Ethics of Datamining

[rvg72]

The simple solution to stop almost all data mining is Party (and skins) should not write the .hhf files to disk on watched games - there is no need to do this that I can see. At that point the only way to commercially data mine is to share data from games that you have played which most people would not be willing to do because their own style will be exposed.

As long as they enable this functionality I don't see collecting and sharing it as being wrong but I would not be upset if Party eliminates this completely.

Additionally, I think Party should purchase the rights to a limited version of Poker Tracker (or potentially develop their own) and provide this to all members. This provides all members a great tool to improve their game (and contribute more rake) and could be a great value added feature to bring in more customers and would do a pretty good job of creating a perception of a level playing field.

rvg

[Phill S]

I dont use pokertracker, though i will be buying it in sept or so when i go back to uni.

I dont mind people datamining games they are in. I can live with people datamining games they are observing, though obviously id prefer it wasnt common knowledge amongst the fish - if PT, PV, PP and PE (and many of PXs you could imagine, along with GT [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] ) were ran as a story in say the NY times (which if im not mistaken now has a poker column) then the online poker industry would take quite a hit.

Its ok for people to go online and gamble, knowing they will lose. But when people are trading data amongst each other as well, its become quite a tinderbox. If the story is ran, that is the spark required.

This is currently a problem limited to party and skins, and if it blows up ill welcome the fish to the sites i play, but id kinda prefer it if it didnt.

People ask when the online poker bubble will burst. I think the first pop will be caused by these software aids (poker bots can be thrown in there with them). It will take some good PR from pokerstars (to name just one) to convince people that when they are playing online their, they are only playing people, not people with aides and not people with pokerbots.

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So basicly, meh if your observing and burn in hell if your trading the data with others.

Phill

[microbet]

I believe if you can observe the game, you can datamine. You don't need the application to write the HHs for you. It would be a little harder, but for most people that would just mean downloading some software.

Seems like they could stop allowing you to observe games though.

[Freudian]

The only information (as in hand history, if you want to use pen and paper while watching tables knock yourself out) available to a player should be from games where you play.

Datamining, poker prophecy and PE should be banned. If someone want to argue that PV/PT gametime also should be banned I would understand where they are coming from.

[Wes ManTooth]

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Additionally, I think Party should purchase the rights to a limited version of Poker Tracker (or potentially develop their own) and provide this to all members. This provides all members a great tool to improve their game (and contribute more rake) and could be a great value added feature to bring in more customers and would do a pretty good job of creating a perception of a level playing field.


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bad idea, provide free software to help improve a fish's game and it will not comtribute more to rake.

[Wes ManTooth]

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I don't see how any of this is unethical. It is the sort of thing that either is or isn't allowed and then is or isn't done. What would perhaps be unethical is if one somehow could generate HHs with complete/perfect information in some way and then datamine that. All the hands shown are public knowledge and available online or in a card room. It seems fine that people can gather (or ignore) such data any way they wish.


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agreed, this poll is too vague, they way it is worded is such that no one should have a problem with any of these questions.

[Nottom]

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Datamining ... should be banned.

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I don't really like the idea datamining, but banning anyone who does it is a terrible idea. If party wanted to stop it, they could do it with a simple patch.

[microbet]

I don't know. Maybe you are a lawyer or a philosopher, but plain folk seem to have an idea of whether it is good or bad and can separate that from whether or not it is or should be allowed.

[rvg72]

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Additionally, I think Party should purchase the rights to a limited version of Poker Tracker (or potentially develop their own) and provide this to all members. This provides all members a great tool to improve their game (and contribute more rake) and could be a great value added feature to bring in more customers and would do a pretty good job of creating a perception of a level playing field.


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bad idea, provide free software to help improve a fish's game and it will not comtribute more to rake.

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Improving the fish's game will most definately increase rake. If it takes them twice as many hands to bust out then rake is increased. If it makes them think that they are improving then they will be more likely to reload their account. How could that not increase rake???

Almost all of the 60-70K people that are on party poker at any given moment are going to bust out. Giving them tools to make them lose at a slower pace increases the rake and also builds up the players online number making their share holders happy.

[rvg72]

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I believe if you can observe the game, you can datamine. You don't need the application to write the HHs for you. It would be a little harder, but for most people that would just mean downloading some software.

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Does anyone know if this is true? Is there a multi-table data mining app that does not require the scraping of a log file? From a programmer's perspective it would seem extremely difficult to be able to analyze pixels on the screen to identify real values through some kind of OCR type technique and put together a hand from that... If that does exist then stopping this would be very difficult...