legal or illegal

is the use of poker tracking software legal or illegal? I have asked this question to several poker players here locally, but I always get a different answer, some say using certain ones can get you banned from sites like pokerstars of Full Tilt, if using this software is legal which one do I try first? Thank You in advance for your reply's.

poker tracking is OK, some sites ala PS supposedly will ban a player data mining, as yet, they have never done so to my knowledge. It's all
BS. Otherwise there wouldn't be sites that show stats on all players.

pokertrackers are crutches for weak players !

wolfie said:

pokertrackers are crutches for weak players !

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You are so clueless...

It actually differs from site to site.

PS and FT say that you can collect the info from your opponents in the hands you have played against them (using HEM for instance), but you are not allowed to use info about players from hands you never played (so called data mining).
All poker sites have lists with programmes that are allowed and programmes that aren't, on their home pages.

BelgoSuisse said:

You are so clueless...

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You are one of them
If you cant remember all hands against all opponents from your last 1000 24-tabling sessions, then you are weak and need crutches.

BTW, did you move to Vegas?

only_bridge said:

You are one of them
If you cant remember all hands against all opponents from your last 1000 24-tabling sessions, then you are weak and need crutches.

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Actually I don't 24 table. Only 16 cash tables allowed at Full Tilt. And I only 4 table rush poker while I hear some people can 8 table that. Maybe I am indeed weak...

wolfie said:

pokertrackers are crutches for weak players !

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Is that so? Virtually all of the best on-line players use some form of tracking software, Poker Tracker or Hold'em Manager. Are they weak players who have been magically transformed into winners or are they good players who realize that on-line poker is NOT live poker and need to take advantge of every legal tool at their disposal to improve their game and remain competative. IMO, tracking software has changed the game, both live and on-line, forever and if you are not using one to analyse your own game you just hurting yourself and ignoring reality. Tell me, is it profitable to raise UTG with small pocket pairs? If your not tracking you'll have no clue. Experience is great but memory is notoriously unreliable.

Four Dogs said:

Is that so? Virtually all of the best on-line players use some form of tracking software

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Actually, the super very best don't need to. When you play the nosebleeds and your entire player pool is Antonius, Ivey, Dwan, Galfond and another 5 or 10 players, you can depend entirely on your observation to keep track of your opponents.

Trackers become really important when your player pool has hundreds or thousands of players and it becomes physically impossible of keeping track manually while playing 1000 hands per hour.

BelgoSuisse said:

Actually, the super very best don't need to. When you play the nosebleeds and your entire player pool is Antonius, Ivey, Dwan, Galfond and another 5 or 10 players, you can depend entirely on your observation to keep track of your opponents.

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Not sure I agree. Brian Hastings credits saved hand histories (from Brian Townsend) for breaking Isildur1. But still, I was mostly referring to all the midlevel grinders who don't need to massage their ego's by playing the likes of Ivey, Antonius and durrr.