Party Fake Mucks -- Good or Bad?

[gaming_mouse]

On Party, if your opponent calls and mucks, you can still see what he had (by looking in the hand history). On many other sites, you cannot do this: a muck is a true muck.

For the skilled (winning) player, which system is better?

Do you prefer the ability to hide information about yourself or gather information on your opponents?

gm

[fnord_too]

You can actually do this on most sites.

[AngryCola]

This is a rule on most sites.

It only happens if a player calls a bet on the river. The reason is the players still in the pot have "paid" to see your cards.

It's actually a rule in quite a few B&Ms. So long as your hand is not yet in the muck, a player may request to see it if they have called a bet on the end.

I don't have a problem with this rule, but I do have a problem with the way online sites use it.

Most players are completely unaware of it. I've always felt this gives a slightly unfair advantage to the people who are aware of the rule. I think my only problem with it is that the sites do not put the info out in the open where a new player could learn about it. Sometimes there is no mention of it on the site at all.

They should at least bother to post the rule where a curious player could easily find it.

[Monty Cantsin]

The better player is more likely to draw useful conclusions from the extra information. It's an advantage for the better player.

/mc

[gaming_mouse]

Guys,

I know what the rule is. I know you can usually do it in B&M, even though it's supposed to be only used to stop cheating. That wasn't my question.

The fact is, I know Pacific Poker disallows it. I think InterPoker does too. I'm sure there are others.

But the question was just a poker theory question... I just started wondering if the rule is a good thing or bad thing for a good player, and wanted to hear some thoughts.

gm

[gaming_mouse]

That's what I thought.

thanks monty.

[AngryCola]

That wasn't obvious to you?

::shrug::

[Cerril]

There's sort of a real time version of the same thing. If you're holding AK and win on a Kxxxx board with a showdown you'll get one of two messages:

<you> has won $50 with a pair of kings.
or
<you> has won $50 with a pair of kings, ace kicker.

This is true for any imaginable hand. In the second case 'x kicker', it means one of your opponents had the same hand with a worse kicker. So if you're wondering whether your opponent called you down with TPNK or middle pair or worse, that's a way to have some clue.

[Michael Davis]

Getting to see mucked hands is a boon for the good player who will accurately interpret the information he datamines on mucked hands. Most players don't bother to even check what you had and furthermore have no idea how to react or adjust when they discover what you are playing.

-Michael

[splashpot]

I've actually caught quite a few people lying about what they had. Obviously players who are not aware that their actual hands are viewable to anyone who looks in the hand history.

[Rudbaeck]

It's a big advantage for the skilled player. Even more so on Party where they are viewable by everyone, not just those who were dealt cards. (You really, really shouldn't be able to see callers hands when datamining.)

A way better system would be if you had to request the information separately, and it was shown to you in a non-parsable form. (Something like the HH-viewer on Pacific?)

This rule isn't in place to help you win more, it's there to stop collusion.

[BatsShadow]

Is there a legitimate way to see the down cards in Pacific's hand history?

[Rudbaeck]

[ QUOTE ]
Is there a legitimate way to see the down cards in Pacific's hand history?

[/ QUOTE ]

Nope. I was refering just to a purely graphical interface to stop PT parsing of the data.

I reckon it's just a matter of time before all parsable hand histories are gone, and a system like Pacifics in place instead.

[BatsShadow]

Doesn't seem like that would happen if the players really don't want it to. We don't.

BTW, If you've read around other forums, you may have seen that I started investigating the possibility of importing Pacific Poker data into PT. Well, it turns out, that by monitoring the network stream during hand histories, I can actually see what cards everyone else had. I suppose that by posting this here I could start a landslide of events that will cause this to get fixed, but we'll see. Before anyone gets scared, I have verified that you absolutely cannot see others' cards during the live hand. I thought about contacting Pacific about this, but I was afraid that they would get huffy and since I haven't ever deposited, I didn't know how well they would treat me.

Regarding Poker Tracker, what are the various ways that it works? It sounds like it can do 3 things: 1) Monitor the live game, giving you live statistics. 2) Automatically pull hands from email. 3) Import hands from the text file exports from sites like RVP. Is that all correct? How much of those features would be required to be useful? Say I can save Pacific hand histories to a text file. Is that enough to have live PT updates, or not?

[Rudbaeck]

It's enough. (Given that enough info is saved in the text file.)

'We' as in those who post and read here are a small subset of players. If fish gave it some thought they'd be all for a system where we don't get tons of easily parsed data on them. Reasonably those we feed on don't want to give us even more advantages than we already have. But what do I know. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

There are 9 losing players for every winner. Though, to be honest most of those 9 probably don't know what's best for them and could easily be misled.

[memphis57]

Yes, it's definitely good for the skilled player who knows how to use the info, and it also raises a related issue. Since that data is out there about you and available to your better opponents, you need to spend some time studying and managing your own data. For one thing, you need to know what will be available to your opponents - anytime you go to the end of a hand on Party, you hand will become available. Then think about what kind of image you would like to present to your opponents. Personally, I'd prefer to be viewed as looser than I really am, so when it's not too expensive, I'll spend a little to let a loose hand go to showdown, and I'll fold a tight hand that I know is a loser even if there are no bids that need to be called.

Also, keep in mind that your opponents only see a subset of your data, so it's helpful to look at your own stats in small batches that an opponent might see. For example, filter out just games played on the same table with a given opponent, since that's going to be the bulk of what he has unless he's an avid data-miner. These small subsets of 50-100 hands can look much different from your real data, and it may help you to know any misconceptions he has about you.

[CORed]

[ QUOTE ]
I reckon it's just a matter of time before all parsable hand histories are gone, and a system like Pacifics in place instead.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't know. It seems like Party's moving in the other direction, i.e. having their client write hand historys directly to your hard drive seems to be an effort to accomodate users of Poker Tracker and other data tracking software. I suppose Party's primary motivation for doing this was to cut down on the email traffic involved in processing hand history requests.

[timmer]

[ QUOTE ]
Getting to see mucked hands is a boon for the good player who will accurately interpret the information he datamines on mucked hands. Most players don't bother to even check what you had and furthermore have no idea how to react or adjust when they discover what you are playing.

-Michael

[/ QUOTE ]

Right on Mike

Play well and prosper

timmer

[gaming_mouse]

[ QUOTE ]
Well, it turns out, that by monitoring the network stream during hand histories, I can actually see what cards everyone else had.

[/ QUOTE ]

Cool. How did you do this? We're they just part of the datastream, totally unencrypted?

gm

[BatsShadow]

The data is entirely unencrypted. It is in a fairly somewhat unreadable form, but it wasn't hard to figure out. Check out ethereal, then capture the stream. The cards were easy. If I recall correctly, the order is spades, clubs, hearts, diamonds, so the A (13) of diamonds is number 52.

[gaming_mouse]

Nice. Thanks for the info.

gm

[Rudbaeck]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't know. It seems like Party's moving in the other direction, i.e. having their client write hand historys directly to your hard drive seems to be an effort to accomodate users of Poker Tracker and other data tracking software. I suppose Party's primary motivation for doing this was to cut down on the email traffic involved in processing hand history requests.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, they did this without thinking of the 'better' solution. (Ie, better for Party and better for the fish, worse for us.) But they'll stumble on it eventually.

Party execs masturbate at the thought of only fishes playing, just pushing around the chips til the rake eats it all. They don't need sharks to 'keep the games going' any more. There is enough fish for that by far.

[BarronVangorToth]

[ QUOTE ]

But the question was just a poker theory question... I just started wondering if the rule is a good thing or bad thing for a good player, and wanted to hear some thoughts.

gm

[/ QUOTE ]



On the Internet, looking to see what your opponent had is fine, I guess, as it's a feature of whatever site you are utilizing.

HOWEVER, in B&M establishments, I think it is arguably the stupidest rule around -- and the reason it is in place supposedly is to stop collusion, but it doesn't, and we all know it doesn't.

At Foxwoods just a few nights ago I was in late position and it was folded around to me and I raised with KQ, folded to the big blind who came out firing a 3-bet at me. Somehow I knew he had AK and when the flop came K-X-X, even though I knew what he had, I decided to be a terrible player and not only not raise the flop for information, but just call-call-call to the river. He windmills AK and I go to muck my hand and he yells -- LET ME SEE THAT HAND! -- to the dealer. The dealer shows him. I then make a mental note that I believe it will be about 3 hours before he busts through the rack of red he has in front of him, along with the monies he just got off me.

In his defense, it took him 4 hours to run out of money.

In short: I don't think I've ever seen a good player in any B&M casino anywhere in the USA that asked to see mucked cards. Those that do are invariably weak players who just want to waste time gloating about how much better their hand was over X hand.

Barron Vangor Toth
www.BarronVangorToth.com (http://www.BarronVangorToth.com)
Your Results May Differ

[gaming_mouse]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't think I've ever seen a good player in any B&M casino anywhere in the USA that asked to see mucked cards.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why do you think this is? Because good players are more respectful of the true rules of the game?

I can't see any other reason, as the information is obviously valuable in many circumstances.

gm

[The Goober]

[ QUOTE ]

Why do you think this is? Because good players are more respectful of the true rules of the game?

I can't see any other reason, as the information is obviously valuable in many circumstances.

gm

[/ QUOTE ]

The main reason is that a good player doesn't want to embarass the bad player (by making him show the garbage that he called with) and shame him into playing better. Asking to see someone's hand is at best considered very rude, and at worst an accusation of cheating. I've seen cases where someone asked to see a hand, the folder got really pissed off, and the whole mood of the table changed - all the happy gamblers started getting tighter and playing more aggressively... not good.