Ethics of Datamining/Banned Software use
 

Greetings,

I have followed the recent thread on 'Party Mine' and other past threads on data mining unobserved hands. I personally believe players have an obligation to obey the TOS, even if they think the rules are silly, petty, ignorant or unfair.

If they don't like the rules of the poker room they should find one more to their liking. I think it would be great if there existed online poker rooms that catered to the afficiando of the unobserved hand. Think of all the good fun that could be had on a site dedicated to bot wars! And what about pure poker anarchy with no rules at all!

But seriously, most players expect the card rooms to provide some measure of security. A willingness to enforce their own rules would be a good start. And it appears at least a few online rooms are taking measures to thwart rule-breakers of all stripes. And this is where the controversy starts.

For whatever reason, it appears data-mining unobserved hand histories is popular amongst many posters. I won't go into the reason why data-mining is popular as it's too obvious. Furthermore, it's true that Party Poker and Pokerstars didn't prohibit this in the past. But nevertheless, it currently violates the terms of service. And I find the willingness to violate TOS (by datamining unobserved hands) alarming.

I am interested in getting the opinion of this forum's members on the topic of data-mining unobserved hands. Hence, I have opened up the following poll:

Re: Ethics of Datamining/Banned Software use
 

How would you datamine an unobserved hand? O_o

Re: Ethics of Datamining/Banned Software use
 

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How would you datamine an unobserved hand? O_o

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uhh, its pretty simple

Re: Ethics of Datamining/Banned Software use
 

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But nevertheless, it currently violates the terms of service.

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Can you please clarify, exactly what you believe is against the Party T&C?

Party has specifically taken action against the "sharing" of datamined data, and possibly the use of automation to datamine... but where in the T&C does it say that manual datamining for your own personal use is prohibited?

(Note: At this time, based on the beta software floating around, it appears that Party will do away with observed HH stored on your HD, at some point in the future)

Re: Ethics of Datamining/Banned Software use
 

This is a pretty horrible poll. Try not to display your bias so clearly next time.

Re: Ethics of Datamining/Banned Software use
 

There's a huge difference between datamining and collusion.

Re: Ethics of Datamining/Banned Software use
 

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How would you datamine an unobserved hand? O_o

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uhh, its pretty simple

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[img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

Re: Ethics of Datamining/Banned Software use
 

On Party, what pieces of software are allowed that give on table stats or are all banned? Or are none banned?

Re: Ethics of Datamining/Banned Software use
 

i dont see the option for:

"Bitter because I can't afford/can't figure out how to use PokerTracker"

Re: Ethics of Datamining/Banned Software use
 

The survey seems flawed. I think you misunderstand the term collusion. Mining unobserved hands has nothing to do with collusion.

Collusion has to do with people sending you signs on a hand in progress allowing you to know for a certainty things you shouldn't know about a hand.

Datamining is about getting stats on old hands giving you numbers that hint at player behavior in the future. You don't actually know anything about a hand in progress.

I'd be perfectly content if all sites disallowed mining uobserved hands, but I think on the scale of things to be concerned about, it's pretty darned low.