online.

Regarding recs playing more tables, maybe this is different with tournaments, but with cash at the moment there wouldn't be very many reg speed tables running at all without the pros multitabling. If you take away their ability to do that, then the games drop off to a point where it's pretty damn hard for anyone to find a table to play at. So I take your point EvilPie about spreading regs around not necessarily being a good thing because they've got a smaller edge at more tables, and although this won't affect the individual rec it will affect them as a whole, the trade off is that the games actually run.

Regarding the "distinct disadvantage" thing, have you guys actually read my posts? If I want to play multiple tables regularly vs the regular players, then not using a HUD is putting me at a disadvantage. I have never argued that point, and neither has anyone here. All the other regs have loads of hands on me because I play with them all the time. Now, as soon as I started playing with them all the time, I stopped being a "recreational" and became a "regular". As has now been explained multiple times, I don't think that having a HUD has anywhere hear as much of an impact on recreational players as they would like to believe, but it certainly does have an impact on other regular players. What is unfair about me using the same tools as the other regs? As has also be pointed out, most of them don't know how to actually use the stats that they get from their HUDs anyway. Also, again as has already been pointed out, if I played 20 tables and you played one, and I played without a HUD, you would have an advantage over me on that one table. If I play with a HUD, on that one table you would still have an advantage, but it would be lessened. Note I said DISTINCT disadvantage. So no, there is no contradiction there.

I would also say that in cash games the bink argument doesn't work, but in tournaments it very much does. If I win a ticket into the Sunday million today and win it, then I'll show up as a winning online tournament player basically forever, because I'm never going to play enough online tournaments to equate to the amount I would win there. This is infinitely more likely than me winning the lottery. If that happened to me, it certainly wouldn't be meaningless.

In answer to MANTIS's last comment about what makes them winning players if they can't use HUDs, there are a few things. I mean, a lot of the best players in the world now are focusing on game theory, and one of the main points of doing this is that it literally doesn't matter what your opponents do, or what they see you doing, they cannot win money against you long term. Think of poker as a very complicated game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. Choose each option a third of the time over an infinite number of games and you are theoretically unbeatable, as soon as someone playing against you deviates from that strategy they are losing. We're a long way away from actually solving poker in the same way as rock poker scissors, but we can try and play in a way that is as close as currently possible, and it will be very difficult to win against them. This is what the people who really work hard on their game are trying to achieve.

"but to suggest that poker is a special place where you should expect to match the rewards of hard workers without matching their work seem incredibly naive which is the point i was challanging"

Think this actually sums up a lot of these arguments very well, that the general idea is people that can no longer beat the game long term are searching for something to blame it on, because they can't accept the fact that people who work harder than them can now beat them.

Fwiw, I don't think this discussion is ever going to go anywhere. I am completely, totally, 100% convinced of my side of this argument and having spent a lot of time discussing this recently I have yet to see a comment that has persuaded me that HUDs are the reason online poker is struggling at the moment, ASIDE from the fact that they are perceived to give regs this magical edge over everyone else. There are other, much bigger problems that are doing a lot of damage, like seating scripts for example.

To reiterate, I would love it if HUDs were suddenly banned on every site. But, while there is no chance of that happening, I still think that the best thing to do is try and combat these misconceptions.

[SuuPRlim]

Anyone can get the info that a HUD provides is very easy, anyone can.

Knowing what it means, and how to use it is a really serious skill and one that a huge number of experienced and successful online players have never mastered.

Hey mate, if this huge number of experienced and successful players haven't got to grips with how to use HUDs and they don't pay attention what accounts for their success?

Work ethic, natural poker ability, feel, strong mental game etc, times are a LOT different now to 4 or 5 yrs ago, all this super in depth analysis and strategy was around but in a much different form than today, area's of poker strategy have been closed to solved nowadays where a bit of time ago people used to come up with their own strategies and opinions on stuff, now though a great deal of that stuff is just universally accepted as X or Y...

I'm not pulling things out of thin air here, we have a great example of this here, Patrik Antonius, THE BIGGEST tracked winner in online poker history has said himself he never used a HUD, one of the most successful poker players in the UK (v gd friend of mine) who still plays regularly and wins online and has played and won at the highest stakes also self confessed to not really using his HUD ever...

You can't make a bad player a good one, or even a good player a great one by giving him a HUD.

MY points are not that HUDs are actually fine so should let all the pros have them, I'm saying that if we're tackling what is wrong with Online poker then we're talking about something which really makes no difference whatsoever - it makes a difference to Patrik Antonius because he plays in a VERY small player pool with the VERY best players, where even a tiny edge can be worth hundreds of K's.

[teddybloat]

Anyone can get the info that a HUD provides is very easy, anyone can.

Knowing what it means, and how to use it is a really serious skill and one that a huge number of experienced and successful online players have never mastered.

Hey mate, if this huge number of experienced and successful players haven't got to grips with how to use HUDs and they don't pay attention what accounts for their success?

Work ethic, natural poker ability, feel, strong mental game etc, times are a LOT different now to 4 or 5 yrs ago, all this super in depth analysis and strategy was around but in a much different form than today, area's of poker strategy have been closed to solved nowadays where a bit of time ago people used to come up with their own strategies and opinions on stuff, now though a great deal of that stuff is just universally accepted as X or Y...

I'm not pulling things out of thin air here, we have a great example of this here, Patrik Antonius, THE BIGGEST tracked winner in online poker history has said himself he never used a HUD, one of the most successful poker players in the UK (v gd friend of mine) who still plays regularly and wins online and has played and won at the highest stakes also self confessed to not really using his HUD ever...

just to back that point up, here is the SS graph of a 1 tabling reg who does not use a HUD nor any tracking software average buyin $1.5k

http://imgur.com/z4pkcUQ

[MANTIS01]

Maybe the problem is ego because lots of rec players like to think they're better than they are right? Just like most blokes being deluded about the number of girls they slept with or the amount they can drink. So other players accessing the reality of your data and particularly ramming in down your throat mid game is quite a sobering process.

Think the answer to HUDs is multi-accounting right? I know when I play a big comp these days I use my mrs account. Aha-ha switcheroo!! what gud is ur hud now Mr Pro??

[nirvana]

Sorry I didn't reply earlier, I was busy playing live cash where the people who were losing were complaining about how the good players were cheating and they were just really unlucky. O wait, sorry, that's online.

Regarding recs playing more tables, maybe this is different with tournaments, but with cash at the moment there wouldn't be very many reg speed tables running at all without the pros multitabling. If you take away their ability to do that, then the games drop off to a point where it's pretty damn hard for anyone to find a table to play at. So I take your point EvilPie about spreading regs around not necessarily being a good thing because they've got a smaller edge at more tables, and although this won't affect the individual rec it will affect them as a whole, the trade off is that the games actually run.

Regarding the "distinct disadvantage" thing, have you guys actually read my posts? If I want to play multiple tables regularly vs the regular players, then not using a HUD is putting me at a disadvantage. I have never argued that point, and neither has anyone here. All the other regs have loads of hands on me because I play with them all the time. Now, as soon as I started playing with them all the time, I stopped being a "recreational" and became a "regular". As has now been explained multiple times, I don't think that having a HUD has anywhere hear as much of an impact on recreational players as they would like to believe, but it certainly does have an impact on other regular players. What is unfair about me using the same tools as the other regs? As has also be pointed out, most of them don't know how to actually use the stats that they get from their HUDs anyway. Also, again as has already been pointed out, if I played 20 tables and you played one, and I played without a HUD, you would have an advantage over me on that one table. If I play with a HUD, on that one table you would still have an advantage, but it would be lessened. Note I said DISTINCT disadvantage. So no, there is no contradiction there.

I would also say that in cash games the bink argument doesn't work, but in tournaments it very much does. If I win a ticket into the Sunday million today and win it, then I'll show up as a winning online tournament player basically forever, because I'm never going to play enough online tournaments to equate to the amount I would win there. This is infinitely more likely than me winning the lottery. If that happened to me, it certainly wouldn't be meaningless.

In answer to MANTIS's last comment about what makes them winning players if they can't use HUDs, there are a few things. I mean, a lot of the best players in the world now are focusing on game theory, and one of the main points of doing this is that it literally doesn't matter what your opponents do, or what they see you doing, they cannot win money against you long term. Think of poker as a very complicated game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. Choose each option a third of the time over an infinite number of games and you are theoretically unbeatable, as soon as someone playing against you deviates from that strategy they are losing. We're a long way away from actually solving poker in the same way as rock poker scissors, but we can try and play in a way that is as close as currently possible, and it will be very difficult to win against them. This is what the people who really work hard on their game are trying to achieve.

"but to suggest that poker is a special place where you should expect to match the rewards of hard workers without matching their work seem incredibly naive which is the point i was challanging"

Think this actually sums up a lot of these arguments very well, that the general idea is people that can no longer beat the game long term are searching for something to blame it on, because they can't accept the fact that people who work harder than them can now beat them.

Fwiw, I don't think this discussion is ever going to go anywhere. I am completely, totally, 100% convinced of my side of this argument and having spent a lot of time discussing this recently I have yet to see a comment that has persuaded me that HUDs are the reason online poker is struggling at the moment, ASIDE from the fact that they are perceived to give regs this magical edge over everyone else. There are other, much bigger problems that are doing a lot of damage, like seating scripts for example.

To reiterate, I would love it if HUDs were suddenly banned on every site. But, while there is no chance of that happening, I still think that the best thing to do is try and combat these misconceptions.

It is kind of a waste of time trying to correct any misconceptions on this. Whether it's the number 1 disadvantage, whether every user uses it well doesn't really matter, it's undeniably an advantage to a multi tabling reg and they're pretty much satan.

" The turkey does not feel safer, the more times the farmer with a big gun reassures him"
Karl Marx