partypoker banning HUDs

[wpilson70]

Loving all the amateur penny grinders in the forum who apparently have more information and better knowledge than the people running Party

How the penny grinders at Cardschat have it allllllll figured out.

I’ve seen a lot of people whining and bellyaching about no HUDS. And I’ve seen a few things I wasn’t clear about explained in detail.

And the few bits of useful info was buried in post after post of opinions about Party and general bull shit. I’m relieved to know that if I don’t use a HUD, according to the wise and mighty Cardschat forum, I must be some ignorant piece of shit who’s too stupid to know how I’m being buried at the tables.

This place gets better every day. Deeper. Like peeling an onion. You keep digging, and more layers of stink emerge

Come find me on Party and take my money. I got no HUD so I must be easy pickings

 

[fundiver199]

Well said. Also a lot of people have this idea, that if only HUDs are banned, then suddenly online poker will become great again. But what is that idea based on? I currently play at 888, where HUDs are working at regular tables but not at their SNAP fast fold tables.

In the weekend I SNAP´ed 200 hands at 5NL just to see, how the game played, and my main impression was, that there was a lot of aggression preflop. I got 3-bet or 4-bet almost constantly, and when I 3-bet myself, mostly the opponents folded. Very few hands saw a flop.

So I certainly saw no signs, that the ban on HUDs had attracted more recreational players. If anything it seem to me, that a lot of regulars were “hiding” in the HUD-free environment and using it to ramp up their preflop aggression even further. Of course sample size is an issue, but I certainly did not experience this as a particularly “soft” game.

 

[Poker Orifice]

Well said. Also a lot of people have this idea, that if only HUDs are banned, then suddenly online poker will become great again. But what is that idea based on? I currently play at 888, where HUDs are working at regular tables but not at their SNAP fast fold tables.

In the weekend I SNAP´ed 200 hands at 5NL just to see, how the game played, and my main impression was, that there was a lot of aggression preflop. I got 3-bet or 4-bet almost constantly, and when I 3-bet myself, mostly the opponents folded. Very few hands saw a flop.

So I certainly saw no signs, that the ban on HUDs had attracted more recreational players. If anything it seem to me, that a lot of regulars were “hiding” in the HUD-free environment and using it to ramp up their preflop aggression even further. Of course sample size is an issue, but I certainly did not experience this as a particularly “soft” game.

FastForward & SNAP are loaded with regs. and play is always uber aggressive (especially at periods for EURO daytime players... games change significantly after ~13:00 (ET) )

 

[No1eJoker]

I think they wanted on one way to get closer to playing Live Poker,where we can not see player statistics and hand history (only can use our memory)..I do not play at partypoker (only cca freeroll and use ticket if win) so I do not want to comment this changes!!

 

[belizebum]

I read that you could still use PartyCaption. Does anyone know if that's true?

 

[Max Diver]

Party Poker new rule, no software help

Hi guys,

The way I see excellent decision of party poker, no more software help on their tables.

More fair game to everyone. I hope the other sites follow their great call.

Did you guys liked too ??

Cheers,
M.D.

 

[John A]

Well said. Also a lot of people have this idea, that if only HUDs are banned, then suddenly online poker will become great again. But what is that idea based on? I currently play at 888, where HUDs are working at regular tables but not at their SNAP fast fold tables.

In the weekend I SNAP´ed 200 hands at 5NL just to see, how the game played, and my main impression was, that there was a lot of aggression preflop. I got 3-bet or 4-bet almost constantly, and when I 3-bet myself, mostly the opponents folded. Very few hands saw a flop.

So I certainly saw no signs, that the ban on HUDs had attracted more recreational players. If anything it seem to me, that a lot of regulars were “hiding” in the HUD-free environment and using it to ramp up their preflop aggression even further. Of course sample size is an issue, but I certainly did not experience this as a particularly “soft” game.

To answer your question, what's it's based on? Bad reasoning, and some online players that don't understand what a HUD is.

If the goal is to make the poker ecosystem as healthy and as large as possible, banning HUD's on sites would have the opposite effect. Mass multi-tabling regs are a large part of the healthy poker ecology. They generate a lot of revenue for sites, which can then use that revenue for advertising to bring in new rec players.


We're living through a transitional time right now all over the world. A lot of industries and areas of culture are moving away from belief / intuitive based decisions, to more data / science based decisions processes. As a result, a lot of areas of life and culture are rapidly changing. For some, this is hard to handle, and they believe a lot of those areas are being ruined as a result of this new information and data based approaches to problems.

I'll use baseball as an example, but this is happening in pretty much every sport right now. Before every pitch of a new batter, infielders take off their caps, and look at their own HUDs to see where they need to position themselves for that batter. And before the pitcher throws, the catcher flips up a heat map for that batter, and lets the pitcher know where they need to throw and what kind of pitch to get that batter out.


A lot of people in baseball will say, these new data based approaches are ruining the game of baseball. They don't like the shifts, or the catchers having all of this info. I, and others say, this is part of the evolution of the sport.

Same thing is happening in basketball, football, and so on. In the same way, people want to say HUDs are ruining the online game. I'd argue the opposite. I think it's allowed the online games to flourish in ways they wouldn't have otherwise, and I do have some data to back that up. This is part of the evolution of poker, and it's a healthy evolution.

 

[Play_Analyst]

to me its just another form of cheating do it on your own using software in any way is cheating wouldnt be allowed in any house game ive ever played in. I guess its for the inferior brain

Nothing personal aimed at you in my reply, just using it as an example.

So I've got a photographic memory and I don't drink. You on the other hand love to drink while playing and can't remember your own name at times.

Am I cheating because I remember how you play and when you get smashed you play any old junk? This is basically what a HUD provided. It gave the ability of recall and remembered when you acted like a muppet and how many times you donked with air.

The other thing to remember is that those HUDs had to be bought and paid for. In a game where information is everything I actually see it as poor play NOT to use a HUD.

I'd actually like to see the sites release information on what they consider to be a recreational player and just how many of those players make up the membership of the site.

Whilst it's true we need to attract more players to the game we have to remember that time and technology has moved on. Look at any of the major console games and the amount of info younger gamers soak up on them.

HUDs was never the problem in my mind. By far the biggest problem was and is with bots and collusion. The only thing I thing Party Poker have got right with the new site updates is removing the ability for a player to choose what table they sit at.

This pretty much puts a stop to any kind of collusion which is a great thing for the game, especially cash games. Not sure how it will stop bots but I'd like to hope that it does.

Those are the 2 things that casual players see as the problems with and why they perceive online poker to be rigged.

 

[antonis32123]

I liked very much that PartyPoker decided players to change their alias , and all this fight against HUDs , yes ....I don't use them , they give unfair advantage to some players I wish they were banned everywhere
17 June was a great day , I enjoyed this freeroll fiesta , had a deep run on one freeroll , I just wish I had made better preparation with the tickets that I had the previous days so as to win more and play more tickets or spins this day (and win more click cards) .

 

[fundiver199]

The only thing I thing Party Poker have got right with the new site updates is removing the ability for a player to choose what table they sit at. This pretty much puts a stop to any kind of collusion which is a great thing for the game, especially cash games.

I dont think, random seating stop collusion. Except for stakes like 2NL-5NL the player pool on a site like Party is small, so people buying in to a game shortly after one another will often be placed at the same table anyway. And should it fail, then colluders can just trial and error, until they end up on the same table.

What random seating does is to make table selection and seat selection more difficult, so it makes it more difficult to beat the games. And from the perspective of a poker site it is better, that deposited money end up as rake rather than being withdrawn by a winning player.


That being said the process of buying into cash games through a traditional poker lobby can be tedious, so random seating certainly does make the games more recreational player friendly. Which is presumably also why, pokerstars offer it as an option.

 

[John A]

I liked very much that PartyPoker decided players to change their alias , and all this fight against HUDs , yes ....I don't use them , they give unfair advantage to some players I wish they were banned everywhere
17 June was a great day , I enjoyed this freeroll fiesta , had a deep run on one freeroll , I just wish I had made better preparation with the tickets that I had the previous days so as to win more and play more tickets or spins this day (and win more click cards) .

I'd like to ask anyone who says this, how is it unfair if everyone has access to the same things?

How does Pokerstars thrive as the top site and allow HUDs, and yet recs deposit there in groves?

If you don't want to use a HUD, then fine. But using them correctly is a SKILL. It adds another dimension to poker, that you don't have live, because... drum roll... online poker is NOT live poker.

Should baseball players stop using stats on other players? Football? Which sport exactly that accumulates data, just like HUDs do, should stop using that data because it's unfair? I'm asking seriously.

 

[jepc18]

everything that is good to benefit the players is excellent

 

[John A]

everything that is good to benefit the players is excellent

This change doesn't benefit the players. It does the exact opposite. It puts you and other players at high risk.

 

[Das4ever]

Because of hud ban I am going to check this site for sure

 

[mk0523]

Banning Huds will make the games more lively and faster paced. If you can't keep up without your HUD than play fewer tables. The majority of people using HUDS are multiablers who tend to be net even/slight winners who make their money via grinding many games in a short period of time. They are not complicated player types and exploit weaker player's mistakes that they wouldn't be able to do as effectively if there playing more than 4 tables without a HUD.

 

[juliannorei]

I started playing poker at partypoker, but then changed my pc and updated the App was horrible catching a lot, so I migrated pro pokerstar and since then did not play but in the party.

 

[vuk011]

It's perfectly suited for me to play without Huds lol.. It looks much more realistic. There is no Hud in live poker

 

[Dorugremon]

I believe this is a key point. Sites make more money from casino and sportsbetting than poker, and when they look down on their bottom line, they see the former two going up, while poker is going down.

Everytime I close the 888 server, I get a small message saying "will we see you at 888 Sports", and I can earn more reward points, if I play poker, AND casino games AND place some sports bets.

How is this any different from any B&M venue? Negative EV games and player stupidity will always generate more profit than the rake at the Poker tables. While you can find overlays in sports betting, the horses and dogs, they're not easy to spot. You will naturally be more richly rewarded in comps for playing -EV games than a game like Poker where the house has no stake in the outcome.

I will not try to predict, if the moves of PartyPoker will work for them for not, but it will for sure be bad for online poker. When 888 recently launched new software, which took away the ability to take notes on your opponents or put labels on them, their renevue from poker declined 30%.

How damn lazy do you have to be? GNOME, KDE, and Windows all include free note taking Apps. They don't take up that much screen real estate, and there's always the pencil and paper option.

Online Poker is illegal in the US except for the states of NJ and Nevada.

Those other sites operate illegally.

Online Poker isn't illegal, per se:

There are currently no federal laws that directly prohibit or authorize online poker.
However, several federal statutes have the potential to prohibit online gaming in some way shape or form, if state laws are ambiguous. That said, only two of the four federal statutes that could apply to online gambling, IGBA and UIGEA, could reasonably be applied to online poker.
The other two federal laws often cited in online gambling discussions, 1992’s Professional and Amateur Sports Act (PASPA) and the 1961 Wire Act, are sports betting specific.
For the Wire Act, this wasn’t always the case.
Up until 2011 The DOJ’s interpretation of the 1961 Wire Act (first officially entered in 2002) effectively made online poker illegal in the US. That changed when, at the urging of Illinois and New York, the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel reexamined the Wire Act, and concluded its scope is limited to sports betting.

It's on a state-by-state basis. The problem was with transfers to/from sites like 'Stars. Again, the major problem is moralistic busy-bodies and a government that treats "We the People" like irresponsible children. That has always been the problem with the "land of the (not so) free". It's not the government's job to save you from yourself. Try explaining that to all those so-cons and Fundievangelicals out there who live in mortal fear that someone, somewhere, might be having fun.

Finally its difficult to overestimate the negative influence, which government intervention has had. If I play on PokerStars in the early european morning hours, a huge percentage of the recreational players are from one tiny country Canada.

Just imagine how much softer the games would be, or how much higher the overall level of activity, if US players were also still allowed to play. And its not just the US, which has prevented its adult citizens from playing on regulated international poker sites like Stars, 888 or Party

Blame the @#$&*! FedGov for that. Life would be a great deal more pleasant if "Uncle Sam" would learn how to mind his own GD business instead of ours.

As for whether Party Poker's decision to ban HUDs will be a good one or a really bad idea remains to be seen.