"Datamining" programs

[Hoss1193]

Have been playing about 18 mo, but just now starting to expand my online game; began multitabling, using PT, etc.

Read an article about online poker about a week ago (was a link from one of these threads), and the author (the guy at Card Player mag) made a passing remark about "datamining" while playing online being against policy of the poker sites. Stated that they monitor for these programs being used, and will bar you from the site if they catch you.

I assume he's talking about Gametime & PokerAce type programs (which I haven't started using yet). Have looked in the FAQs and back through a lot of threads, but haven't seen anything about this on this site. I'd like to try out as many tools as I can, and use those I find advantageous...but I also want to stay legitimate and not cross any lines.

Can anyone lend some insight on this?

[manpower]

Datamining is setting up tables, observing them, and importing the hands into pokertracker or a like databasing program. And no, I've never heard of anyone getting their account banned for this. Some people also use mining specific progs like PartyMine, which will keep a number of tables open to games meeting certain characteristics, such as how many people are in the game.

Gametime, pokerace and playerview are all heads up displays that overlay the stats you've collected in your database onto the table window.

[aargh57]

One of the controversial programs is PokerEdge. I think that's because it shares databases which sites consider unfair. I was looking at PT's website yesterday and PT seems pretty safe to use. The guy that made it said that he has worked with Party to make it auto import so he'd be very surprised if they banned it. Also, many of these sites have PT as a giveaway promotion so I doubt it's going to give you any problems.

PT is definitely safe to use. I also use Partymine and have had no problems yet.