Importing Hand Histories You Are Not Involved In

[fyodor]

Now that PartyPoker is loading the hand history files directly on your hard drive you can with PokerTraker import game files of tables you are observing but not seated at.

When I am busy at work or sleeping or whatever I open 4 tables of the limit I normally play and auto-import everything. You can amass a lot of data on a lot of opponents in a very short time. Then just export all the notes and be better armed next time out.

Some people think this is unethical. What do you think and will you be using the feature?

[jasonHoldEm]

This is just one of the ways that internet poker is different from real life poker. It's perfectly ethical.

Data mining of hands you're not playing has been going on for a LONG time. Anyone with any semblance of programing skills and common sense has had a data bot running on their machine since the poker tracker notes exporter was released. The recent update by party and poker tracker has simply leveled the playing field a little (unfortunately /images/graemlins/mad.gif /images/graemlins/smirk.gif ).

J

[Piers]

Making thoes hand histories avaliable is an internal Party marketing decision. Not clear why this would make the Party poker management unethical.

[Cubswin]

I thought Pat said you cant import hands you were not in? Im confused

[Lori]

How many does it store?

How would I go about removing them?

I'm not sure I'm keen on Party dumping stuff into my PC more often than is neccessary.

Lori

[Im Just A Bill]

They go into a hand history folder under the party poker installation folder. You can simply delete the files if you want to. Not sure if you can turn off the feature or not.

[Im Just A Bill]

How are you importing these files? I didn't think PT was supporting the format just yet.

In answer to your question, I personally have no problem with this from an ethical standpoint.

[skirtus]

I loaded the patch today. I can manually import these files with no problems. I cant get the auto-import to work without errors. Not sure how many hands a file holds. This is a great tool for us non-programming morons.

[fyodor]

The file Party puts on when you are observing gets erased as soon as you log off. You have to be importing while you are still connected.

Your own histories go into separate files sorted by date and table. You can set it up in your Party window how long you want these to remain on your hard drive and how much space they are allowed to take up. Check under Options/Hand History Logs Configuration

A PokerTraker database can contain up to about 100,000 hands. I use a separate database for hands I am not in. When it reaches about 100,000 I will start another one.

When you export notes you can combine databases.

I think it is an excellent tool and would be interested to hear reasons why anyone thinks it is a bad idea.

[Richard Berg]

Voted yes to both.

Should Party be doing this? Yes, because it levels the playing field against the people who were doing it anyway by more elaborate means.

Will I use it? Yes, but into a separate database that I won't use for getting reads/notes.

[Tosh]

Why can't PT databases contain more than 100k hands? Is it a preset limit or does the file just become un-manageable?

[Ponks]

Well, mines over 100k hands and working fine. Is something supposed to happen at 100k?

Ponks

[Blarg]

I thought that stupid window that comes up and says do you REALLY want your hand histories e-mailed to you needed to be clicked to get them sent. You've got to click through like 3 or 4 windows just to clear your screen.

But I guess doing auto-import works just fine regardless of your ignoring the dang window pop-ups? Hmmm...that sounds cool indeed.

[Cubswin]

slowly walk away from your computer before it explodes /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[J.R.]

Go read this (http://www.pokertracker.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1314) and then this (http://www.pokertracker.com/partyhd.html).

[imitation]

I got 20k hands in about 12hrs so ehh be prepared to start a new DB every week or so...also this is 20table observing.

[Equal]

How do u 20 table?

[jasonHoldEm]

[ QUOTE ]
How do u 20 table?

[/ QUOTE ]

5 skins x 4 tables

[fyodor]

I am sure Pat said somewhere that because of Microsoft Access limitations you can not get much more than 100,000 hands in a database. There is a physical limit on the megabyte size of the database file and you should reach that size at around 100,000 hands.

I see that right now more people are opposed to allowing this importing of other's hands but so far no one has given a reason. Anyone?

[bdk3clash]

Silly question, but for some reason my EmpirePoker folder doesn't contain a "Hand History" folder. What am I doing wrong?

[slavic]

Under opotions click on Hand History logs config in the empire client.

Make sure it's turned on.

[J.R.]

You must sit in and play a hand to create the HH folder, then you can just open tables you are not seated at and harvest data.

[bdk3clash]

So I have to fund my Empire account and play a real money hand?

[OldLearner]

[ QUOTE ]
I see that right now more people are opposed to allowing this importing of other's hands but so far no one has given a reason.

[/ QUOTE ]

My reason for being opposed is that I am not a FullTime Internet (Pro) like many here are. As a casual (10-15 hrs/wk) player, I do not have time, the computer resources nor the inclination to pursue this.

As such, this gives those who can do this advantages that I do not have. Hence I am against it.

I don't see it as being unethical. If you have the time, resources and inclination to do it, all the power to ya.

[slavic]

My reason for being opposed is that I am not a FullTime Internet (Pro)

Actually you would be the person who gains the most. An internet grinder can hit 10K + hands a month and pays for every bit of that information. You can just set a computer to run a few nights a week and capture the same thing.

[JrJordan]

I've decided to give this a try, but need some help with one issue. How do you combine databases for when you export your player notes?

[J.R.]

Click on the big "combine multiple databases" button in the upper right hand corner of the box when you chose to run the advanced note export feature.

[jek187]

[ QUOTE ]
A PokerTraker database can contain up to about 100,000 hands. I use a separate database for hands I am not in. When it reaches about 100,000 I will start another one.

[/ QUOTE ]

The limit is actually 250,000 hands, not 100,000. This is due to some limit with Microsoft Access. I have now imparted the Zoo with at least 50% of my database knowledge.

[Ulysses]

[ QUOTE ]
How many does it store?

How would I go about removing them?

I'm not sure I'm keen on Party dumping stuff into my PC more often than is neccessary.

Lori

[/ QUOTE ]

From main lobby.

Options->Hand History Logs Config

[MatrixMunki]

-Can you do this for empire and party at the same time and get 8 data mining going?

-if you leave it on overnight you might get some 10 player games that go down to shorthanded, this will skew the data you get by making players looser, is there anyway around this?

-how do you export notes so that it doesn't erase your notes already there so that you could have multiple datebases, and even convert empire notes to party notes

thanks:)

[MaxPower]

[ QUOTE ]
-Can you do this for empire and party at the same time and get 8 data mining going?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes

[ QUOTE ]
-if you leave it on overnight you might get some 10 player games that go down to shorthanded, this will skew the data you get by making players looser, is there anyway around this?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, I did this last night and that is exactly what happened. I think when you do the notes export you can specify to based on them on hands with only a certain number of players.

[ QUOTE ]

-how do you export notes so that it doesn't erase your notes already there so that you could have multiple datebases, and even convert empire notes to party notes

thanks:)

[/ QUOTE ]

I usually import all my notes from all the sites before doing an export.


On the original question, I don't know if party should be saving these hands to my hard drive, but I don't see anything unethical about using them. I was a little concered about people who were using pokeredge (although changing my screen name frequently would combat that), so this levels the playing field a little.

[bdk3clash]

Kind of a bump here--do I have to fund and play a real money hand to get the hand history folder started on Empire? Will playing a play money hand do the trick?

[krubban]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">Svar till:</font><hr />
Kind of a bump here--do I have to fund and play a real money hand to get the hand history folder started on Empire? Will playing a play money hand do the trick?

[/ QUOTE ]

Play money won't do the trick but I created the folder myself and it worked without problem. Just create HandHistory/Alias in the main folder and it should work.

[jek187]

I tried this, and play money won't do the trick. Of course, I only played 1 hand *shrug.*

[lunapark]

If I start downloading hhs from Party, Can I export my notes into Empire and see the same players?

[bdk3clash]

[ QUOTE ]
Play money won't do the trick but I created the folder myself and it worked without problem. Just create HandHistory/Alias in the main folder and it should work.

[/ QUOTE ]

I did this and it's working perfectly. The first import upon starting PokerTracker seems to give an error every time, but it appears to be importing all new hands anyway.

To me, this will probably me most useful in terms of scouting out games at the next level I plan on playing at in anticipation of moving up.

[Piers]

[ QUOTE ]

Some people think this is unethical. What do you think and will you be using the feature?

[/ QUOTE ]

Some good points about Party’s decision:

It will be much easier to catch colluders. There is no reason not to get the hand history of every hand played at Party, hence it would be quite difficult for colluders to escape detection from enthusiastic analysis from numerous paranoid Poker players. The threat should be enough to send the serious colluders to other sites.

For much the same reason it should be much easier to identify bots.

Party making everything totally open gives more ammunition to ridicule anyone suggesting that they are creating “action flops” or similar nonsense.