Should Data mining be allowed? How about poker-edge

[Art Vandelay]

I really don't understand why Party lets you see hole cards on observed tables. If they simply removed that datamining and Pokeredge would be gone instantly.

I personally don't datamine as I found that all I got was a bunch of data on TAGs but I can see its purpose. But I'll be damned if I'm paying someone to give me nothing more than stats on players. I can figure out all I need to know in 2-3 orbits at a table. I've actually felt since I started using PV that my reading skills have diminished and am considering playing without it for a couple of weeks to see how it goes for me.

[randomstumbl]

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I really don't understand why Party lets you see hole cards on observed tables.

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[imported_luckyme]

I played live poker for about 10 years before drifting off to other ventures. A small group of us would share notes on other players ... playing style, tells, ways to tilt them, etc. We never felt restricted to personally observed knowledge. Data mining seems a difference of degree rather than anything new ( admittedly it feels 'off' to me, but alot of computerized actions can have that feel).

With all the TV poker shows, could a group of us watch different shows, compile a database on the players and use that knowledge .. and not be seen as 'going too far'?

I haven't formed a solid opinion on datamining yet, I'm swaying to the "it's hmmm... ok", partly because of it being an expansion of past practice, partly because I think the really valuable skill is in the individual interpretation and application of your conclusions rather than the data.

I hope that's not too controversial for a 1st post.
oh, hi...

[mistrpug]

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you can watch tables until you're ready to sit down in live poker too.

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Well even if datamining wasn't allowed, you could watch a table before you sat down without having access to the hand histories. Clearly this is a far cry from having 24 Party skin tables open 24/7.

[ckessel]

I don't favor it because a) I'm biased by using a stats viewer during play, and b) it's nearly pointless to fight technological advances. The genie has escaped the lamp, the best you can do is make information available to anyone that wants to use it. Have a link on Party to software that may be used by some players. Let each person decide if they care.

Trying to put the genie back in the bottle just means you'll have people writing their own programs, using existing ones that are smart enough to change their process names every startup, etc.

They can take steps to reduce the ability to use the programs. Deny hand history requests while running. Deny history requests on tables other than ones you played on, etc.

[randomstumbl]

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Trying to put the genie back in the bottle just means you'll have people writing their own programs, using existing ones that are smart enough to change their process names every startup, etc.

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I buy the argument for PT/PV, etc.

However, there's a very easy way to stop data-mining. Observed hand histories should not contain the mucked hands. Not only does that stop data-mining, it just makes perfect sense.

Try explaining how "the pros" know how someone plays because they have programs that watch you for months before you ever sit down at a table with them. Whether it's improper or not, it certainly has the appearance of impropriety.

[ckessel]

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However, there's a very easy way to stop data-mining. Observed hand histories should not contain the mucked hands. Not only does that stop data-mining, it just makes perfect sense.


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I agree it makes sense. Seems silly to me you can see mucked hands in the hand history.

Won't have a damned bit of impact on data mining though. Datamining is about how often you see the flop, how aggressive you are, etc. None of those stats involve seeing your hand.

[ohkanada]

Sure, the question isnt should the mucked cards be displayed. The question is should they give you the ability to request hands that you are not in.

Ken

[haakee]

You can ask somebody else at the table how an unknown plays if you are friendly with enough people in the cardroom you'll likely get an honest answer for free.

[ckessel]

I'd say no. You can only get the hands you were involved in. That doesn't prevent data sharing, but it cuts down on the number of people datamining by leaving poker tracker up all day on multiple tables.

Still, on a practical level, I don't know how you're going to stop things like PokerEdge. Granted, you can prevent them from requesting random hand histories, but you can't prevent it from having each subscriber sending their histories automatically.

And detecting it running is just begging for an arms race of ways to prevent detection vs. more system intrusive searched by the Party software. To be honest, I don't want them EVER mucking about in my system. Yea, watch play patterns, timing, etc, checking for collusion and bots, but don't go rifling through my computer.

90% of the value in the tools is table selection anyway. If sites just had more details about tables in the first place two things would happen. First, it'd go 90% of the way to leveling the playing field as everyone would have the most important table related data (saw the flop% and %raise preflop are the main numbers I use). Second, tables would tend to auto-level as players would naturally migrate to the best games, making using GameTime/PokerEdge for table selection less important.

Then the place that PE/GT would really have value is against the long time players with statistically accurate numbers. Here you're largely talking about TAG-on-TAG play, in which case the "these tools fleece newbies" complaint is no longer valid.

I think the edge of having stats on a fish just largely isn't that useful. There's an edge, but compared to the edge of just playing a fish in general, it's not that large. There's largely 2 types of fish, maniac fish and calling station fish and there isn't a lot of complexity in play against them. Specific player stats help me most against the TAG/TAP/TPP players.