Using Datamined Hands on PokerStars is Cheating

Decided to take a few minutes out of my day to show that using datamined hands on PokerStars is cheating and outline a few possibilities for risk. First we define cheating:

Originally Posted by dictionary.com

cheating

To violate rules deliberately, as in a game.

Now, in the rules that PokerStars lists on this page http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/room/prohibited/ we have:

Originally Posted by pokerstars.com

Q: In general, what kind of tools and services are acceptable?

2. Tools and services that profile your opponents, but make use of only information which you have accumulated by your own play.

Now a number of people would suggest that no one should really care about this since there is no way to enforce it, but the PokerStars client already does quite a bit of snooping, including actively monitoring all network connections and all programs that are running, and it wouldn't be that big of a stretch for them to search for HHs and such for mass hands that you weren't involved in.

In any event, it's cheating. That's all.

It's only cheating by dictionary definition. It's no more 'cheating' than dataminnig through 24-tabling 100k hands & having a massive DB on the regs. As if it gives you any significant edge over anyone else who has a decent sample of the regs.

Your quoting of dictionary definitions is just nancy-boy hall monitor BS

Originally Posted by d0zer

It's only cheating by dictionary definition. It's no more 'cheating' than dataminnig through 24-tabling 100k hands & having a massive DB on the regs. As if it gives you any significant edge over anyone else who has a decent sample of the regs.

Your quoting of dictionary definitions is just nancy-boy hall monitor BS

In the bold you agree that it's cheating. Playing 100k hands and using those hands for information is clearly not cheating because it's not datamining. The edge or lack of an edge that you would gain from datamining is completely irrelevant, but if you gained no edge then why would you go through the trouble of doing it?

If honesty and integrity are merely "nancy-boy hall monitor BS" to you as well, then I can understand your point of view.

I suppose I'm a cheater when a friend plays from his account on my computer. The hh's that he generates while playing are now in my HEM db and I never faced any of these players.

I'll let you all know when i get banned.

Originally Posted by Hawkfan79

I suppose I'm a cheater when a friend plays from his account on my computer. The hh's that he generates while playing are now in my HEM db and I never faced any of these players.

I'll let you all know when i get banned.

Don't you care about honesty and integrity? You're basically no better than Edward Norton in rounders, or a baby-rapist now IMO.

Originally Posted by d0zer

Its not a zeppelin,

its just a hydrogen or helium filled, equipped with a rigid metal alloy skeleton, made of rings and longitudinal girders and all sorts of passenger commodities, air cruising balloon

FYP

this thread'll go down like a led zeppelin.

Originally Posted by Hawkfan79

I suppose I'm a cheater when a friend plays from his account on my computer. The hh's that he generates while playing are now in my HEM db and I never faced any of these players.

Then yes, by definition you're a cheater.

Originally Posted by d0zer

Don't you care about honesty and integrity? You're basically no better than Edward Norton in rounders, or a baby-rapist now IMO.

Everyone has to decide what's important to themselves in life. If honesty and integrity are not important to someone, then that's their choice.

Clearly this isn't on the same level as a rapist, but it's closer in nature to what Worm did in Rounders since it gives him information from a source that is against the rules (though it's obvious Worm's information was more valuable).

It's very disturbing to know that the same group who would complain about honesty and integrity whenever someone puts them at a disadvantage (say the AP or UB scandals) would be perfectly fine with compromising their own honesty and integrity when it gives them a tiny edge.

those who choose to cheat should expect no sympathy when stars (inevitably) gets the datamine site closed down and/or their rolls get confiscated...

Originally Posted by daven

those who choose to cheat should expect no sympathy when stars (inevitably) gets the datamine site closed down and/or their rolls get confiscated...

To me it seems very much like when players used to have multiple accounts in the same tournaments at the same time. It was obviously cheating because it was against the rules, but the people doing it didn't really think anything was wrong with it until they got in trouble over it.

Originally Posted by spoonitnow

Originally Posted by daven

those who choose to cheat should expect no sympathy when stars (inevitably) gets the datamine site closed down and/or their rolls get confiscated...

To me it seems very much like when players used to have multiple accounts in the same tournaments at the same time. It was obviously cheating because it was against the rules, but the people doing it didn't really think anything was wrong with it until they got in trouble over it.

Those who cheat get sponsored.

So it's possible to datamine Stars? I had no idea.

"but make use of only information which you have accumulated by your own play. "

so technically using any hud sort of thing is cheating, since YOU did not accumulate the information through your own play, a program accumulated the information and calculated everything for you. In order for you to do it personally you would have to go through every single hand history and keep track of it yourself.

Of course, I know spoon does this already, just to fill the dead time while 18 tabling.

Nah, you did. You observed the hands since you were at the table and got dealt cards when they took place and, dutifully paid your rake per orbit, and have elephantine memory to remember and math whizkid skills to do the calcs.

I hate HUDs, but your argument does not stand.


The problem Spoon is trying to forward, is the equivalent of being on every table with a notepad without having been dealt cards, so without any reason of being at the table other than to collect info on everybody in the hand for free. The 10th man on a 9-man table. The equivalent of Bill Belichick's Spygate.

I've let the HUD thing slide so far because I stand pretty much alone, but I have to say I agree with shazbox that it's a thin line. If you had accumulated the information by your own brainpower, you would not need the HUD. The HUD gives you information that you won't have without it because you don't have perfect memory.
I think HUD's are the root of all evil. - Discussing how much data should be available to whom is kind of dancing around the issue.
HUD's do give an advantage to the people who pay for them - and thus put the players who don't use them at a disatvantage - that's the whole point, isn't it?
If Pokerstars would implement the HUD into their client - nobody would want that because it scares the new players - but it would be the only fair solution other than banning them altogether.

I will start using a HUD once every player has access to one.
Just because it's tolerated doesn't mean it's not cheating.

Originally Posted by oskar

I will start using a HUD once every player has access to one.
Just because it's tolerated doesn't mean it's not cheating.

Every player does have access to one. They just choose to wallow in their ignorance in the fact that more can be learned about poker than playing a couple thousand hands. Many very stupid people have found FTR and 2+2 and became good poker players. Should we ban those too since not everyone has access to them, or would you like to build the links to these sites and others into the software as well.

As for tolerated does not mean it's cheating, you could be no more wrong. Pokerstars rules say they are allowed. That means they are not cheating. When they say they are no longer allowed, we stop using them.

Originally Posted by jyms

Originally Posted by oskar

I will start using a HUD once every player has access to one.
Just because it's tolerated doesn't mean it's not cheating.

Every player does have access to one. They just choose to wallow in their ignorance in the fact that more can be learned about poker than playing a couple thousand hands. Many very stupid people have found FTR and 2+2 and became good poker players. Should we ban those too since not everyone has access to them, or would you like to build the links to these sites and others into the software as well.

As for tolerated does not mean it's cheating, you could be no more wrong. Pokerstars rules say they are allowed. That means they are not cheating. When they say they are no longer allowed, we stop using them.

The online poker community has a technology problem as the options expand. The line between "cheating" and "fair play" is certainly arbitrary. But it's agreed upon and written in the "user agreement" we all singed digitally.

Using HUD's to display stats from the last hand is fine. Using a real time odds calculator to display information about the current hand is not. A very fine line, and nothing moral about the choices. Just what everyone has agreed to.

My question is about other sites like Full Tilt. I data mine in the background there while playing, often before playing to get a read on tables. I think I'll check the fine print on my other sites to make sure I'm playing with legitimate information. Playing on the big sites is quite different from small ones, where my own multitabling built a huge HH record with most of the regs without any extra mining.

Full Tilt has the same policy btw.

Brings up an interesting question. Is personal datamining OK? If not (and it appears it's not legit according to the fine print), what about when you sit out of 9 tables for a few minutes while taking a break? HEM still collects HH's. It seems would be almost impossible NOT to cheat the way the software works, since HEM collects HH's as soon as you sit down at FT while you're waiting for the blinds to come around.

It all seems stupid to me...
U can go to a casino and watch the game, and take notes, right?
Only thing, u cannot physically watch several games, but u could pay someone to watch the game and take notes for u, right?
Well, w HEM or PT, u just got that service for cheap, but i dont see what would make it cheating.
Players have always taken notes on other players since the beginning of time, and have even exchanged their notes on a third player...
Why would internet poker be any different? The fact that we have computers that automate stuff that was harder to do before doesnt change it into cheating, imo.
Players now take live notes with audio recorders where before they had to remember and write them down later manually on a notepad.
Well, that doesnt make taking notes by recording your comments after each hand more cheating than writing them down with a pencil.
If you can take notes, then u can take notes, and wether u choose to write your own software to do it for u, or choose to use chalk and a blackboard doesnt change a thing.
All you are doing is taking notes.

Bump

datamining is overrated

Originally Posted by asdpikas

U can go to a casino and watch the game, and take notes, right?

at my casino you are not even allowed to be in the pokerroom if you are not at least on the waiting list.