Disturbing e-mail from partypoker

[ds914]

[ QUOTE ]
think of how partys business rep will change if ordinary people think bots are going to cheat them out of their money

[/ QUOTE ]

That's the thing -- they already believe it. They also believe in cashout curses, action flops, hole-card readers and every other conspiracy you can think of.

Yet they keep playing.

[bobbyi]

Pokeredge has commented on this in their forums:
http://www.poker-edge.com/forum/view...e5d6faf175c237

[PuertoKid]

[ QUOTE ]
What's the objection to this type of software? I don't get it.

I could care less if people know how often I raise or what my aggression factor is, I just worry about playing the best I can.

I really don't understand the fear.

Nigel

[/ QUOTE ]

The objection is very simple. Commercial datamining operations provide hard core poker players access to data that helps to strip the casual player of his money in the quickest manner possible. I do not think this is good for the online poker industry or the majority of customers the online poker industry hopes to attract. The hard core folks are there to play and will stay there. There is no reason to give them any tools that help them take money from the other customers any quicker than they normally would.

[Greg J]

For the record I don't use PE, but I thought providing the text of what they said would be helpful.

***************************
Fellow Subscribers,
It has come to our attention that some of you have received emails from Party/Empire Poker's Investigation Team regarding the use of player profiling software. We are aware of this issue and are currently discussing with Party/Empire, looking into the ramifications and deciding our next course of action. We urge you to sit tight until we have further info. We will be sure to post as soon as new information comes to light. For the time being, if you have received a warning email you should use PE at your own risk. As of today, no accounts have actually been closed to the best of our knowledge, however warning emails have been sent out. We are doing our best to find an adequate solution for all parties.

[PuertoKid]

I do not disagree with what you say. I do not object to people storing the hands they play. I do object to datamining activities. Certainly the commercial ones, but I even object to datamining done on a personal level if it involves people tracking hands they are not playing or not personally observing.

[PuertoKid]

[ QUOTE ]
I know I am in the minority but I have already sent party several emails about mass-data mining and programs like pokeredge. They thank me for the emails, say they are looking into it but they still allow data mining at tables you are not playing. So who knows.

Send them an email at alerts@partypoker.com if you also don't like mass-data minig, pokeredge or other programs like that.

Ken

[/ QUOTE ]

Thank you, I will send an email to this address as well as see if I can find a real world address to which I can write a letter. I think I will put up a web page about this problem too and see how high I can get it in the google search query. I'm sure some public visibility would help motivate Party to take some action against this.

As a software design engineer, I know people can always find ways around whatever things Party does to prevent datamining, but I also know Party can make it very hard for them and require them to make frequent updates to their software that throws the dataminers off. Enough so that it would dramatically decrease the effectiveness of the datamining applications/services.

PK
(Chairman of the new "Online Poker Players For Fair Play Association")

[slavic]

This is were the folks at pokeredge took a risk of being a pioneer. The big question of their "model" is how will IGM react? If the IGM skins were located in a regulated area they could have had a decent legal opinion on if they could create this service, unfortunatly here they are at IGM's whim.

In truth all of the secondary software services sit in the same situation. Pokertracker, et all could be eliminated tomorrow by the T&C's. Personally playing online would become annoying without a stat tracker, but if they wanted to do it they could.

[PuertoKid]

[ QUOTE ]
If you are a good player, you should be happy about the existence of pokeredge, even if you don't use it. One of its main uses is table selection: people use it to avoid other good players and try to find tables full of fish. This means that other good payers will see your stats and avoid your tables. This benefits you both-- it is better to play at separate tables where you will both make money than to butt heads against each other.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think you are looking at short term benefits of PokerEdge and ignoring some longer term deteriments.

[Lestat]

<font color="red"> I am going to close one of my skin accounts. </font>

This is hilarious! Do you see why?

[Lestat]

<font color="red"> I really don't understand the fear. </font>

Losing players are afraid they will lose their money at a faster clip. It's understandable for them to want to hang on to it for as long as possible.