It’s a simple fact, as Dan has already posted, PT stores information a player can’t keep track of himself. If you sit in a real casino and can’t remember how the guy across the table played you two weeks ago, you’re just screwed. PT gives you information you couldn’t have otherwise. Remember the one player per hand rule? That’s what PT software helps get around. If you can’t remember, you just ask your helper. Yes, anyone can use a notebook and it’s legal. If they don’t, then it’s their own fault. But if someone uses information gather FOR THEM by a program, that is using someone else’s notebook because theirs was better and more accurate. And if the owner of that really cool notebook won’t share it with just anyone, then those without access have the same disadvantage you overcame, by paying for it. That’s not ethical. Those who argue the field is level are trying to convince themselves that they win on skill, rather than on advantage.

If not everyone can or will pay for that software. It is unethical. Period.

As you stated, Dan, if you are multitabling, then you can’t possibly keep track of those players. It is unethical to have someone else do it FOR YOU and then have those stats available to you when you request them. And remember, these are STATS. They give you percentages based upon situations such as the number of times a player is in the big blind, which your brain can not possibly do on its own. A person can not possibly keep that kind of information in a simple notebook. It would require a volume for every hand. If telling you things about your opponents’ playing that you couldn’t possibly get on your own isn’t cheating, then nothing is.

Here’s an experiment. Play against four other players that you know well for one hour. After that hour, tell me how many times each player was in the big blind. Then tell me what percentage of the time each of them folded, raised, or just called. Can’t do it? No. But PT can. And that’s the unfair advantage. You are using a computer’s analytical ability to help you play against the rest of the table. If they don’t have PT, you are miles ahead of them, and I don’t care what kind of notebook the others DO keep and use.

And although PT only keeps those stats and doesn’t “advise”, there are plenty of programs that can and do advise using the stats provided. A person can play statistically perfect poker and make a ton of money and not be able to get past the first hour of a real tournament.

This is exactly why the pros mentioned will alter their stats by autofolding at the lower limits. The only way they can keep lesser players from using technology to close the skill gap is to lose money folding to death at lower limits. The fact that pros have to alter their stats should tell you that the more skillful players lose their advantage to those who use PT. If they didn’t, PT wouldn’t have a purpose. And yes, this post is just an AD for PT.

It doesn’t matter if it is “available to everyone”. So are steroids in professiona sports. But if one player is not willing to risk death to compete, then he will be at a disadvantage because he wasn’t “wise” or “savvy” enough to use the “tools” that are available to anyone who is “serious enough” about their game. The fact is, these “tools” help get more money, but they don’t improve your actual skill. In that respect, the person making the money is rarely the most skilled. That is what is killing poker. Greed.

Hello computer databases and sports statistics for most sports are published. To the idiots that rag on people using “Decision Support Tools” like Poker Tracker. What I find more insane is that there are professional poker players who also have an issue with databases that keep track of their games.

Well duh, this is not the Old West it is the freaking 21st century. And now to scare you morons even more there is artificial intelligence software that actually plays poker for you. Just as computer chess games evolved to where they can beat most chess masters and some grandmasters, poker players will have to change up their play. (Wait a minute, isn’t that Poker 101?)

Get a life Luddites, poker tools are here to stay. And yes the online casinos love them since it helps speed up a game.

Or perhaps sites will do away with screen names altogether and simply allocate players random 10 digit ID numbers on log-in?