The Ethics of HUDs: Follow-Up

16 thoughts on “The Ethics of HUDs: Follow-Up”

1. I think most of your questions have already been answered by you. If it is allowed by the site, it is ethical for your use. (legal/illegal software, expensive software, bots, etc)

   Re: the sites, I think pretty much anything they do is ethical. Dumb for allowing some stuff, but that doesn’t make it unethical. (see above list)

   I do think it would be wise for the sites to periodically send out reminders to re-read the terms of service, especially when something significant in the rules/terms of service changes.

   What you didn’t mention, that I think is one of the sites major failing is enforcing the rules. I think the players have the expectation that any rules the sites create should be enforced to some minimum/reasonable standard. Failing that, the rule should be dropped. AND I think this should apply to each and every rule. A site failing to police one rule brings into question their commitment to enforce any and all of their rules.

   eg: Pokerstars require that you list your city correctly. It only takes about 30 seconds to find “cities” such as “biteme” “nowhere” “your momma’s.” Just off the top of my head I can think of a couple ways to semi-automatically enforce the rules to a much greater degree than it is being enforced now. But PS doesn’t enforce their rule. Makes me wonder what other rules they don’t enforce.

   Which leads me to…. Should I follow their rules to the letter OR should I see how far I can push the rules OR should I follow the rules only to the extent they enforce them.

   Purchased Hand Histories…. PS used to not even try to enforce their “ban” then they tried to prevent the HHs from being collected in the first place, but they are (or were) still being openly being sold by many sources, which leads me to believe there were enough buyers to support the sellers. So…… Is it ethical to buy HHs??? Many of my opponents are buying them, the site is not stopping them, but it appears to be against their terms of service (there is even some debate about that).

   Is it ethical to buy HHs??? Is it ethical for the sites to have an unenforceable rule??? Is it ethical for the sites to have an enforceable rule that they don’t enforce to any reasonable degree???

   Is it ethical for me to ramble on for so long? I’ll shut-up now.

2. Andrew, you give me too much credit. I was really parroting your viewpoints.

   Your expansion on the issue of equal access is interesting. I don’t see any ethical issue with cost as a barrier to access. This is how markets allocate scarce resources and will always be with us. For example, I have no ethical claim to be able to play in a $10k buy-in tourney unless I have the funds to do so. The fact that others can easily afford this does not violate any ethic I hold dear. Legal access is very different. I think you are correct to put this to the game provider, not the player. Again, access to the information gives the best answer. The game provider will likely make a decision based solely on what produces the best game action (not on ethical issues); they must then make it clear whether they allow the software in question.

3. I guess the real problem I have w/ HUD’s is they give you the ability to “profile” a given table without actually having to follow the dynamics of the game. In other words, they let you play poker without actually having to play poker. Sure not everyone is optimally applying the information a HUD provides, but some services have little icons depicting “fish” or “sharks” next to the HUD. With a cursory glance (assuming a decent sample size of course), you know what players to avoid and what players to target. You don’t even need to know their aggression factor, how often they fold to c-bets, how often they voluntarily put chips in the pot, etc., for the software sums it up in a neat little icon. Of course poker sites are going to allow a technology that enhances a MT’ers ability to profitably play in more tournaments or sit at more cash games; it inflates their profits. No matter how many poker books you read, how often you excercise, or how healthy a diet you follow, you cannot profile a table without even playing a hand. As far as access goes, many players probably have no idea this technology even exists, let alone whether or not they can afford it. At the very least, sites should provide beginning players with information about different technologies that other players are using to enhance their abilities. To make the playing field perfectly fair, they should provide their own HUD’s with tutorials on how to help beginnners use the technology to plug leaks in their game. I have cut my teeth in live cash games–starting at 1/2 NL three years ago and grinding my way to the 5/10 and 10/20 games I frequent now. I don’t want a computer program to provide me with the information I’m supposed to be gathering and applying on my own, and I’m shocked that so many of you accept it. Like the steriod era, it’s just one player trying to avoid being left in the dark w/out a huge contract. While their use in online poker might be ethical, HUD’s violate the spirit of the game–period–end of story.

   • You say “Of course poker sites are going to allow a technology that enhances a MT’ers ability to profitably play in more tournaments or sit at more cash games; it inflates their profits”, but I think bots are a good counter-example to this. Presumably a player who MT’s and pays rake 24/7 would be appealing, but sites choose to disallow them anyway because they believe them to be bad for the games and therefore for their long-term interests.

     I was hoping someone would bring up the steroid example. The big difference I see there is that steroids have significant health risks and it’s really in everyone’s interest for them to be disallowed and aggressively punished. If some players get away with using them, then their competitors are put in a tough spot of either compromising their safety in order to compete or falling behind. Although HUDs do enhance performance, they don’t have steroid-like side effects, and so there is not the same urgency to discourage their use.

     A better comparison in the poker world would be to Adderall or Ritalin, which are apparently popular to help people focus and play long sessions. If there were an easy way to enforce it, which unfortunately there isn’t, I would love to see these banned for those without a prescription. I’m sure some of my opponents are getting an edge from using these drugs, but to me it’s just not worth it, and I wish that players just weren’t given the option of trading health risks for increased profit.

4. tl;dr
   Sites shouldn’t post each rule everywhere that would just be silly.
   Sites blocking software from certain areas is unethical for the site.
   Players using software that is allowed is not unethical.
   Players using software that they develop only for themselves and friends is not unethical.
   My wife thinks that I cheat at darts.
   Wife=Unethical.

   The Right to Know:
   I agree that as long as the site has it posted or easily available to their player base that they have fulfilled their obligation to inform players that it is “possible” that “some” software is allowed and some is not.

   As soon as you start posting one rule the company would be obligated to post all the rules in the same consistent manner. The reason for this is if the site didn’t a player would state “Well, it wasn’t posted here. I didn’t know about it. I want my money back.”

   I don’t believe that the site should have to explain each rule that is allowed at the table or have it displayed constantly as you play. The next thing you’d know is we’d have every American suing because they didn’t know “If I fold I lose the hand?!?!” An extreme example I know but we had the McDonald’s lady sue because she wasn’t aware her coffee would be hot so I’ll just leave it at that…

   Equal Access:
   Even though the two examples in your argument seem similar I believe they are vastly different.

   Q. Applications working in certain countries but not in others.
   A. This would clearly be unethical for the site to allow. The reason is that they are giving an unfair advantage to one set of individuals while keeping another set at a disadvantage.

   Q. Is it unethical for the users who can use the software to use it?
   A. No. It is a game. Those people are playing the game with in the rules defined by the establishment that they are playing at. An example is what if you were gambling at a site where you rolled 2 dice and who ever rolled the highest won the pot. Each player is even. Now what if that site said “People from Germany get to roll 3 dice but every where else still only get to roll 2.”

   Are the people from Germany going to throw their arms up in the air and say “This is unfair, I’m not going to roll 3 dice. I’ll roll 2.” I would say that 99% of the people would not. Is the site going to have much business from outside of Germany? I would guess that no they would not.

   Q. If some super software is developed by someone and distributed to only his friends. Is it unethical for only them to use it?
   A. No. As long as they are doing it with in the sites rules. Just because they have not distributed the software to others does not mean that it’s not available. You could make it if you really wanted to.

   Just because you have the bank roll to play 5/10NL doesn’t mean that you should wait until everyone else can play it to play at that level.

   Now you might say it took you lots of time, studying and bankroll management to play at that level. Well the same thing could be said about the guy that developed the software. It took him a lot of time, studying and testing to make sure his software worked. Should he have to wait until everyone develops their own software to use it? I’d say no.

   Footnote:
   I am a very competitive person. I will take any advantage I can get with in the rules that have been established. An example of this is recently I was playing darts with my Wife. She is 5’2 1/4″ (as she likes to put it) and I’m about 6’1″. While I was leaning over the line but with my foot behind it she said that I was cheating. I told her that I wasn’t. My foot was behind the line. She said that I was because I was “leaning way over” the line.

   When we started I was playing with in the rules of the game that are normally established. My foot was behind the line as I was throwing the darts. It’s only when I gained an extra “foot/foot and a half” on my wife that it became unethical or cheating.

   She asked me to not lean over the line and I agreed. Now from this point forward if I started to lean over line it would be unethical/cheating as I was no longer playing with in the rules that we had established. She also doesn’t need to tell me from this point forward that I shouldn’t lean over the line when we play as it should be expected that I know the rules.

   What I found amusing is that later we were playing doubles with some friends afterwards and she said that “Remember that rule we had in place, it’s no longer in place, lets win!”

   Wife=Unethical as she applies rules that only benefit her. But I still love her. 🙂

   • I think I largely agree here. It would probably be in sites’ interest to ban software that were exclusive because of cost or some other reason, but if they didn’t do so, then I don’t think it would be unethical for people to use it.

     I don’t think your analogy about having the BR to play 5/10 is apt, though. That’s a question of being able to access a certain game, rather than being able to access to equipment used to play the game.

5. Why not have the site allow a player to see which players are using a HUD?
   You could bring up a table, and just as it shows average pot and hands per hour, etc. – it could show how many players are using a HUD. This would just be one more way to table select. Or, a site could have tables where a HUD is allowed and some where one was not allowed.

   • The basic problem with disallowing HUDs (or showing who’s using one) is detecting their use. Since they are passive programs that don’t do things like click on buttons for you, there’s really no reliable way to detect them, especially if the user takes even minimal steps to disguise their use. So having “no-HUD” tables, aside from making the “HUD allowed” tables even tougher, would simply give cheats an incentive to disguise their use of HUDs at no-HUD tables.

     In an ideal world, the simple and fair solution would be for the sites to provide a free, configurable HUD to all players. Why they don’t is probably a combination of lack of imagination and an unwillingness to invest in the software development and/or purchase of a third-party product. But it kind of amazes me that PokerStars didn’t just buy out PokerTracker years ago when it became obvious this stuff wasn’t going to disappear.

   • Very creative idea. Essentially it would make table selection more bi-directional, so that fish could avoid sharks in the same way that sharks seek out fish. Lin is probably right about the difficult of enforcing it, but it is a neat idea.

     • I’m not a technology expert, but it surprises me that Lin’s idea hasn’t already been attempted. In other industries, a large successful “generalist” often buys up the specialist software vendors in order to incorporate these features into their suite and make their suite more attractive (I also think they try to keep bugs and crashes to a minimum this way). In my industry, major players like Schwab and Fidelity are continually buying niche software providers to add functionality to their online platforms.
       Seems like it would be very smart of PS or Tilt to snap up one of the primary HUD providers.

       • PS has added features like automated buy-in amounts and customizable bet size buttons that mimic features of programs like TableNinja. It’s a minor example, I know, but we do see some of this in the poker industry.

6. I don’t buy the argument that permitted = ethical. I can think of situations, mostly in live play, where just about everyone who is not a total dickhead would agree that the move is legal (where not specifically prohibited) but unethical:

   (1) Asking to see a player’s cards. The original intent of allowing this was to discourage collusion. But players often ask to see hands just to gain information.

   (2) Slowrolling an obvious winner.

   (3) Deliberately misdeclaring your hand before showing it, to try to induce a fold, or to induce a misread from the dealer. Some old-school types would argue that this form of lying is just part of the game, but I’m “old school” and I’ve always thought this is going way over the line.

   (4) Making a forward motion as if to bet, then checking. This is specifically outlawed in some rooms, but not most.

   (5) Taking a long sit-out in a raked game so you can go play ________ in the pit, get drunk at the bar, take a shower, eat dinner, etc.. Unethical because the other players are now shouldering a bigger share of the rake to keep the game going for your all-about-me ass; in a time-charge game where you’re paying for your seat even if you’re not there, no one cares.

   (6) Stalling in tournaments. This one probably generates more heat than any others, but I think stallers are unethical scum who are trying to win money without having to play poker and who are depriving other players of a chance to play more hands. If stalling were “part of the game”, then we wouldn’t have hand-for-hand levels, would we? But especially in the online sites, it’s easy to stall despite efforts to get rid of it, and people who defend stalling invariably take the “it’s legal so it’s okay” stance without considering that it’s only “legal” because there’s no good way to get rid of it.

   I could probably think of more examples if I worked at it.

   Then there are cases of deliberately breaking the rules in a way that no sane person would consider “unethical”. A good example would be violating the English-only rule. The low-stakes tables on PokerStars are full of people breaking this rule all the time, but as long as they’re talking about the weather, their favorite soccer team, etc. no one cares.

   There are certainly games where deliberate violations of some rules are considered part of the game (e.g., fighting in hockey, interfering with a receiver in football to prevent a touchdown, fouling a shooter late in the game in basketball to force a free-throw and therefore a turnover).

   The point being that permitted = ethical is an argument with pretty shaky ground beneath it.

   Sometimes rules issues have to be resolved by consensus because there’s really no other basis for resolving them. I think that’s the case with HUDs. I don’t see a logical argument for allowing them other than the consensus seems to be they should be allowed. The reasons given for allowing them certainly don’t have ethical underpinnings – i.e., no one argues that HUDs make for a fairer or safer game. People are pro-HUD because they want to use HUDs, (or anti-HUD because they don’t want to pay for one) and really for no other reasons. It’s not an issue of ethics but of popular opinion. I’m okay with that.

   • Well said as always, Lin.

     You raise some good examples. I tried to keep my claims in the OP limited to technology because I didn’t want to get into some of these gray areas about angle-shooting and behavior that is within the rules but arguably unethical. I admit that’s kind of an arbitrary distinction, though.

     I think the best case scenario is when casinos at least attempt to make rules against these things. Most places have a generic rule about playing a hand to the best of your ability that gives staff some leeway to take action when they suspect collusion. I believe some places have similar rules about angle-shooting, though they are admittedly tough to enforce. I think live dealers ought to enforce rules about who shows first rather than permit players to play these games where nobody wants to turn over his cards.

     I would say that most of your examples, even if they are insulting or annoying, aren’t unethical. IE asking to see cards, sitting out, and stalling. I think of stalling much like I think about short stacking. It’s something that some players choose to do because, rightly or wrongly, they believe it benefits them. I know that it hurts me, so I try to discourage them from doing it. As much as I’d like to see the rules changed, I don’t think it’s actually unethical. Different people are looking for different things in a game, and they aren’t always 100% consistent. Rules (minimum buy-ins, time banks, hand for hand) and social ostracism (you see a lot less stalling in live games for this reason, I think) are both tools people use to try get their preferred game conditions to predominate. I look at hand-for-hand more as a compromise designed to make stalling unnecessary even for those looking to maximize their chances of min-cashing rather than to express outright disdain for it.

     As for your examples about breaking the rules being ethical in certain sports situations, I guess I’d want to draw a distinction there between taking a penalty for breaking the rules vs. doing it in secret. In my limited experience, it seems like the real “rule” in basketball is either don’t foul or foul and take a penalty. This is a strategic choice that players have, and while the penalty is high enough that the former choice is usually best, there are specific cases where they choose the latter, as you point out.

     There’s a dishonesty involved in something like buying hand histories that isn’t there when intentionally fouling. In the former case, you are knowingly violating an agreement that you have made and doing so without notifying the other parties to that agreement.

     I agree that rules have to be resolved by consensus, and the article linked by TB above you is a good example of this. I just think that it’s best if rules can then change to reflect that consensus rather than expect the honor system to keep players behaving in a way that sites want them to but aren’t prepared to legislate.

7. Obligatory link to the famous “play to win” article:

   http://www.sirlin.net/articles/playing-to-win-part-1.html

   The author makes a reasonable argument that any behavior not disallowed by the rules is ethical and that unenforceable rules should be ignored.

   • Interesting, I hadn’t seen that before, thanks. I’m not at all familiar with the world of competitive Street Fighter, but it sounds like the “throws” he’s talking about are analogous to the way certain recreational poker players think about check-raising. It sounds like the community of serious SF players has done a good job of reaching a consensus of what should and shouldn’t be allowed in competitive play, so it’s important to be clear about what we mean when we talk about “the rules of the game”. As I understand it, this Akura character is arguably an intended feature of “the game” as created by its designers but is disallowed in “the game” as sanctioned by various tournament hosts.

8. For whatever reason, the analogies that spring to mind most quickly to me are (1) SAT test-preparation classes, and (2) steroids in sports. Back in the Stone Age when I was in high school and naturally good at standardized tests, I saw test-prep classes as maybe not “unethical” but I guess more angle-shooting (especially for a test that nominally tested aptitude). I sort of feel the same way with HUDs. The problem is each step of the Foucault’s logical progression is not objectionable in its own right, but it seems like a race to the bottom at the end of the day. Yes, anybody can do it. And, yes, you can say someone with a HUD is “working harder” than someone who doesn’t, just like the kid who takes SAT classes is “working harder,” but that’s not exactly it. Similarly, if the NFL made steroids legal, would steroid use not be unethical? Your spiel about Adderall suggests you think its use is “wrong” but maybe not “unethical” in the sense that the rules of the game do not represent a constructive meeting of the minds on the topic (since the rules are silent on them). But that is the start of every erosion of a rule. Person pushing envelope says “it’s not literally against the rules,” which is a nice clean argument. Objector/late adopter says something like, “yeah, but it’s against the spirit of the rules.” More often than not, the benefits of envelope-pushing have become so obvious or ingrained for the envelope-pushers that you can’t roll it back, even if the envelope-pushers are just the loud minority and the silent majority agrees with the objectors.

   Maybe I’m just trying to rationalize my laziness in both cases.

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