Anyone else get email from Empire about running a bot?

[Rudbaeck]

[ QUOTE ]
-Hand histories should not contain mucked cards (if you feel your opponent is cheating, you can e-mail the history to support w/ the reason you believe this...they can then evaluate whether that's the case and reveal the cards to you if they choose).

[/ QUOTE ]

This I actually agree with. Asking to see mucked hands live is pretty much the same as stating "I think you are a cheating scumbag."

[Robert Ezzo]

Party is pretty much the only site that allows for this level of datamining, right? I know PokerStars, PokerRoom, Cryptologic sites, etc. don't store hand histories if you aren't sitting at the table playing.

I think the datamining thing is out of control. When somebody tells me they run their machine all day long gathering stats, I just shake my head. I have no qualms with joining a table that has a decent pot size, and then just treating everybody like good players until I can figure it out otherwise (or if, of course, I've played with them before). I do that at every other site I play at without any real troubles, so I don't see why Party has to be different about that. I only played with datamining for a couple of days before I realized how fundamentally useless it really ended up being.

I don't think the tools are neccessarily the problem, though - as one person already pointed out, this isn't like B&M. I recognize people when I walk into a casino, I can remember how they played, they can't hide their identities like that. Online is a bit different, since all you have is a username, and it is hard to tie that to a particular person. But when Party opened up the Pandora's box of allowing observed hand histories, I think they made a big mistake. If you want to learn how people play, you should have to sit at their table and play them. Simple as that.

And as for one of the other suggestions I saw - not allowing you to even open a table if you aren't sitting at it - that is just crazy. One of the things I do when I'm moving up between limits is observe a few different tables over the course of about 3-4 hours. What I'm watching for isn't the players specific styles of play, but an overall feel to how the games work (preflop raising, bluff raising, aggression, etc.), so I don't get blindsided when I move up. Note that I said "observe" - I'm actually watching the tables, not recording them. I can't see the value in blocking people from even watching a table - it seems ridiculous. Heck, my father (a fish amongst fish, but a low-limit one, thank goodness) likes to observe tables before he joins them (he doesn't have the tools like I have). Sometimes he likes to watch me playing. Should he be told he isn't allowed to do that? I hope not!

[mosta]

[ QUOTE ]
This I actually agree with. Asking to see mucked hands live is pretty much the same as stating "I think you are a cheating scumbag."

[/ QUOTE ]

I've never gotten that impression at all. My impression was always that they wanted to know if you were bluffing. If the guy asking and the guy(s) in the hand all know each other and I'm a stranger, and I three-bet the turn, it's my hand they all want to see. Now it's true their attitude often seems to be that bluffing is tantamount to cheating, but not in the sense of collusion.

[AquaSeaFoam]

[ QUOTE ]
Well speaking purely objectively, it wouldn't matter. I'm not the only programmer who's going to write this kinda stuff. I was one of the first but theres been all sorts of stuff coming out. If one program goes away another will pop up.

Not only that, but its not really that hard to do all sorts of stuff to get around any sorts of imposed limits. I mean really if party somehow managed to completely crack down on software running on the users machine, it wouldn't take all that much to display a mirror image of the tables on a different machine with all the stats on it.

The truth of the matter is that once you put something on the computer you open it up to a thousand guys like me who are just dying to improve upon it somehow.


[/ QUOTE ]

EXACTLLY..........its becoming less and less about poker and more about programming. The online game will mutate beyond anything that will attract normal recreational gamblers. The 10% that are computer geeks will love it....the 90% who want actual poker will LEAVE.

[tripdad]

has anyone considered that this letter may have been sent because Matt was using a MOD? i can't understand why the sites care whether you alter the appearance of their site, but in the player agreement, it clearly states that you cannot. just a thought.

cheers!

[Greg J]

[ QUOTE ]
Want to get even more radical (and get lots of these 8-tablers' undies in a twist):

-Players should not be able to play more than two tables at once
-Hand histories should not contain mucked cards (if you feel your opponent is cheating, you can e-mail the history to support w/ the reason you believe this...they can then evaluate whether that's the case and reveal the cards to you if they choose).
-If Party and others worked to make all their software incompatible w/ Ptracker and others that come up, I wouldn't mind
-There are other things, but I'm busy at work...I'll think of more later.


Jeff

[/ QUOTE ]
Awesome dude!

I've got more great ideas:
- They should not show the size of the pot.
- No more 4 color decks -- in fact, hearts and diamonds should be black from now on.
- They should randomly black out one of your hole cards, depending on your winrate -- the more you win the higher the liklihood you can only see one of your cards.
- If you take more than 3 seconds to make a decision your hand is folded. We don't need none of this fancy cipherin' stuff in poker!
- If you win more than 30 big bets at a limit table or 1.5 buyins at a NL table you are doing too well and obviously have reads. Not good for the game! You have to leave the table.
- If you are folding more than 75% of you hands out of the blinds you are playing too tight. This is TOTALLY UNFAIR to the guys cold calling with 76o preflop and gives you an unfair advantage. If you are under 25% of hands seen after 100 hands your account is frozen for a week.
- More ideas as I think of them.

[LALDAAS]

Bots, Data miners, Programs, who cares! If your a winning player your a winning player, Why becuase you play the numbers. You only take the best of it and force the villian to take the worest of it.

I am up $1000 (with bonuses) in the last 30 days just playing .50/1 I could care less who is using what. I play my cards, the board and do the math. In the end I win.

[Hoopster81]

[ QUOTE ]
-Players should not be able to play more than two tables at once

[/ QUOTE ]

What do you have against multi-tabling? I only play 8 tables at once, but I do not data-mine. At the stakes I play (25NL) there are SO MANY PLAYERS, that data-mining is just not feasible. I have had PT for about 6 months and have a player database of ~10K, but when I sit down at a table I'll have info on maybe 1 person. Granted, higher stakes have fewer players, and could be data-mined more effectively, but that's one of the (many) risks you take by playing higher limits.

People that object to multi-tabling fall into one of two categories in my experiece.

1. Poker traditionalists who don't want to see the game change.

2. People that just are not able to play 4-8+ tables effectively.

Bottom line is that technology changes fast, and in life you need to be able to keep up, or you just get left behind.

[teddyFBI]

[ QUOTE ]
I am also annoyed that when I get to play a really good table (I consider this a VP$IP of ABOVE 19%)

[/ QUOTE ]

uh.....have you played the Party 15??? you'll hardly ever find a single table there with less than VPIP 22. I won't sit unless the average VPIP is 28 +

[Jeffage]

ZZZZZ...

Actually I wouldn't mind if they didn't show the pot size and just spread a bunch of chips like in a live game. Your other ideas are obviously a poor attempt at satire. My point is...good players have a big advantage over donks already...if new technology stretches it to the extreme, donks go broke faster. Donks don't like to lose all the time. Donks go broke. Donks quit. Datamining makes it too easy. Just like they have a high ante at mid/high stud to handicap better players, not allowing people to datamine is a way to do this online. Level the field a bit and keep the fish solvent for longer.

Jeff