An ethics question - is using software to track dead cards cheating?

[Dan Mezick]

Note that the example here, ie sharing cards with other players in the game, perfectly satisfies and fits my previously proffered definition of cheating.

That using information not available to other opponents.

[Dan Mezick]

DeeJ,

Is that your visage in the picture, or an alias?

[DeeJ]

<<<- That is Juliette Binoche.

I am far uglier and hairier.

[snowden719]

I really don;t like responses to these types of questions because they always seem to be sidestepping the real issue. When we ask, "are upcard tracking programs cheating?" then we are asking an ethical question. To simply define cheating as what is within the set of prohibitions given by the site is meaningless, if that were the case then there would be no debate as to wheter or not using said software was cheating, we could just email the major poker sites and ask them if it was ok to use them. However, I don;t think people are asking an evidentiary question, and are instead asking for a value judgement. To say that these programs are cheating is not to say that they do not fall under the current guideliness, but instead should be a statement that if Party Poker had the ideal set of rules, should this progam be allowed or shouldn;t it be. To merely respond that it is cheating by pointing out that party bans adds nothing to the conversation.

That said, I don;t really think that these programs should be considered cheating as they are not giving you information that anyone else doesn;t have. Anyone could write down the dead cards if they wanted to, you jsut hppen to be doing so, I'm not sure why the ease should make diffeence, and if you think it does, what if I had a program that kept track of it, but was very difficult to use and required a lot of mental concentrtion to work it, would that make it ok to use. If people think it is ok to use other methods of keping trck of the upcards, such as in one's head or on a piece of paper, I'm not sure why the fact that anybody could use the program or that it's a computer doing it is significant.