Quote Originally Posted by Jack Sawyer
I really truly dislike the idea of "software giving people an edge during play"

Really truly abhor it
There's a fine line. Most sites ban software that performs EV calculations and pot odds during the hand, but they allow HUD's that show only PAST hands. The former really is an illegal edge, at least in the poker community right now. The latter is just an accurate picture of how villain's have behaved in the past.

As investment brokers say, past returns is no guarantee of future results.

BTW, there are some interesting ways to "trick" opponents who use a HUD, the most obvious and soundest of which is to play positional poker, opening twice as many (or more) hands from LP/button than from EP/UTG. The HUD stats are for all positions. Another obvious way is to play two contrasting styles, one "loose" and one "tight." If you played each style 50% of the time, then 20/16 and 10/8 would average out to 15/12. When you were playing tight, the villains with HUD's would estimate a wider range than you're playing. When you were loose, they would give you too much credit. Since I play several styles that vary within those approximate ranges, depending upon the table, regs with HUD's may not have an accurate picture of how I'm playing NOW despite having thousands of hands worth of info about how I've played in the past.

Here's my bottom line: HUD's are here to stay, and if villain's are going to use them, I cough up EV by not using one myself, and doing it more and better than they are.