Why won't Pokerstars allow us to change Stars ID?

I was poking around online about this subject, and they (at stars) talk a good game about protecting others from predator players. But what about the average player that wants to hide from HUDs?

I dont see the problem. If you are playing live poker, you can also not change your name or appearance, because you fear, someone in your game might have picked up on, what you do. Also you can only be exploited, if you are playing an unbalanced game, so just try to be reasonably balanced in the most common situations.

If my HUD tell me, you are 3-betting 6% of the time, there is nothing, I can do with that information. But if it say 20% or 2%, then I can adjust my ranges and exploit you. And this is a problem, you have created yourself by either being way out of line with your 3-betting or only 3-betting the nuts.

Stars have opted for transparity including the allowance of HUDs, but if you prefer partly or full anonymity, there are other sites, that offer that. GG Poker and partypoker are HUD free (unless someone cheat), SNAP on 888 Poker is HUD free, and ignition is anonymous, so the HUD will only show in session stats.

I guess if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. I might start a trial on PokerTracker 4 and if I see positive results in my play with a little extra information, I'll probably be inclined to continue. I guess this is where online poker is trending to...

Thanks!

PokerTracker 4 is also a great tool to work on your game away from the table. The HUD is just a part of the program, it has many other functions besides that. And yeah if you are going to play on Stars, then I recommend it, because nearly all regulars are using this or something similar. But as I said, there are other options, if you dont like to play with a HUD.

It seems fair to me that pokerstars does not allow the change of ID, since the fact of playing with another identification is an advantage for that person.
Imagine that someone who knows how you play and takes advantage of that information he has to play against you, from another ID.
This is an advantage for any player, so it seems fair that it is prohibited for everyone.
Greetings.

Much as I wanted to change my name (not that I play too well but for reasons that the username is so shitty) I never considered ranting about this since I think it is fair that you are not able to change username just like that. Or people would just be changing usernames and spying on everyone else and their play.

Where sunglasses and they'll never see your nickname.

gustav197poker said:

Imagine that someone who knows how you play and takes advantage of that information he has to play against you, from another ID. This is an advantage for any player, so it seems fair that it is prohibited for everyone.

Greetings.

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This is exactly the core of the problem. I have played up to 12.000 hands with some of the regulars at Stars, and if I was allowed to play under another name, I would still have those 12.000 hands on them in my HUD, my notes and even my human memory, but they would have no information about me.

Personally I dont have any problem with it, if a casual player want to change his screen name, or maybe someone coming back after an extended break. But for obvious reason people playing regularly can not be allowed to do it, since they would gain an unfair advantage against each other.

fundiver199 said:

This is exactly the core of the problem. I have played up to 12.000 hands with some of the regulars at Stars, and if I was allowed to play under another name, I would still have those 12.000 hands on them in my HUD, my notes and even my human memory, but they would have no information about me.

Personally I dont have any problem with it, if a casual player want to change his screen name, or maybe someone coming back after an extended break. But for obvious reason people playing regularly can not be allowed to do it, since they would gain an unfair advantage against each other.

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I hear you. But if people who take this seriously want to preserve anonymity, they can also change their ID on a regular basis too and nobody would be able to take advantage. It would level the playing field IMO. The way it is right now, it can really skew things in the favour of the regular (over a casual player) when they already have the benefit of experience (I’d like to think) and other advantages.

That said, I also know that I am pretty private IRL (I like to keep a very low profile on social media) and the idea that someone comes into a game with “inside” information based on a HUD kinda bothers me. I am also learning that HUD only track stats for games you are actively involved in, so it kinda serves as a memory aid. So it would seem to reward you more if you play often enough to encounter the same people again. Personally, I probably only play 1-2 hours a day on average so I’m not sure how this will help me unless I really start multi-tabling.

But I think tracking and analyzing my own play would probably be most useful feature of all right now.

Thanks for your feedback, guys...

nameless1537 said:

Personally, I probably only play 1-2 hours a day on average so I’m not sure how this will help me unless I really start multi-tabling.

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But this goes both ways remember. If you only collect a small sample on your opponents, then they also only collect a small sample on you, so the information is equally limited both ways, if you dont play much.

nameless1537 said:

I hear you. But if people who take this seriously want to preserve anonymity, they can also change their ID on a regular basis too and nobody would be able to take advantage.

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Well I dont want anonymity, and I also dont want to change my ID. I like the fact, that I can recognize people, I have played with a lot, and also that they can recognize me. If its a concern about HUDs, then I would much prefer, that Stars offered HUD-free tables as an alternative to the regular table. I dont think, that will happen though, since they probably dont want to advertise the existence of HUDs to players, who dont know about them.

Maybe the most fair solution of all would be, that poker sites offered a simple build in HUD in their own software, just like the are offering a note pad, and then banned the use of external HUDs. But still allowed people to download hand historie to external programs like PT4 or HM2. But again maybe they dont want to advertise the fact, that online poker is actually a very technical and math based game, since this might deter some recreational players.

fundiver199 said:

Well I dont want anonymity, and I also dont want to change my ID. I like the fact, that I can recognize people, I have played with a lot, and also that they can recognize me. If its a concern about HUDs, then I would much prefer, that Stars offered HUD-free tables as an alternative to the regular table. I dont think, that will happen though, since they probably dont want to advertise the existence of HUDs to players, who dont know about them.

Maybe the most fair solution of all would be, that poker sites offered a simple build in HUD in their own software, just like the are offering a note pad, and then banned the use of external HUDs. But still allowed people to download hand historie to external programs like PT4 or HM2. But again maybe they dont want to advertise the fact, that online poker is actually a very technical and math based game, since this might deter some recreational players.

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As much as I hate to say this, I do believe that it's the (losing) recreational player, and more so, the gamblers and the fish that funds the whole online poker endeavour and it is probably in their best interests to make losing money fun for them (or re-enforce gambling mentality of having to make it back in the next deposit and offering awesome looking deposit bonuses).

If you take these kinds of advantages away from the skilled players and "level" the playing field, there would likely be less money coming in (via deposits) IF the recreational players begin to win a bit more and therefore deposit less... The whole industry is kind of predatory and fresh blood is necessary for them to survive.

Wow... that went dark, fast. So I do see where you are coming from -- it's probably in their best interests to keep the fish in the dark and keep them coming. Anyway, I've come around on the HUD thing and I've installed and set it up and even after one session, I've come to love it and can't really imagine playing without it now.

Sigh.

They won't allow it because they get paid by millionaire lobby group to spy and destroy your hobbies. They can change a winning hand to a losing one.

nameless1537 said:

As much as I hate to say this, I do believe that it's the (losing) recreational player, and more so, the gamblers and the fish that funds the whole online poker endeavour and it is probably in their best interests to make losing money fun for them (or re-enforce gambling mentality of having to make it back in the next deposit and offering awesome looking deposit bonuses).

If you take these kinds of advantages away from the skilled players and "level" the playing field, there would likely be less money coming in (via deposits) IF the recreational players begin to win a bit more and therefore deposit less... The whole industry is kind of predatory and fresh blood is necessary for them to survive.

Wow... that went dark, fast. So I do see where you are coming from -- it's probably in their best interests to keep the fish in the dark and keep them coming. Anyway, I've come around on the HUD thing and I've installed and set it up and even after one session, I've come to love it and can't really imagine playing without it now.

Sigh.

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The general theory in the industry is, that if new players lose their money to fast, they are less likely to deposit again, when their first deposit is gone. So all poker sites are taking measures to level the playing field in one way or another. Stars have recently gotten rid of seating scripts and the search player function to make bum hunting more difficult.

As for HUDs PartyPoker have just gotten rid of them, and to me it very much seem like a marketing tool for them. They are also very public about chasing bots, and the overall message is, they are “making the games more fair”. Its up for debate, if that will actually be the result, and more realistically they are just trying to increase their market share and revenue from poker and other types of online gambling.

Its fair to assume, that getting rid of HUDs must have been discussed at the managerial level of all poker sites. So why has for instance Stars not gone in that direction? The key reason might be, that HUD-users generate a lot of rake, and while some HUD-users are long term winning players, many others might be net depositing players. Maybe they build up their roll for a while, but then they go on monkey tilt, forget all about bankroll management, and have to redeposit.

Maybe Stars will eventually ban HUDs, and I am sure, they are keeping an eye out for, how it work for PartyPoker. But as long as HUDs are allowed, I have no moral problem using them. They are available to anyone, who wants to use them, as is other types of software, books, training sites and strategy videos.

And its not like limping into the pot with suited trash like J4, because the hand can make a flush, and then calling all the way down with bottom pair, is going to be a winning strategy, just because nobody can use a HUD. Fish and gamblers will always lose their money in the long run. Its only a question of how fast, and how much end up as rake or in the pockets of winning players.

As a winning player I honestly prefer, that as much as possible of this money end up in my pockets. In that sense winning players and poker sites do not have mutual interests, and to pretend otherwise is hypocritical. Sure I need the games to survive, but I dont need games, that are almost unbeatable.

I would love to change mine , but I don't have this option . I believe Stars will never give this option to the players , only if you become one of their embessadors I guess . Changing your alias is not a bad thing for many reasons , bad name choosing is one of them

To hide from the HUD only remains to play on anonymous tables. Such tables are offered by e.g. the iPoker network or unibet poker.

Because they can't make different data with Ur account guys. Once you have a nickname that's it. The need to change some algorithms that once created it cannot be edited because that would bug the interface. Hmm I need to explain some programming in here I see but guys I don't have the time. Grinding atm ����������������������������������������

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