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HUDs - a compromise?
OK, so I've been against HUD's for a long time and it's one of the reasons I enjoy playing solely on Sky. However, being a frequent browser of another popular forum I have seen first hand on several occasions how regular players have worked together to detect things like bots and collusion simply by analysing in detail the HUD stats of certain suspicous players.
On a recent thread in Sky it was brought up by another user how players being vigilant can help in the matter of suspected collusion or multi-accounting - since a site only has so much resources to detect when players are colluding/multi-accounting.
Now, despite this I still don't think I would like to see HUD's in their current form implemented on Sky; That is, you can see the stats of the people you are playing against on the table. However, what I don't think would be *as bad* is being able to collect the data of players stats that you play against into an external database which couldn't be running at the same time that you have the Skypoker DL up (or indeed the browser) - I know the former is possible as I believe the big site has a way of detecting if you are using certain software but I don't know if the latter is possible - which may be a flaw in my idea.
This will make it possible to be able to analyse stats of players and see if any suspicous patterns occur within players that you suspect of multi-accounting or it could also detect potential bots (AFAIK Skypoker doesn't have a bot problem, but you never know.)
Now, this will add a new dimension to reg battles. You can study and analyse specific regs you may have trouble with; so it would change the dynamic of how Skypoker has worked. From a personal perspective I'd be at a disadvantage because I'm sure some of the REG's on here have probably used HUD's before on other sites and I'd have to learn something from new; but I don't think I'd be at a major disadvantage due to the small sky player REG base - the reads you gain playing someone frequently that you know are far more valuable than any HUD data.
This will make it possible to be able to analyse stats of players and see if any suspicous patterns occur within players that you suspect of multi-accounting or it could also detect potential bots (AFAIK Skypoker doesn't have a bot problem, but you never know.)
Now, this will add a new dimension to reg battles. You can study and analyse specific regs you may have trouble with; so it would change the dynamic of how Skypoker has worked. From a personal perspective I'd be at a disadvantage because I'm sure some of the REG's on here have probably used HUD's before on other sites and I'd have to learn something from new; but I don't think I'd be at a major disadvantage due to the small sky player REG base - the reads you gain playing someone frequently that you know are far more valuable than any HUD data.
The great thing with this idea is that if you are a low stakes REC you will be at no disadvantage for not using a HUD. REG's won't be able to exploit you because their sample size on you will be so small that it will never be something that they look at/remember when looking through their database. The only potential caveat could be with table selection; in that it might be possible to look through lobby and make a note of players names then close it, scan database and find the names which look like they have the most fishy stats and then join their table; however, by the time you have done all of that it's a good chance the table is full with a waiting list anyway if it's a really fishy player.
Now, I mention that for a low stakes REC it isn't a problem. However, there are some recreationals that frequently play at higher stake games. Which means the high stake REGs could then analyse the REC's play based on the stats they have from them. However, I'm unconvinced this would be a problem either. REC's have sporadic tendancies and don't do things that make sense. Tilt is one such example. A HUD can't really analyse and interperet such things properly whereas simply being at a table with them and getting a feeling for how they are currently playing is far more useful than anything you've memorised from their stats in your database. As such I don't think the external HUD will make a high stakes REC lose money any faster than they do already.
Unfortunately whilst I think this might be a good idea I can't see Sky introducing it any time soon because it probably doesn't make any business sense for them in the short term. But, I thought I'd put it out there for discussion anyway and it would be nice to know if it would be possible in the long term.
Comments
For a start it would be super easy to access the database using another device while playing.
Who is going to be prepared to spend a ton of money developing the software and running the database? Sales among the relatively small player pool here would never justify the outlay.
Once the Sky software is tweaked to allow hands to be read by this new HUD read it'll open the door to other software to do exactly the same.
There can't be grey areas. Either HUDs are allowed or they aren't. Sky have made their stance clear and I don't see many people disagreeing with it.
It just counts how often you do something and turns it into a %.
Huds are not allowed .
You can put all the hands you have played into a spread sheet if you like and look for Bots.
I don't get why you think high stakes players deserve database superuser privileges.
All the info is laid out on a plate , its in the account history for us all to see our own eyes.
How we spend time looking at it is, like you said, down to our own level of madness.
But we don't need to look at every hand.
Im currently 2 tabling , writing this reply and looking at a sky session I played earlier.
That session
About 100 hands played. ( all numbers guesses)
50 % of them didn't reach showdown
30 % were miniscule amounts that im not interested in
Of the rest, 7 hands intrest me.
No need to view every hand
If I was on any other site, without a HUD, It would be something similar.
If I was on a HUD site. It would be not too dissimilar either.
It depends how you mange your time with the data that's available, HUD or no HUD.
I don't look at HH for Bots ETc.
The best way to find a bot is write a Bot yourself, then you'll spot one a mile off.
As ivanovic mentioned, recently on 2p2 a bot ring was detected on pokerstars solely from 1 or 2 players spending hours searching through these endless statistics and finding similarities between players. I'll give you a small example, their are plenty more in the thread - there were around 10 bots in question, and a player managed to compile statistics that showed them all massively changing strategy on the exact same day. They all went from folding around 70% in the BB vs a SB raise to only folding 40%, this was over a sample of thousands of hands and it was only these (already) suspected bots that had such a sudden change of strategy.
Now, considering these hands took place months ago, how would you go about finding them in this sky poker box/hand history thing? It would a) take about 412 years and b) be close to impossible. I don't even like Ivanovic's idea but your points are just way off the mark, so I hope this enlightens you.
I haven't read/ googled/ visited 2P2 so my ignorance is obvious.
Though I still can see how a bot can be detected using a HUD.
Maybe I'm stupid too .