Roy Cooke's Article in the New Issue of Card Player
Bjgkaraoke
hand history in his job at Planet Poker. I wonder if anybody else thinks this
column is rather shocking. He discusses his friend John's record at Planet and
the fact that he can look up other hand histories. Does this bother anyone who
plays with him in Las Vegas? Also, does he play at Planet? Just wondering.
Barbara Gallamore
m...@acm.org
Heh, I almost sent him email over this. I wonder if talked to his
superiors at Planet before telling the world he was looking at hand
histories in order to help his friend play better poker? I personally
think the database of knowledge at Paradise and Planet should be used
to advance poker knowledge but I'd bet that well over half the players
on either of those sites would throw a fit if they realized that was
being done.
FWIW I thought it had been stated other places fairly public that he
could look at hand histories in order to protect against collusion,
etc. It was the use of that information and then its publication that
I found possible contentious.
mph
AJohn808
to also play on that same site. i thought maybe it was like a company that
sponsors a contest and you hear the disclaimer "employees and their families
are not eligible for....etc..."
>Subject: Roy Cooke's Article in the New Issue of Card Player
>From: bjgka...@aol.com
Gary Carson
From what I understand he not only can read hand histories, he makes
it a point to study hand histories of winners. And, he does so with
knowledge of who the person is.
One LV player told me that Cooke approached him in a LV cardroom and
mentioned that he'd looked at his planet poker histories and thought
he played very well.
Personally I think it's highly unethical. But,that's just me.
If he thinks he needs to examine hand histories for cheating type
patterns he can do so without knowledge of who the person is.
I mentioined this to Caro once, and rather than asking Cooke about it
he wanted me to tell him who the person that Roy had mentioned this to
was. I'm guessing it isn't limited to one person.
Gary Carson
http:// garycarson.home.mindspring.com
LLarryLDK
>think the database of knowledge at Paradise and Planet should be used
>to advance poker
I asked Mike Caro if he would be sharing any information based on the millions
of hands at Planet. I believe his answer was yes but not soon.
Sundance1
tends to ignore the various (and numerous) attacks on him here. His ego is
sufficiently secure that he doesn't feel the need to defend his thoughts and
actions to every person who disagrees with him. Hundreds of thousands of
people read his columns and internet work, and those who have paid attention (I
guess that would NOT include me) have benefited. Being a human dart board for
is just part of the territory for columnists, and the thin-skinned need not
apply.
While the other posts in this thread are worthy of consideration and debate
(though obviously I disagree with them) I resent Gary Carson calling my
friend's behavior (and by implication my friend) unethical. That is beyond the
bounds of reasonable debate. As usual, Carson roots his ad hominem attack in an
unsubstantiated anonymous quote from "one LV player."
Putting it in the simplest terms: Gary you are an insecure, trouble-making
asshole envious of someone who has greater success at you in poker, writing and
life. Given your history here on rgp, I can't imagine that your standard of
ethics to be of any greater interest than your personal wars, your ranting, and
your piss-poor poker commentary.
I know Roy won't bother to respond. Nonetheless I choose to.
1) Roy's ability to read hands AFTER they have been played has been disclosed
since the beginning of his involvment with PP. He cannot see hands during the
course of play.
2) The ability to examine hands is an essential element of being able to
protect against collusion, which is his principle responsibility for Planet.
Further, knowing the persons involved, where they live, etc. can make a
difference in a determination of a liklihood of collusion. And anybody who
plays the site, particularly those who play for any money that matters to them,
ought be damned appreciative that Roy does this job. No other poker site has
a professional player doing what Roy does, and PP is the CLEANEST site on the
Internet because of his efforts! Far cleaner than live games!
3) Roy doesn't (as Gary C. falsely alleges) make it a point to study the
histories of winners per se. However many of the collusion accusations made by
players are against people who are winning what seems to be a disproportionate
amount. Roy investigates EVERY SINGLE ACCUSATION of collusion, as well as
potential collusion identified by Planet's software. Thus, the hands of some
winners are examined.
4) Roy says that because of the many hours he has spent examining hands he has
learned more about bad play than he ever knew. Whatever insight he's gained
hasn't been from looking at what "good players" do, but rather getting a feel
for the thinking of bad players, which often is beyond him. Carson far
overestimates the value of looking at the hands of winning players -- Roy has
plenty of experience in how winners think, certainly much more than Carson
does! Further, Roy spends so many hours a day doing his job at Planet (plus
running his real estate business, plus writing, plus putting in 1000-1500
hours/year of live play, plus spending lots of time with his wife and daughter)
that he doesn't have TIME to look at more hands than the job requires.
5) Roy has been coaching me for over ten years. It still hasn't made me a
winning player. Looking at my play on PP hass made little difference to
ANYBODY (especially my opponents), except that it gives friends a continent
apart an opportunity to talk about poker. Further, the poker community DOES
benefit from Roy's ability to examine hands, as he communicates much of what he
learns through his columns.
6) Roy is prohibited from playing the site by the law governing countries
where PP has an interest. He HAS played, (prior to that law affecting Planet)
but not recently. And he has never used his ability to look at hands after they
have been played to gain edge against his opponents. He doesn't NEED the edge:
In case you haven't noticed in his live play, he cashes regularly. He doesn't
need a program which lets him look back to take the chips from the likes of
lesser players such as Carson. Even if he HAD the time, which he doesn't.
You will travel far and wide to find a more honest, ethical human than Roy
Cooke. He honors all his obligations and commitments, personal, financial and
moral. You can take his promises to the bank any day -- if he says he'll do
something, it is as good as done. He doesn't lie. Or even exaggerate much. He
doesn't cheat or tolerate cheaters. He is 100% true to his personal code. I
have said before that if I had to storm the gates of hell, there is no man on
earth I'd rather have guard my back than Roy Cooke.
On the other hand, if Gary Carson sat down next to me on a bus I'd move away
from the putrid stench of his spirit. Good men build their lives through honest
effort; bad men try to build themselves up by tearing others down, and foul
everything they touch.
I must be running well in life, to have a good man like Roy Cooke as my best
friend.
John Bond
Roy's Florida friend
Gary Carson
Wow. A lolt of words responding to something that isn't worth
responding to.
AJohn808
thanks for the post -it convincingly cleared up things for me at least.
>Subject: Re: Roy Cooke's Article in the New Issue of Card Player
>From: sund...@aol.com
m...@acm.org
> Roy believes it's not worth his time to engage in the flame wars of rgp, and
> tends to ignore the various (and numerous) attacks on him here.
I don't believe Barbara's initial post nor my response were intended
to be flames. Roy's article opened up an issue which has brewing since
online poker started. I remember one past thread which mentioned the
issue on the side, but never a lengthy discussion of the social and
market issues involved. I've had private discussions about when this
could happen with various RGPers but would love to Mike Caro or Roy
Cooke talk about how they see the wealth of information tied up at
Planet ultimately released and how they see their customer base
reacting.
[...]
> While the other posts in this thread are worthy of consideration and debate
> (though obviously I disagree with them) I resent Gary Carson
> calling my
I don't think either Barbara or I said much more then, "wow, whatta
can of worms". Basically my thought is that there are many players
will have a perception that there is a privacy issue but in reality
the data could be anonimized in such a way that wouldn't be such a big
deal. But how does Planet get past the initial customer perception
problem? For Paradise the problem is probably bigger because they
don't advertise their collusion protection services quite as openly.
> 1) Roy's ability to read hands AFTER they have been played has been disclosed
> since the beginning of his involvment with PP. He cannot see hands during the
> course of play.
> 2) The ability to examine hands is an essential element of being able to
> protect against collusion, which is his principle responsibility for Planet.
> Further, knowing the persons involved, where they live, etc. can make a
> difference in a determination of a liklihood of collusion. And anybody who
> plays the site, particularly those who play for any money that matters to them,
> ought be damned appreciative that Roy does this job. No other poker site has
> a professional player doing what Roy does, and PP is the CLEANEST site on the
> Internet because of his efforts! Far cleaner than live games!
I've been aware of this since Mike and Roy first became associated
with Planet. I think its a unique feature of Planet. Unfortunately due
to the lack of games at Planet I think its somewhat underappreciated
by the market as a whole.
[...]
> 6) Roy is prohibited from playing the site by the law governing countries
> where PP has an interest. He HAS played, (prior to that law affecting Planet)
> but not recently.
Thats an interesting comment. Do you have any pointers to those laws.
I'd thought this stuff was probably new enough that most countries
only had laws at the "can" or "can't" level. Not at the detailed
regulatory level.
I sent email to Roy asking for his participation in this discussion. I
hope he can find a flame retardant suit and join in. There is no
reason for him to get tied up in the side flame wars if he doesn't
want to.
mph
Gary Carson
>roy sounds like a very good man, he deserves to have a good friend
like you.
>thanks for the post -it convincingly cleared up things for me at
least.
Then help me out then, clear it up for me.
Where did he explain the thing I was questiioning -- Why does Roy need
to know the identity of the player whose hand history he's examining?
I understood the part about not wanting to sit next to me on a bus.
It just seemed like he was so busy with this defensive rant that he
forgot about the part that I was questioning the ethics of.
It's probably true that Roy doesn't kick puppies. But that wasn't
what I was talking about.
>
>>Subject: Re: Roy Cooke's Article in the New Issue of Card Player
>>From: sund...@aol.com
>
>>Roy believes it's not worth his time to engage in the flame wars of
rgp, and
Gary Carson
http:// garycarson.home.mindspring.com
AJohn808
the sites where they are employed. on top of that, i was impressed with his
strong testimony in regard to roys integrity. although roy better not use his
buddy to endorse his teaching skills. 10 yrs-still losing-whew! : )
>From: garyc...@alumni.northwestern.edu (Gary Carson)
Sundance1
"Further, knowing the persons involved, where they live, etc. can make a
difference in a determination of a liklihood of collusion."
In response to mph -- "the other posts in this thread are worthy of
consideration and debate (though obviously I disagree with them)" -- your
comments and barbara's were insightful and appropriate ... it was Gary raising
hte issue of ethics that lit my torch.
In any case .. it is what it is, some of what creeps into RC's head makes it
out to the public in his columns; the rest will eventually in his books. (New
book, Christmastime, all things being equal.)
Anyway -- nuff said about all this ... the facts are what they are and they're
not likely to change any time soon and it's a GOOD thing for poker much
morethan it is a bad thing.
John B
Sundance1
employees of the sites from participating as a requirement of licensure ... I
cant be more specific, as it is not my place to identify details of where ....
but you get the gist ...
jb
Gary Carson
>In response to Carson:
>comments and barbara's were insightful and appropriate ... it was
Gary raising
>hte issue of ethics that lit my torch.
I think it's an ethical issue.
If that means you don't want to sit next to me on the bus, then fine.
But, just because it creates dissonnance in you to think your buddy
might be invovled in doing something that's not ethically pure isn't
going to stop me from questioning it.
I don't think he needs to know who the person is, I think it's an
ethical issue. I think your failure to make a simple response to that
ethical question says a lot about your gut feelings on the matter.
Mike Caro
Hi, Barbara --
Roy Cooke scans hands in an attempt to spot and prevent collusion. He
is authorized to do this because we believe in both his ability and
his ethics. We do not hide this fact. Because he has a privileged
position of trust as our cardroom manager, he has access to the names
and addresses of players. This information is often used in order to
make contacts and determine whether several players may be living
together, neighbors, in the same dorm, and more.
I'm confident Roy doesn't use the hand histories to analyze the play
of individual customers. We wouldn't approve of that. Neither Roy nor
I is currently allowed to play in the casino. That is a provision
imposed by Curacao (Dutch Antilles government) where we have a full
gaming license.
We have announced that I will release a statistical study of the
profitability of hands by position played by customers in general
without regard to identity. I think this information will be valuable
to the poker community. All of the data being analyzed is at least six
months old.
These raw results will not tell us which hands are actually profitable
in the control of experts, because all the hands played by winning
players will be lumped together with those of losing players. Despite
that, I think you'll appreciate the results and I intend to publish
them for writers, researchers, players, and anyone else to use or to
think about.
Straight Flushes,
Mike Caro
Badger
> Putting it in the simplest terms: Gary you are an insecure,
trouble-making
> asshole envious of someone who has greater success at you in poker,
writing and
> life.
5+3=8
Both right, but mine was harder.....
Daniel Kimberg
> These raw results will not tell us which hands are actually profitable
> in the control of experts, because all the hands played by winning
> players will be lumped together with those of losing players. Despite
> that, I think you'll appreciate the results and I intend to publish
> them for writers, researchers, players, and anyone else to use or to
> think about.
Is there any chance you will release the raw data (stripped of identifying
information, and altered in a way to make it difficult to match up with real
hands but without affecting the results), so that people skilled at data
analysis can take a stab at it? I'm not saying I think you'll do a poor job
of it, but there's a huge number of valuable things one could do with this
kind of data, and you're only going to do a tiny subset of them. On the
other hand, there are plenty of folks who read this newsgroup who mine data
for a living or for fun, and who may be aware of statistical or analysis
methods you haven't run into yet. For example, I think this would be a
great opportunity to take a look at autocorrelation in series of poker
outcomes. It's possible that was on your list, but maybe it wasn't. A
couple of other RGP regulars have been salivating over the possibility of
crunching those kinds of numbers, and I don't think they'll be particularly
happy with a short summary.
dan
Bjgkaraoke
Brian Court
You are confident that Roy doesn't use the hand histories to analyze the
play of individual customers? Are you kidding? He said so in his article
about his friend John.
TIGER123
on one side of the scale, we have roy cooke, john bond and mike caro.
on the other side, we have gary carson.
lol!
tiger
Jonathan Kaplan
>
>On 06 Sep 2001 02:56:26 GMT, bjgka...@aol.com (Bjgkaraoke) wrote:
>
>>Has anyone read this yet? I was surprised to read that he can read any players
>>hand history in his job at Planet Poker. I wonder if anybody else thinks this
>>column is rather shocking. He discusses his friend John's record at Planet and
>>the fact that he can look up other hand histories. Does this bother anyone who
>>plays with him in Las Vegas? Also, does he play at Planet? Just wondering.
>>Barbara Gallamore
>
>Hi, Barbara --
>
>Roy Cooke scans hands in an attempt to spot and prevent collusion. He
>is authorized to do this because we believe in both his ability and
>his ethics. We do not hide this fact. Because he has a privileged
>position of trust as our cardroom manager, he has access to the names
>and addresses of players. This information is often used in order to
>make contacts and determine whether several players may be living
>together, neighbors, in the same dorm, and more.
>
>I'm confident Roy doesn't use the hand histories to analyze the play
>of individual customers. We wouldn't approve of that.
how confident are you, Mike?
i think it would be very very difficult to
1) look at hand histories of others,
2) analyze the play
3) know the actual names of the players
and then,
4) NOT use that information, if one ever played with that player, online or in
real life.
i have played with Roy C., at the mirage and bellagio. i have introduced myself,
we have talked some. i doubt if he remembers me, but if he wanted to, he could
have remembered.
i am (reasonably well) known as NutNoPair, online.
that connection is something i would wish that a site employee wouldnt take
advantage of. and i think Roy C. has plenty of integrity. but it is
near-impossible to not factor in known info, no matter what the circumstance,
when the info is relevant. and Roy C. can know the info, sometimes HAS to know
the info. and he does play poker with me.
i dont see why the names cannot be anonymous, when Roy is performing his duties
at Planet Poker, and analyzing the data. addresses, and other identifying info
can be checked if absolutely need be, but even then, names can remain hidden,
unless absolutely needed.
regardless of Roy's high integrity, this issue threatens to besmirch it, i
think. just my opinion.
Jonathan
no matter where you go, there you are...
Mike Caro
Hi, Dan --
If I can get permission from the owners, I might (and I have been
considering) putting together a team of volunteers (some from r.g.p.)
to do this analysis -- and to make all the data available at
UniversityOfPoker.com, (inside PP). It could then be used or
republished by anyone.
My main problem with what you suggest is that it's possible -- even
with the identities of the players stripped -- to research hand
histories and figure out who the players were. That doesn't seem like
an major issue to me, because the task would be laborious, and our
customers already have access to individual hands (by number) one at a
time. Still, it might raise issues.
Another tactical problem is that, as you might guess, the hands are
part of a relational database, meaning there are separate files
containing different elements of data. I haven't started to automate
the programming, but it may be necessary to leave the player nicknames
intact while extracting the general data. I don't think so, but it's
possible, and if that's the case I wouldn't want outside sources
having access to the data.
Anyway, I'm open to what you're suggesting and might turn this into a
project involving more people, providing there are volunteers with
enough expertise, I can get permission, and the data given for
analysis has no remnants that could be used to identify players.
Straight Flushes,
Mike Caro
>
>
Mike Caro
wrote:
Jonathan --
The issue you raise is an important one. It is even relevant in
real-world casinos where managers who are also players could,
conceivably study the body language of their future opponents in the
surveillance room. I believe this is a concern, but in reality I don't
think it's a widespread problem. And to the extent it exists, I think
it's just something we have to live with online or offline.
It is almost always necessary for Roy or anyone else doing the
analysis to know the identities of the players. It is usually specific
players that are being scrutinized.
I'm guessing that many players have somewhat different strategies
online than in at physical tables, so this might minimize any
advantage that could be gained by seeing the hand histories.
In short, you're right. But this is our best solution for monitoring
the games right now.
Straight Flushes,
Mike Caro
jim
Roy is undoubtly secure in himself and beyond the pitty ass shit that
goes on here...
I doubt as well he`ll not lower himself to respond....
PS if you read this thread Roy it was great getting to meet you at the
bellagio meeting
jg
sund...@aol.com (Sundance1) wrote in message news:<20010906015921...@mb-ch.aol.com>...
Gary Carson
wrote:
>let's see....
>
>on one side of the scale, we have roy cooke, john bond and mike caro.
>
>on the other side, we have gary carson.
Let's see, in the gca threads you had Mike Caro and Nolan Dalla on the
on the hand and Gary Carson on the other.
Whiich of us was right on that call?
I think that Roy knowing the identity of the players is an ethical
issue.
Is the trio above saying that John Bond was suspected of cheating?
They are saying that Roy only investigates playing history of players
suspected of cheating, right?
So, either John Bond is a suspected cheat or he's being incomplete in
his descrtion of the situation. I hesitate to call him a liar because
he mgiht get me thrown of the bus if I do that.
Of course, you tiger, actually think that law guy is credible. You
know, the one who found all those posts of Barbara flaming Linda
Johnson and Badger.
m...@acm.org
> I think that Roy knowing the identity of the players is an ethical
> issue.
For researching suspected collusion I don't see an ethical issue
because Planet advertises that is what Roy does. If you choose to play
there you accept that. Obviously both John and the other player in the
hand had already made that decision.
> Is the trio above saying that John Bond was suspected of cheating?
> They are saying that Roy only investigates playing history of players
> suspected of cheating, right?
And I don't even see an ethical problem when he is looking at his
friend's hand. When you decide to play on one of the online services
you choose to give up to that service information about your play. I
don't see a moral or professional obligation for them not to use that
information. I do think that it might not make business sense due to
players perceptions, but that doesn't make it unethical. Anonimizing
the information might help that issue. Additionally, if a lot of
players voice discomfort with this practice, Planet might open an
opportunity for other services to differentiate themselves.
mph
Zbigniew
In article <0acept0kt7cdur7jp...@4ax.com>, Mike Caro
<ca...@caro.com> wrote:
> I'm confident Roy doesn't use the hand histories to analyze the play
> of individual customers.
At http://www.cardplayer.com/magazine/articleview.jsp?art_id=371 ,
Roy Cooke wrote:
> It's also a lot of fun to have access to such information. I can track
> players' wins/losses and the swings they take, and can analyze any
> player's play.
>
> [And proceeds to describe analyzing the play of his "best friend and
> worst poker student," a Planet customer.]
Gary Carson
<zbig...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>I have trouble reconciling these:
>
>In article <0acept0kt7cdur7jp...@4ax.com>, Mike Caro
><ca...@caro.com> wrote:
>
>> I'm confident Roy doesn't use the hand histories to analyze the
play
>> of individual customers.
>
>At http://www.cardplayer.com/magazine/articleview.jsp?art_id=371 ,
>Roy Cooke wrote:
What kind of worthless troll are you?
How dare you question the word of Caro, Cooke, and Bond, people all
vouced for by the guy who reads rule books?
If the emporer says his clothes are beautiful then only a troll with
the brain of a 4 year old would question that.
Mike Caro
(Gary Carson) wrote (in part, responding to Tiger123):
>Let's see, in the gca threads you had Mike Caro and Nolan Dalla on the
>on the hand and Gary Carson on the other.
>
>Whiich of us was right on that call?
>
>...
>
>Gary Carson
Gary --
Don't leave us in suspense. What's the answer?
Straight Flushes,
Mike Caro
Mike McClain
"Sundance1" <sund...@aol.com> wrote :
> Roy believes it's not worth his time to engage in the flame wars of rgp, and
> tends to ignore the various (and numerous) attacks on him here. His ego is
> sufficiently secure that he doesn't feel the need to defend his thoughts and
> actions to every person who disagrees with him.
Now just stop right there. To say that Roy's ego is secure indicates
that you've either never met him, or that you know very little about
the meaning of various personality traits. Roy is the 2nd most
insecure person I've met, only surpassed by another poker writer.
>
> 4) Roy says that because of the many hours he has spent examining hands he has
> learned more about bad play than he ever knew. Whatever insight he's gained
> hasn't been from looking at what "good players" do, but rather getting a feel
> for the thinking of bad players, which often is beyond him. Carson far
> overestimates the value of looking at the hands of winning players -- Roy has
> plenty of experience in how winners think, certainly much more than Carson
> does! Further, Roy spends so many hours a day doing his job at Planet (plus
> running his real estate business, plus writing, plus putting in 1000-1500
> hours/year of live play, plus spending lots of time with his wife and daughter)
> that he doesn't have TIME to look at more hands than the job requires.
Shortly after Roy got the job with Planet, I heard him say at the table
that having access to all of the hands allows him to see how many of
players that he plays against in LV have played at Planet. His quote
was to the effect of, "It's interesting to see how well what they
claim they are doing matches up to what they are actually doing."
If Roy wants to helps his friend with his game, he should be looking
at the hand histories that are available to his friend, and not at
an output that allows him to see the cards of every player at the
table.
Even in his article, he makes the following claim:
> It's also a lot of fun to have access to such information. I can track
> players' wins/losses and the swings they take, and can analyze any
> player's play. No one can embellish how they are doing; everything
> is recorded. It has been an interesting learning experience for me.
Does it sound like he is limiting his access of the database to that of
catching colluders? As long as he is not doing so, he is abusing the
power that this position has given to him.
>
> I must be running well in life, to have a good man like Roy Cooke as my best
> friend.
You're killing me!
M.
Mike Caro
<zbig...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
Zbigniew --
I'm not aware of what you're quoting. If that was in the Card Player
column, which I haven't seen, I'll investigate and ask Roy what he
meant. I have the highest level of confidence in Roy's integrity, and
I need to read the whole column in context.
Thanks for your input.
Straight Flushes,
Mike Caro
HotChineseF
find odious. But I must admit that in the CGA and Cooke matters, demeanor
aside, he raises important points.
And Zbig, a poster I'll gladly name, has succinctly noted a crucial
contradiction in the Caro/Cooke posts that must be addressed.
Pauljreed2
>and to make all the data available at UniversityOfPoker.com....
===================
At the risk of IRC censure, has this guy ever done anything that
did not promote himself?
----
Paul
"Never attribute to malice what is
adequately explained by stupidity"
Pauljreed2
>i dont see why the names cannot be anonymous, when Roy is performing his
>duties at Planet Poker regardless of Roy's high integrity, this issue
threatens to besmirch it, i think. just my opinion.
>Jonathan
==============
I weigh in with you and Carson on this one.
Lone Locust of the Apocalypse
Zbigniew included in his post a URL where you can read the whole
column in context.
-- Z.
____
"Watch out for snakes!" \ /
\/
Sundance1
I wanted to have him look at my hands I would file a cheating allegation
against myself. Or cut and paste my hand histories and mail them to him.
The point is that Roy doesn't use his ability to look at hands to his advantage
.. doesn't need to, and wouldn't in any case.
Carson, get a spell-checker ... and a life.
Bond
Scott K. Jenson
> I'm confident Roy doesn't use the hand histories to analyze the play
> of individual customers. We wouldn't approve of that.
But Mike, Roy did specifically reference his friend's hand in his Card
Player article.
Personally I don't like the idea that someone can look at player's
hands and know their identities. But I realize it is a neccessary
evil to preventing collusion. It should be kept completely private,
IMHO.
Napa Scott
Mike McClain
"Mike Caro" <ca...@caro.com> wrote :
>
> I'm confident Roy doesn't use the hand histories to analyze the play
> of individual customers. We wouldn't approve of that.
He has stated that he does this on numerous occasions. Are you
calling him a liar?
>
> We have announced that I will release a statistical study of the
> profitability of hands by position played by customers in general
> without regard to identity. I think this information will be valuable
> to the poker community. All of the data being analyzed is at least six
> months old.
Now it is your turn to abuse the power of the having the Planet database
at your disposal?! This database contains the results of the play
of all of the customers. Even if you make it such that the results
and play cannot be traced to any individual, I think that they,
as a group, are entitled to this information being private. I don't
think this summed tally should be viewed by the public unless
every contributor of that database has given permission.
These people did not fill out some anonymous poll. They played
at a website in which they trusted the people running that website
to keep their personal information private. Roy and you do not
seem to value their privacy as much as you should.
I won't argue the value of the database... I too think it can greatly
improve the play of people that know how to use it. The database
has the ability to sum up a couple of lifetimes of play, by summing
up the results of people that do not want to participate in this task.
Mike McClain
"Mike McClain" <mmcclain_...@omsoft.com> wrote :
>
> I won't argue the value of the database... I too think it can greatly
> improve the play of people that know how to use it. The database
> has the ability to sum up a couple of lifetimes of play, by summing
> up the results of people that do not want to participate in this task.
>
I accidentally sent this message without finihhing my thoughts....
Caro, you are abusing your position by creating this database
study. If somebody wants to do his own study, let him use
his own hand histories to form his own database. Let him
play the hundreds of thousands of hands necessary for such
a database to have enough data to help him fine-tune his game.
Do not supply the hands that I've played, or that my friends
have played, or that all of the other customers that trusted
you to keep their information private to help them improve
their play. When we mucked our hands preflop, or any
other time prior to the river, you gave us the impression
that our hands would not be revealed.
Not everybody feels the need to make the world a better
poker player.
M.
Gary Carson
>Carson, get a spell-checker ... and a life.
First bus flames, now spelling flames.
It's amazing how some people will react when you question their
comfortable little world view.
Gary Carson
Jenson) wrote:
Exactly how is it neccasary?
At the end of the process and you've determined that cheating has
occured you'll want to know the identity in order to ban them,
confiscate monies, etc. But, during the investigation process? Do
you think they should check and see if my brother is a known cheat or
something?
Mike Caro
wrote:
>Mike Caro <ca...@caro.com> writes:
>
>>and to make all the data available at UniversityOfPoker.com....
>===================
>At the risk of IRC censure, has this guy ever done anything that
>did not promote himself?
>
>Paul
Paul --
I honestly don't get your point. Why shouldn't I say that? Why
shouldn't people who volunteer know what my intentions are? What do
you have against me promoting the things I believe in?
Straight Flushes,
Mike Caro
Mike Caro
M --
I appreciate your thoughts, and I understand your concerns, but to me
it seems like a stretch. I don't believe industries violate the trust
of the public by reporting what products sold the best or many other
results of information they have the ability to gather that others
don't.
I'd like to hear what others say, but I have announced this in the
past and we have posted the policy on our web site. I personally don't
see how it harms anyone, and -- in fact -- I think the information may
be useful to our own players, as well as to others who are interested
in poker.
Straight Flushes,
Mike Caro
AJohn808
I (do/do not) authorize PP to include my hand histories in data base
studies.
>I personally don't
>see how it harms anyone, and -- in fact -- I think the information may
>be useful to our own players, as well as to others who are interested
>in poker.
>From: Mike Caro ca...@caro.com
Mike McClain
"Mike Caro" <ca...@caro.com> wrote :
>
> I appreciate your thoughts, and I understand your concerns, but to me
> it seems like a stretch. I don't believe industries violate the trust
> of the public by reporting what products sold the best or many other
> results of information they have the ability to gather that others
> don't.
>
Reporting on the products that people purchased is not the same
thing as reporting on their methodology to extract money from
their competitors. You provide a forum in which we are able
to do so, and now you want to explain to those people that
lost money how it is that the winners took it from them?
Not only is it not your position to do so, it is an abuse of
your position.
M.
Mike McClain
"AJohn808" <ajoh...@aol.com> wrote :
> how about offering the players an option:
>
> I (do/do not) authorize PP to include my hand histories in data base
> studies.
>
I don't think that is an adequate solution. Caro would still be using
his position to gather this information easily to help in creating that
database study. I think that a cardroom that is helping to facilitate
such a study is out of line.
M.
Mike Caro
John --
I sincerely appreciate your thought, but I'm not sure whether I like
the idea. Maybe.
But, wouldn't we risk ending up with an unreliable result, because
players who opt in may play differently from ones who opt out. I guess
you could apply that to people entering a baseball stadium: "I [do/do
not] authorize my presence to be added to the announcement of total
attendance." Should online poker clubs be allowed to post the average
size of pots at the tables as they do currently?
I know that's not an exact analogy, but to me this argument seems
bizarre. I already have the information needed to report how specific
hands fare in various positions. No players are identified or tracked.
I'm planning to use this information in my teachings and my
publications to try to help others play better.
I thought I was doing a good thing by offering to share this
information with all players, writers, and researchers so that we
could better understand the game of poker. But if enough people think
this is a bad idea, I won't.
Straight Flushes,
Mike Caro
Mike Caro
M --
Thank you for your comments.
Straight Flushes,
Mike Caro
Lee Munzer
"Bjgkaraoke" wrote ...
> Has anyone read this yet? I was surprised to read that he can read any
players
> hand history in his job at Planet Poker. I wonder if anybody else thinks
this
> column is rather shocking. He discusses his friend John's record at
Planet and
> the fact that he can look up other hand histories. Does this bother
anyone who
> plays with him in Las Vegas? Also, does he play at Planet? Just
wondering.
At the risk of oversimplifying this issue, I acknowledge Barbara's interest
as well-founded and clearly see Mike M., J. K., and Gary C's position.
However, I have to ask myself, "If Roy is acting unscrupulously would he
really have written the referenced article?"
Personally, if Roy is examining my hand histories I suspect he could
classify me as tight/aggressive and conclude I call a bit too much on the
river and check a bit too much on the flop (especially in early position).
Do I care if anyone knows this. Apparently, I don't. Why not? Because I
play differently against different compositions and in different situations
(limits, # of players, counter table image etc.). I probably play much like
Roy does (I conclude this based on reading more than 100 of his columns -- I
have a good idea how he adjusts to different situations).
If he is reading Gary's hand histories he might conclude Gary is more
aggressive than I am and gets more money into the pots when he has marginal
hands. I know this from Gary's many posts. So, Lee is certainly a tighter
player than Gary. Would Roy benefit more than another player who was
somewhat observant and watched me and Gary carefully during a four hour
session we played together? Possibly, if he had look up charts and computer
printouts on tendencies in various situations on all of us. Am I worried
about that possibility? No. If he knows I may check-raise once and bet
three times UTG against the same composition with top pair / top kicker on
the flop he still has to figure out when I check, is this my time to
check-raise. Sure, if he knows I check-raised once in 76 times on the flop,
he has a big advantage. But, if that was my actual history, I'd be washing
Badger's fleet of Rolls Royce's for a living rather than being paid by the
word from RGP headquarters.
Lee
Tom Weideman
The ONLY way this could be done in a way that is fair to your customers is
to have them agree to having their hands scrutinized in this way AS A
CONDITION of playing at your site. That is, when a person first signs up,
you could have him/her them click an "I AGREE" button that follows an
explanation of how you are going to use the data they generate for you.
Without doing this, I don't think it's right for you to use that data.
Furthermore, you have said several times that you don't see how this hurts
your customers, and I think it certainly does hurt some of them, but that is
beside the point. The real point is that it is not for you to decide what
hurts or doesn't hurt them - they should be allowed to decide for
themselves, and you have not afforded them this option.
Tom Weideman
Ken M
Cooke but I read his articles.
Given this, I tend to agree with Mike McClain's post. I don't like the idea of
being included in a "study" without my permission.
I also think the reactions to Carson's post were overblown. I didn't read any
real accusation, rather a real question of ethics.
I don't much like the idea of Roy Cooke reading hand histories, then helping
his buddy with his online play. It may be perfectly innocent, but I don't like
the idea of it.
Just my two cents.
Gary Carson
wrote:
>
>"Bjgkaraoke" wrote ...
>
>At the risk of oversimplifying this issue, I acknowledge Barbara's
interest
>as well-founded and clearly see Mike M., J. K., and Gary C's
position.
>However, I have to ask myself, "If Roy is acting unscrupulously would
he
>really have written the referenced article?"
He would if he suffered from some bipolar disorder and just doesn't
understand the possibility that he might act unethgically. It's not
uncommon for people to not see the wrong in their own actions. It's a
mild form of delustion of granduer
I'm not saying Roy is nuts, but if he was that would explain your
observation.
PegSmithNow
>...I think that a cardroom that is helping to facilitate
>such a study is out of line.
As long as my name wasn't used, I'd have no problem with it at all. What could
possibly be the harm?
Peg
Gary Carson
Let's say you were in a B/M cardroom. Everytime a player folded the
big blind to a single raise the dealer peeked at the cards before
mucking them and made a little note (that no one else could see).
Then, after a few months the cardroom published a table of frequency
of folding hand xy from the big blind after a raise.
Would you have a problem with that?
Mike McClain
"Gary Carson" <garyc...@alumni.northwestern.edu> wrote :
More importantly, what if they kept track of all of the hands that
people did defend their blinds with, as well as how people fared
with each hand. After a few months, they published the results,
and many players found out that the hands they were defending
with were losing money, or that the hands they were folding were
winning money.
As a result of the study, performed by the cardroom and on their
customers, all of your opponents began to play better.
If you were one of the better players there, do you see why you
might not want this cardroom to do this study?
I'm not saying that if another customer did the study and wanted to
publish such a thing it should be shut down. But the cardroom has
no business performing such a study.
M.
Izmet Fekali
> The real point is that it is not for you to decide what
> hurts or doesn't hurt them - they should be allowed to decide for
> themselves, and you have not afforded them this option.
Well said.
--
Izmet Fekali
Burek Experts Ltd.
Catering the World since 1389!
Albania, Slovenia, Europe
Mike Caro
If you're saying that a bulk analysis of the way 40,000 anonymous
players have fared with A-A, hopefully leading everyone to understand
how much the hand is worth, is unethical, then I disagree. I don't
mean to be argumentative, but I do.
In my silly, sick, warped way of thinking, I was hoping to be
applauded for not hording the information and offering it everyone,
including competitors.
I respect you, but I don't get this one.
I know there was at one time a coordinated effort to stop me from
doing this, because some people think I will get an edge on them in
the publishing market. I KNOW THIS HAPPENED FOR A FACT. But aside from
that, I'm puzzled by these sudden negative comments (not yours
specifically) about the ethics of my behavior. They sound like a
stretch to me and I'm very disappointed by them. But maybe I'm just
wrong.
Straight Flushes,
Mike Caro
On Thu, 06 Sep 2001 17:52:40 -0700, Tom Weideman <zwi...@pacbell.net>
wrote:
Chris Hundley
"Jonathan Kaplan" <NutN...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:qSMl7.6619$4z.2...@www.newsranger.com...
> In article <0acept0kt7cdur7jp...@4ax.com>, Mike Caro says...
> >
> >On 06 Sep 2001 02:56:26 GMT, bjgka...@aol.com (Bjgkaraoke) wrote:
> >
> >>Has anyone read this yet? I was surprised to read that he can read any
players
> >>hand history in his job at Planet Poker. I wonder if anybody else
thinks this
> >>column is rather shocking. He discusses his friend John's record at
Planet and
> >>the fact that he can look up other hand histories. Does this bother
anyone who
> >>plays with him in Las Vegas? Also, does he play at Planet? Just
wondering.
> >>Barbara Gallamore
> >
> >Hi, Barbara --
> >
> >Roy Cooke scans hands in an attempt to spot and prevent collusion. He
> >is authorized to do this because we believe in both his ability and
> >his ethics. We do not hide this fact. Because he has a privileged
> >position of trust as our cardroom manager, he has access to the names
> >and addresses of players. This information is often used in order to
> >make contacts and determine whether several players may be living
> >together, neighbors, in the same dorm, and more.
> >
> >I'm confident Roy doesn't use the hand histories to analyze the play
> >of individual customers. We wouldn't approve of that.
>
> how confident are you, Mike?
> i think it would be very very difficult to
> 1) look at hand histories of others,
> 2) analyze the play
> 3) know the actual names of the players
> and then,
> 4) NOT use that information, if one ever played with that player, online
or in
> real life.
>
> i have played with Roy C., at the mirage and bellagio. i have introduced
myself,
> we have talked some. i doubt if he remembers me, but if he wanted to, he
could
> have remembered.
> i am (reasonably well) known as NutNoPair, online.
> that connection is something i would wish that a site employee wouldnt
take
> advantage of. and i think Roy C. has plenty of integrity. but it is
> near-impossible to not factor in known info, no matter what the
circumstance,
> when the info is relevant. and Roy C. can know the info, sometimes HAS to
know
> the info. and he does play poker with me.
>
> i dont see why the names cannot be anonymous, when Roy is performing his
duties
> at Planet Poker, and analyzing the data. addresses, and other identifying
info
> can be checked if absolutely need be, but even then, names can remain
hidden,
> unless absolutely needed.
> regardless of Roy's high integrity, this issue threatens to besmirch it, i
> think. just my opinion.
>
> Jonathan
>
>
>
>
>
> no matter where you go, there you are...
Mike Caro
wrote:
>In <B7BD6868.26FF%zwi...@pacbell.net> Tom Weideman wrote:
>> The real point is that it is not for you to decide what
>> hurts or doesn't hurt them - they should be allowed to decide for
>> themselves, and you have not afforded them this option.
>
>Well said.
>
>Izmet Fekali
Izmet --
How come? The same statement could be applied to a very wide range of
things we are happy to accept. It sounds inappropriate to me,
personally, when used in this context. But I respect your opinion.
Straight Flushes,
Mike Caro
Badger
Some people do, especially cardroom executives.
Cardrooms have long done things to deliberately help weaker players play
better, mostly because it is in their interest for players to play
adequately because they are likely to put in more hours, have more fun, not
lose all their money in a brief instant, etc.
Sensible winning players understand this too. It is better for new players
to have a fighting chance and for longterm losing players to not be
completely overwhelmed. Giving the bulk of players a *chance* of getting
better, and encouraging new players to play (and play more) should be
important to any sensible winning player.
What Mike is proposing/doing is something that has never been done before,
but it is not fundamentally different than a card room offering free
lectures or structuring games with antes. These things benefit non-advanced
players, deliberately. This database thing may be an example of something
that goes *too* far -- that is something people surely can dispute -- but
objecting to the idea of a cardroom consciously doing something to help its
players play better is to run uphill against history.
--
Steve Badger
http://www.playwinningpoker.com
Bad Bob the Albino
>
>I appreciate your thoughts, and I understand your concerns, but to me
>it seems like a stretch. I don't believe industries violate the trust
>of the public by reporting what products sold the best or many other
>results of information they have the ability to gather that others
>don't.
>
>I'd like to hear what others say, but I have announced this in the
>past and we have posted the policy on our web site. I personally don't
>see how it harms anyone, and -- in fact -- I think the information may
>be useful to our own players, as well as to others who are interested
>in poker.
>
>Straight Flushes,
>Mike Caro
Mike,
I am usually very supportive of you and Planet but this issue is going to leave a sour
taste in my mouth. I pay to play at Planet or used to until I just couldn't abide the
lack of upgrade any longer. I don't think Sears should have a right to allow their
employees (no matter how prestigious or honest they may be) to look through my credit
and purchase records to determine my life style. At least not without my permission.
It should be no great task to assign code numbers to each account that do not show any
customer info to the person doing the screening for collusion etc. This would serve your
purposes for information and protect us from unscrupulous employees. There is absolutely
no reason and a whole lot of reasons why you or Cooke should be allowed to know how
badly I play or otherwise.
This has absolutely nothing to do with you or Mr. Cooke's credibility. It is a matter of
principal.
If you are allowed to look at my hand histories and know that they are mine then I
should be allowed to see yours and Mr. Cooke's and everyone else at Planet for my
benefit.
Sorry Mike but you are way off base on this issue and if you don't think a little harder
about this it will cost you a lot more credibility than the GCA fiasco did.
/ \,,_ .'|
,{{| /}}}}/_.'
}}}}` '{{' '.
{{{{{ _ ;, \
,}}}}}} /o`\ ` ;) Bad Bob the Albino
{{{{{{ / ( mailto:bad...@toughguy.net.xspam
}}}}}} | \
{{{{{{{{ \ \ "Cook him till he's blue,
}}}}}}}}} '.__ _ | and smother him in onions"
{{{{{{{{ /`._ (_\ /
}}}}}}' | \\___/ (Si hoc legere scis numium eruditionis habes)
`{{{{` | '--'
}}}`
Bad Bob the Albino
Good ol' Peg the one line queen. This is what I said in a hell of a lot more words than
you. Now if we can just convince Mike.
Bad Bob the Albino
I really have not much problem with Mike or even Mr. Cooke but how about the rest of the
people at Planet. If this is casually allowed (studying hand histories) then what is to
stop the janitor from doing it at night?
Badger
together, and so haven't really an opinion on it, but I would consider
anything like this to probably have a negative impact on most players and a
significantly positive effect on good players. I can imagine Prock spending
weeks at a time studying how people play JTo out of the small blind. Most
players will pay zero attention to it just like they spend zero attention to
poker magazines and books and to RGP and 2+2. Something like this would
make better players better. If you are taking the time and making the
effort to read RGP, it would mostly be a good thing for you and mostly be
bad for your opponents.
"Badger" <PlayWinning[RemoveThis]Po...@earthlink.net> wrote...
Mike Caro
I probably didn't explain clearly enough what I was talking about. I
actually agree with your position about maintaining the anonymity of
players to the greatest degree possible, and the words you replied to
were about something else entirely.
I have NEVER looked at the database to decipher how anyone I know
plays, even though I'm curious. I have NEVER sat in a real-world
surveillance room and tried to determine my opponents' tells. I
consider this to be improper use for potential poker profit of an
advantage that is afforded me for a non-related reason.
But even though I agree with you about it being better to monitor
anonymous customers, this seems sometimes impractical to me. Often we
need to know who the customers are in advance -- they've been
identified and that's why we're looking into the allegations. The
"final straw" may be a continuation of a past history of incidents,
and we need to know who the player is. In real-world casinos, top
management has access to lots of information about you.
For your information, we actually do a lot of scanning of hands for
unusual play without knowing the identity of the players. This is also
a useful technique. Many of the algorithms I've proposed for the
future will scan the database, identifying players by number only.
This, of course, doesn't really protect anyone's anonymity, because
management will later be able to match the numbers of suspicious
players to their real names.
I agree with you completely that the anonymity of players should be
preserved to the greatest degree. I'm sure Roy thinks so, too.
Straight Flushes,
Mike Caro
Izmet Fekali
I'm kinda torn here. I'm have an interest in the eventual results
of the study, but OTOH it just doesn't feel right. Tom's post was
closest to my feelings, so I responded.
BTW, I strongly object to Roy Cooke's priviledges at Planet Poker.
Mike Caro
<PlayWinning[RemoveThis]Po...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>I guess I'll add that I don't know exactly what Mike was thinking of putting
>together, and so haven't really an opinion on it, but I would consider
>anything like this to probably have a negative impact on most players and a
>significantly positive effect on good players. I can imagine Prock spending
>weeks at a time studying how people play JTo out of the small blind. Most
>players will pay zero attention to it just like they spend zero attention to
>poker magazines and books and to RGP and 2+2. Something like this would
>make better players better. If you are taking the time and making the
>effort to read RGP, it would mostly be a good thing for you and mostly be
>bad for your opponents.
Hi, Steve --
Actually, all I was planning was a matrix of how all 169 possible hold
'em starting hands fared (when played by 40,000 anonymous opponents of
all skill levels) in actual "units" wagered from various positions
under various conditions (raised, first-in, see-flop-for-free, and so
forth). I already have this data. I was trying to be fair about
providing it to everyone, rather than hoarding it. It's just that
simple.
Straight Flushes,
Mike Caro
Larry W. (Wayno) Phillips
>Hi, Steve --
>
>Actually, all I was planning was a matrix of how all 169 possible hold
>'em starting hands fared (when played by 40,000 anonymous opponents of
>all skill levels) in actual "units" wagered from various positions
>under various conditions (raised, first-in, see-flop-for-free, and so
>forth). I already have this data. I was trying to be fair about
>providing it to everyone, rather than hoarding it. It's just that
>simple.
>
>Straight Flushes,
>Mike Caro
This is the first time such data ever existed,
am I right? I mean, historically speaking...?
Best, Wayno
Gary Carson
And you needed to put together this data as part of your efforts to
weed out collusion, right?
Mike Caro
Hi, Wayno --
I'll play the straight man for you and let others follow-through with
the punch lines...
This kind of information exists through simulations and certainly as a
result of free games played online. Also, many other online cardrooms
have comparable data. It's very possible that someone else has also
had access to and analyzed this type of historical information.
Straight Flushes,
Mike Caro
Mike McClain
"Mike Caro" <ca...@caro.com> wrote :
>
> Actually, all I was planning was a matrix of how all 169 possible hold
> 'em starting hands fared (when played by 40,000 anonymous opponents of
> all skill levels) in actual "units" wagered from various positions
> under various conditions (raised, first-in, see-flop-for-free, and so
> forth). I already have this data. I was trying to be fair about
> providing it to everyone, rather than hoarding it. It's just that
> simple.
>
You've already crossed the line. Planet had no business supplying
you access to their database of hands for this purpose.
M.
Larry W. (Wayno) Phillips
>> This is the first time such data ever existed,
>> am I right? I mean, historically speaking...?
>>
>> Best, Wayno
>
>Hi, Wayno --
>
>This kind of information exists through simulations and certainly as a
>result of free games played online. Also, many other online cardrooms
>have comparable data. It's very possible that someone else has also
>had access to and analyzed this type of historical information.
>
>Straight Flushes,
>Mike Caro
No, I meant first time, historically, real people, real money
(not play money)- since online cardrooms started (including
other cardrooms). And before that, no such data ever
existed in this quantity.
Wayno
Mike Caro
No, Gary.
Straight Flushes,
Mike Caro
m...@acm.org
> I appreciate your thoughts, and I understand your concerns, but to me
> it seems like a stretch. I don't believe industries violate the trust
> of the public by reporting what products sold the best or many other
> results of information they have the ability to gather that others
> don't.
This seems like a stretch. People are not involved in the competition
between "products" in the grocery store whereas they are on the poker
table.
> I'd like to hear what others say, but I have announced this in the
> past and we have posted the policy on our web site. I personally don't
> see how it harms anyone, and -- in fact -- I think the information may
> be useful to our own players, as well as to others who are interested
> in poker.
Which policy have you posted? You've posted the policy of looking at
hands for collusion but I don't remember ever seeing anything about
looking at hands for poker research. If you have stated that on your
website could you please post a pointer. If would nullify a lot of the
arguments being made here.
mph
Tom Weideman
> If you're saying that a bulk analysis of the way 40,000 anonymous
> players have fared with A-A, hopefully leading everyone to understand
> how much the hand is worth, is unethical, then I disagree. I don't
> mean to be argumentative, but I do.
>
> In my silly, sick, warped way of thinking, I was hoping to be
> applauded for not hording the information and offering it everyone,
> including competitors.
I think you misunderstand my point. I don't think you are wrong for sharing
the information you are getting from this database, you are wrong for
GATHERING it in the first place without the consent of the paying customers
that are responsible for it. If you collect your own hand histories and
create a database (using just the cards that were exposed to you) and wanted
to publish you findings from that database, then no problem.
Okay, now bear with me on this flight of fancy... Suppose someone discovered
some bizarre aspect of holdem that apparently no one else knows: When you
hold the Jc4s on the button, there is a raise utg, and everyone folds to the
cutoff seat who calls, then your hand has an ev of 2.3 big bets it you
reraise. This obviously isn't worth much, since the situation only occurs
very rarely, but if you don't warn customers ahead of time that you will be
creating and analyzing a database from their hands, this person may feel
safe in playing at your site without having his secret revealed. If you
discover this amazing anomaly on your own and decide to make it public, he
can't really say anything, but you should not be surprised if he is upset to
discover that you are revealing the secret derived from data extracted from
his hand histories. In fact, he would be justifiably upset even if you
discovered the secret by analyzing his data even if you DIDN'T distribute
it.
Although the above hypothetical is clearly absurd, your example of AA is
equally absurd on the other end of the spectrum (there is no useful secret
revealed about either hand). The real point (which I stated before, but you
didn't seem to address) is that PEOPLE MAY NOT HAVE DECIDED TO PLAY AT
PLANET if they had known about this possibility from the outset. You don't
have an ethics problem because you don't think the players will be hurt by
this action, but ethics are not judged by whether YOU think you are hurting
another, but rather by whether THEY think so. For example, if someone
confides in you with a secret they think is important but you think is
innocuous, is it unethical to reveal that secret to someone else? Of course
it is.
> I know there was at one time a coordinated effort to stop me from
> doing this, because some people think I will get an edge on them in
> the publishing market. I KNOW THIS HAPPENED FOR A FACT.
I'm more than willing to give you the benefit of the doubt that you are not
taking a stand on this just because you think it will give you an edge in
the publishing market. But I do think you may need to think this one
through some more before you completely paint yourself into a corner. You
gave yourself an out (sort of) a few posts back with:
> I thought I was doing a good thing by offering to share this
> information with all players, writers, and researchers so that we
> could better understand the game of poker. But if enough people think
> this is a bad idea, I won't.
It's not completely an out, because as I said above, the objection is not
with the sharing of the information but with its accumulation. Still, it
would be a step in the right direction, imo.
Tom Weideman
m...@acm.org
> Not only is it not your position to do so, it is an abuse of
> your position.
Maybe I'm too paranoid but I can't see playing online and somehow
thinking that all the data I'm giving to the site I'm playing on is
going to be kept entirely private. When I started playing online I
_assumed_ that what MC is doing/has done would ultimately be done. So
I'm not so inclined to believe its an abuse of his position.
What made you think that when you started playing online that this
data would be gathered? Would you prefer it be quietly, privately
used to better some elite groups of players games or would you prefer
it be public?
I think the cat was out of the bag online poker was born. Trying to
stuff it back in is going to be fruitless. How the data should be
release and the level of care the online casinos give it is far more
my concern. I would far prefer the raw anonimized data then getting
it cooked as it appears MC plans.
mph
Mike Caro
M --
I mean this in the nicest way, but I came to rec.gambling.poker for
fun and to exchange ideas and, frankly, because my ego trapped me into
thinking some people might appreciate my presence.
It now seems to me that many posters are going out of their way to
spot ways in which I've done the wrong thing. As I've said before,
this forum isn't fun anymore.
I try to treat everyone respectfully unless there's an overwhelming
reason to do otherwise. So, I'll try responding this way, and I hope
you won't take it wrong, There seem to be a hoard of RGPers, and maybe
it's a personality trait among us, who see the littlest damn
inconsequential things as major issues.
I'm affiliated with Planet Poker in a big and conspicuous way. I'm not
a figurehead. I wouldn't have affiliated with them if I couldn't have
access to things that put me at ease about their operations. I don't
endorse, consult with, or manage things I don't have faith in. I would
specifically NOT have affiliated with Planet Poker if important things
were guarded from me. Planet Poker has every business supplying me
"access to their database for this purpose." It is a purpose we
publicly announced. It doesn't harm anyone. It's a non-issue.
Now you can scratch your head and come up with obtuse arguments about
how poker will be harmed by the information. Fine. I won't argue one
way or the other. I bargained with them on the players' behalf in
order to be able to make this information available to you. But, fine,
it's not worth the effort. I'm won't do it.
But I'm going to tell everyone straight out, I'm in a bad mood, and
I'm really, really getting tired of this. What I'm going to say will
shock some of you, but it's how I feel. In my mind, this forum has
changed from the happiest place on earth for lonely poker players to a
dark, dismal, ugly, and often unfriendly place.
I don't know how it happened, but it did.
Straight Flushes,
Mike Caro
Daniel Kimberg
> If you're saying that a bulk analysis of the way 40,000 anonymous
> players have fared with A-A, hopefully leading everyone to understand
> how much the hand is worth, is unethical, then I disagree. I don't
> mean to be argumentative, but I do.
I can't speak for Tom, so let me say what I consider borderline ethical
here. (I haven't decided on which side it goes yet, so I'm going with
"borderline.")
The issue obviously has nothing to do with analysis of hands or
understanding of poker. And it has nothing to do with why anyone would
object to this use being made of the data (but let's say it's religious
reasons). The issue has to do with violating the implicit trust of
(probably a minority of) Planet's customers. Regardless of the contents of
whatever fine print Planet's customers had to click through to use the
facilities, there are certainly customers who will feel that they wouldn't
have played online if they'd known that data about their play were going to
be used for non-security reasons. Although you may think these efforts are
valuable, and I and many others may agree, there are clearly at least a few
players who would not have contributed knowingly to these analyses. In
large part, the ethical issue is whether or not they were adequately warned
before they played, so that they could make an informed decision. If no one
made a special effort to make it sufficiently clear to players, before they
played, that this (non-customary) use would be made of their hand histories,
and as a result people played with the reasonable expectation that these
histories wouldn't be used (players who wouldn't have played if it had been
made clear), then using them is ethically suspect. There's clearly lots of
gray area, especially since there really is no customary practice with
online poker. Certainly if it were just a few cases of simple mistakes,
people who didn't read the clearly posted signs, then fine, you can only do
so much to protect people from themselves. I don't know if that's a good
characterization of this situation though.
A comment on click-throughs... Terms of use and such have a lot to do with
law, I guess, but little to do with ethics. Nobody really expects anyone to
read boilerplate -- if some popular software package started asking people
to sign over their houses, most people would click on "I Agree," and there
would be little disagreement over the ethics of, in effect, tricking people
into giving up their property (pretend the legal side passed muster). There
may or may not be a legal requirement to print unusual or non-customary
terms in bigger print, or somewhere people are liable to actually read it.
I don't know, I'm not a lawyer. But there's certainly an ethical
requirement to do so, if there's a substantial possibility that otherwise,
people would agree to the terms only because they didn't read them
carefully. Put differently, it's not ethical to trick someone into doing
something to which they wouldn't otherwise explicitly agree (even if the
"trick" is unintentional). Is that the case here? I have to admit, it's
been a long time since I played at Planet, so I don't know. I do play at
Paradise, and frankly I have no idea what I agreed to there. I may be an
idiot for that reason, but if it turns out they do something objectionable
there, to which many people agreed only because nobody reads the small
print, I don't see how anyone could defend that practice as ethical.
I realize that you've already posted that you disagree with this point of
view. But if there's a substantial number of people who feel they played on
Planet or any other site due to some mistaken but reasonable belief, even if
you think they have no real reason to object, you ought to give their
objections some weight.
On the flip side, I have some other replies on the subject of what to do
with the data. I'll save that for another post.
dan
Daniel Kimberg
> If you're saying that a bulk analysis of the way 40,000 anonymous
> players have fared with A-A, hopefully leading everyone to understand
> how much the hand is worth, is unethical, then I disagree. I don't
> mean to be argumentative, but I do.
I can't speak for Tom, so let me say what I consider borderline ethical
Daniel Kimberg
> If you're saying that a bulk analysis of the way 40,000 anonymous
> players have fared with A-A, hopefully leading everyone to understand
> how much the hand is worth, is unethical, then I disagree. I don't
> mean to be argumentative, but I do.
I can't speak for Tom, so let me say what I consider borderline ethical
Mike Caro
It was DEFINITELY there at one time (I wrote it), but I don't know if
it's there now. It stated (when you signed up) that we would use
pooled, anonymous data no more recent that six-months old (I think)
without regard to who the players are and would make this available to
the public.
I've got an idea. What if we integrate into our next generation of
software an easily accessible matrix of the 169 hold 'em starting
hands, pagable through links to position and situation (raise,
no-raise, etc.) that is updated in real time?
See, to me this is no more problematic than the research real-world
and online cardrooms do daily now by grouping everyone together to get
average pot-sizes, players per hand, number of raises, and more on a
casino-wide basis. Except the players don't get to see the results.
That's what I wanted to fix.
This is why I simply don't feel the argument against doing this is
valid. And, frankly, I don't think there are many customers who give a
hoot about whether we try to help players and writers by making
six-month old, general, anonymous data available. Sure their actions
are blended in with 40,000 others, but so what?
I know you and Tom Weiderman and othres think differently, and I
respect that, but I'm unconvinced. OK, fine, I won't post this
publicly. (I already have plans to use it in my publications, and just
a cursory scan has modified some of my thinking, but reassured me I've
been pretty much on the right track in what I teach. I don't think I
can conscientiously analyze things in the future and not incorporate
what I know to be true. And I wanted to share it.)
You can be quite certain, with all the poker databases out there right
now, that some people are crunching the numbers for their own purposes
-- never to be talked about or published. I thought my idea was
better. I appreciate your opinions very much, even though I disagree
on this one.
Straight Flushes,
Mike Caro
Daniel Kimberg
> If you're saying that a bulk analysis of the way 40,000 anonymous
> players have fared with A-A, hopefully leading everyone to understand
> how much the hand is worth, is unethical, then I disagree. I don't
> mean to be argumentative, but I do.
I can't speak for Tom, so let me say what I consider borderline ethical
Daniel Kimberg
[the same thing four times]
Sorry all, my news client did it.
dan
Mike Caro
You posted this four times, so I assume you feel REALLY strongly that
it's borderline.
Anyway, some excellent points. I still think major businesses do far
more conspicuous things in analyzing customers trends than this. And I
can't imagine what the objection of a player would be to your
announcing how a pair of sevens did in the big blind, on average, as
played by thousands of different people. but maybe I'm just seeing it
wrong. Thanks for giving me things to think about.
Straight Flushes,
Mike Caro
Badger
>> >Which policy have you posted? You've posted the policy of looking at
> >hands for collusion but I don't remember ever seeing anything about
> >looking at hands for poker research. If you have stated that on your
> >website could you please post a pointer. If would nullify a lot of the
> >arguments being made here.
> >
> > mph
> It was DEFINITELY there at one time (I wrote it), but I don't know if
> it's there now.
http://www.planetpoker.com/cardroom/pp_privacy.htm
It's there. It says in part:
"If you choose to register and play in our games, please be aware that we
maintain a database of all hands played. We use this information for two
purposes........ Further, a Mike Caro University of Poker project has been
announced wherein research on general trends and profitability of hands will
be studied. Mike Caro will personally engineer this project and make results
known in future publications and on our Planet Poker web site. You will be
free to use the published data as will researchers worldwide. In this way,
we hope to contribute to taking poker beyond its traditional smoky-barroom
image and help give it the credibility and respect we believe it deserves as
one of the great games in history. In this type of research, we will never
examine how any individual plays. All findings will be grouped by the
software and even Mike Caro will have no idea who played what hands.
Additionally, no data will be studied that isn't at least six months (183
days) old."
Look before you leap.
--
Steve Badger
"Winner's Guide to Online Poker"
http://www.playwinningpoker.com/guide1.html
m...@acm.org
>>Which policy have you posted? You've posted the policy of looking at
>>hands for collusion but I don't remember ever seeing anything about
>>looking at hands for poker research. If you have stated that on your
>>website could you please post a pointer. If would nullify a lot of the
>>arguments being made here.
>>
>> mph
> It was DEFINITELY there at one time (I wrote it), but I don't know if
> it's there now. It stated (when you signed up) that we would use
> pooled, anonymous data no more recent that six-months old (I think)
> without regard to who the players are and would make this available to
> the public.
If that was in the signup agreement then I don't see how Tom's
argument holds up. I'm not in Dan K's camp on this one. If the
signup agreement said this then I can't see how anybody can bitch.
[...]
> This is why I simply don't feel the argument against doing this is
> valid. And, frankly, I don't think there are many customers who give a
> hoot about whether we try to help players and writers by making
> six-month old, general, anonymous data available. Sure their actions
> are blended in with 40,000 others, but so what?
This I don't think your correct about. I think if you could sample
your user populace you would find more then 25% of them would react
strongly against this. At this moment most of the people in this
thread understand that you can anonimize the data such that individual
data can't be retrieved without you explaining that. Just getting to
that point with 50% of your user populace would take some effort and
they would probably form an opinino well before you could get there.
> I know you and Tom Weiderman and othres think differently, and I
> respect that, but I'm unconvinced. OK, fine, I won't post this
> publicly. (I already have plans to use it in my publications, and just
> a cursory scan has modified some of my thinking, but reassured me I've
> been pretty much on the right track in what I teach. I don't think I
> can conscientiously analyze things in the future and not incorporate
> what I know to be true. And I wanted to share it.)
Actually I don't agree with Tom. The data is there. I don't see the
issue as being one of "if" we use the data but rather "how".
> You can be quite certain, with all the poker databases out there right
> now, that some people are crunching the numbers for their own purposes
> -- never to be talked about or published. I thought my idea was
> better. I appreciate your opinions very much, even though I disagree
> on this one.
I agree. Thats why I would far prefer to concentrate on "how" rather
then if. I hope that at some point you can release Planet data in a
raw format instead of cooked (heh, pun not intended). I'm sure that
would facilitate learning the maximum from the data provided and do
the best for leveling the playing field. I'm more then willing talk
to you offline in how I think you should do this. There are examples
existing in the world already where people had similar concerns (web
traffic for example).
mph
The Baron
> On 06 Sep 2001 02:56:26 GMT, bjgka...@aol.com (Bjgkaraoke) wrote:
>
> >Has anyone read this yet? I was surprised to read that he can read any players
> >hand history in his job at Planet Poker. I wonder if anybody else thinks this
> >column is rather shocking. He discusses his friend John's record at Planet and
> >the fact that he can look up other hand histories. Does this bother anyone who
> >plays with him in Las Vegas? Also, does he play at Planet? Just wondering.
> >Barbara Gallamore
>
> Hi, Barbara --
>
> Roy Cooke scans hands in an attempt to spot and prevent collusion. He
> is authorized to do this because we believe in both his ability and
> his ethics. We do not hide this fact. Because he has a privileged
> position of trust as our cardroom manager, he has access to the names
> and addresses of players. This information is often used in order to
> make contacts and determine whether several players may be living
> together, neighbors, in the same dorm, and more.
There's absolutely no need to have player ID information, beyond system
ID information, to analyze for patterns indicating collusion. As for the names
and addresses, is there a reason that's not being analyzed by the system? They
do conduct realtime screening of all of the upstream routing data to check for
duplication of IPs and the like, I hope so anyway. If they're not, why not? If
they are, why isn't the same system being used to analyze the realworld
address information?
SNIP FOR BREVITY
> Straight Flushes,
> Mike Caro
--
J.A. James
(The Baron)
Proud member of: The Radium League
Dedicated Fixer for: Evil People Inc.
PegSmithNow
>
>Let's say you were in a B/M cardroom. Everytime a player folded the
>big blind to a single raise the dealer peeked at the cards before
>mucking them and made a little note (that no one else could see).
>
>Then, after a few months the cardroom published a table of frequency
>of folding hand xy from the big blind after a raise.
>
>Would you have a problem with that?
I would object only because of the game being slowed down--not for the
information gathered, no.
Peg
Tom Weideman
This pretty much closes the issue for me, provided the hands used in the
database were played after this was posted and there was some "reasonable"
attempt to make everyone playing on Planet aware of this posting (a
click-through "I Agree" that appears when you first sign up - and is not
combined with many pages of other legal nonsense - is best, but I'd be
satisfied with a brief announcement on the site or through email). I
apologize for not checking for this myself, but from all the fuss (and the
fact that Mike Caro didn't focus on this in his discussion) I assumed this
public caveat didn't exist.
As an aside to Mike Caro, I'd like to say that I didn't enter this debate in
order to join in on a public stoning of you, and I hope you didn't take my
contributions to this thread that way. I thought we had a reasonable and
civil disagreement that was not merely the result of someone nitpicking a
trivial topic, and I'm sorry if you saw it otherwise.
Tom Weideman
Mike McClain
"Mike Caro" <ca...@caro.com> wrote :
> I mean this in the nicest way, but I came to rec.gambling.poker for
> fun and to exchange ideas and, frankly, because my ego trapped me into
> thinking some people might appreciate my presence.
>
> It now seems to me that many posters are going out of their way to
> spot ways in which I've done the wrong thing. As I've said before,
> this forum isn't fun anymore.
Okay... now you've made me feel guilty. As I told you in private
email earlier today (though you did not respond, so perhaps you
did not see it), I have great respect for you. I definitely appreciate
your presence on rgp, and without it, I would read rgp less often.
I would even say that I appreciate your presence on rgp more than
any others, though dave kaiser is giving you a serious run for the money.
I've never been good at showing appreciation, only showing my
disapproval. You can basically assume that in every subject that
I have not gotten in heated arguments with you, I have agreed
with you almost 100%. I know... I should have spoken up
and shown my support for you, but I'm not that type of guy.
The cheating tapes thing? I liked that you wanted to present
them, and I had no problem with you backing out when you
did. How many others were comfortable with both of the stances
that you took on that issue? In my silence, I was there for you!
I think I've gotten into three arguments with you on rgp:
1. The DOYLE IS A PLAGIARIST!!! thread.
2. The inaccuracy of the simulations to predict the value of best-hand
collusion.
3. This current thread.
I was not picking at nits on any of these issues. I was not looking
for a reason to argue... quite the opposite, I felt strongly enough
about the situation to take the time to post. To equate my
discussions in those threads with somebody trying to troll you
belittles the thought and effort I put into those discussions.
Do I argue with everybody that I disagree with on rgp? Certainly
not, because most of them are not open-minded enough to see
when they are mistaken (see: Badger). People respect you,
and listen to your view on many things, and when I disagree
strongly with you, I'd like to work out which of us is mistaken.
Sometimes it will end in a disagreement, but I would expect it
to usually end in an agreement, since we are both capable of
using logic to come to a conclusion.
If it feels like I am persecuting you, then I aplogize. But when
I doggedly pursue an issue with you, I don't expect to be
equated to Carson doggedly pursuing every single issue
with you. Please don't let his zealousness ruin it for all of
the others who try to pick and choose their arguments on
the few issues that they feel strongly about.
>
> I try to treat everyone respectfully unless there's an overwhelming
> reason to do otherwise. So, I'll try responding this way, and I hope
> you won't take it wrong, There seem to be a hoard of RGPers, and maybe
> it's a personality trait among us, who see the littlest damn
> inconsequential things as major issues.
I can understand why you might think this is a little, inconsequential
thing. Most people will agree with you on that stance. I obviously
do not.
>
> I'm affiliated with Planet Poker in a big and conspicuous way. I'm not
> a figurehead. I wouldn't have affiliated with them if I couldn't have
> access to things that put me at ease about their operations. I don't
> endorse, consult with, or manage things I don't have faith in. I would
> specifically NOT have affiliated with Planet Poker if important things
> were guarded from me. Planet Poker has every business supplying me
> "access to their database for this purpose." It is a purpose we
> publicly announced. It doesn't harm anyone. It's a non-issue.
I agree, that it only harms the better players in the same way that
wising up the losing players harms the winning players. And I can
understand that since you've spent much of your life wising up players,
that you view this as an excellent opportunity to take it to the
next level. However, you are using the results and play of 40,000
people to come up with this information, and I don't think that
is fair. If you want to do a similar study, then you should either
play online yourself, or hire people to submit their hand histories
to you. You should only have access to the players hands that are
participating in this study, and not all of the players at the table.
>
> Now you can scratch your head and come up with obtuse arguments about
> how poker will be harmed by the information. Fine. I won't argue one
> way or the other. I bargained with them on the players' behalf in
> order to be able to make this information available to you. But, fine,
> it's not worth the effort. I'm won't do it.
I understand that to supply this information helps more players than it
hurts. That should not be the deciding factor. If you were to study
the best player on Planet and distribute his play and results, this would
also help more players than it would hurt, but that would not make
it right.
>
> But I'm going to tell everyone straight out, I'm in a bad mood, and
> I'm really, really getting tired of this. What I'm going to say will
> shock some of you, but it's how I feel. In my mind, this forum has
> changed from the happiest place on earth for lonely poker players to a
> dark, dismal, ugly, and often unfriendly place.
>
> I don't know how it happened, but it did.
I think it happened when online poker became a big money operation.
Seriously. You have been able to maintain your honesty and
integrity fairly well thoughout the entire affair (except for the part
about Planet having the best software), but the dark side of
many of the other people involved has been revealed.
M.
Daniel Kimberg
thing is off. But you never know who else might want to do it, so...
"Mike Caro" <ca...@caro.com> wrote:
> My main problem with what you suggest is that it's possible -- even
> with the identities of the players stripped -- to research hand
> histories and figure out who the players were. That doesn't seem
> like an major issue to me, because the task would be laborious, and
> our customers already have access to individual hands (by number)
> one at a time. Still, it might raise issues.
Can Planet customers request hand histories that show all the hole
cards? If that's the case, it puts a different face on things. In
any case, there's a range of things you could do to distort the data,
effectively trading off usefulness of the database against
identifiability of hands. It's easy to quantify identifiability in
terms of the number of other hands with which each hand in the
database could be confused. If each hand is uniquely identifiable,
that's bad. If no hand can be narrowed down to less than 100, that's
great. There are various ways one could distort the database
(altering some suits, some folded cards, the sequencing of deals, some
positions, etc.), but it's not immediately clear if there are ways
that minimize the identifiability of hands while supporting useful
analyses. I suspect there are, but perhaps someone has already done
that groundwork?
> Another tactical problem is that, as you might guess, the hands are
> part of a relational database, meaning there are separate files
> containing different elements of data. I haven't started to automate
> the programming, but it may be necessary to leave the player
> nicknames intact while extracting the general data. I don't think
> so, but it's possible, and if that's the case I wouldn't want
> outside sources having access to the data.
I wouldn't suggest giving anyone access to the actual databases. You
extract the information, so you can strip/mangle whatever you want.
The entire database wouldn't be too big, I think less than 100GB no
matter how inefficiently it were stored, but probably less than 20GB.
I guess that's a bit to download. But see below.
> Anyway, I'm open to what you're suggesting and might turn this into
> a project involving more people, providing there are volunteers with
> enough expertise, I can get permission, and the data given for
> analysis has no remnants that could be used to identify players.
These are all big issues, so I guess I'll just keep tabs on what
happens. One alternative you might consider is this. Rather than
publishing the data, you can simply publish information about its
format, perhaps a sample database made up of fake hands, and allow
people to submit code to perform the analyses. This won't work for
everyone, but it's a way to open the database to arbitrary analyses
without publishing the actual data, eliminating the anonymity concern.
Okay, so you wrote in another post that you're sick of this nonsense,
and you're in a bad mood, and that the whole thing is off. And that
RGP is becoming (to paraphrase) a cesspool. RGP does suck more than
it used to, and certainly some people make more of an effort to get
argumentative with poker celebrities like yourself. But I want to
assure you that these questions about the ethics of using data derived
from people's online play are of genuine concern. Many people well
beyond the bounds of RGP are extremely concerned about the use and
abuse of data on their purchases, online behavior, credit history,
physical wanderings, and just about everything else. Issues
surrounding the use of personal data are addressed only superficially
by asking questions about harm. But many people do have a knee-jerk
reaction to the idea that their data are being used for surprising
purposes. Anyway, I sincerely mean what I've posted on this subject,
and I think the same can be said of others. We may be more expert at
data analysis than at ethics, so perhaps we should all take our cue
from mph.
In another message, "Mike Caro" <ca...@caro.com> wrote:
> You posted this four times, so I assume you feel REALLY strongly that
> it's borderline.
I think Outlook Express felt strongly, I only wanted to post it once.
Twice tops.
> Anyway, some excellent points. I still think major businesses do far
> more conspicuous things in analyzing customers trends than this. And
> I can't imagine what the objection of a player would be to your
> announcing how a pair of sevens did in the big blind, on average, as
> played by thousands of different people. but maybe I'm just seeing
> it wrong. Thanks for giving me things to think about.
Well, I wouldn't object personally. But it's possible that a few
people would rather not have contributed to these analyses, for
whatever reason, rational or otherwise.
Businesses do indeed collect all kinds of information on their
customers, and a lot of people find this violently objectionable (take
a look at a year's worth of privacy articles on slashdot.org for a
cross-section of the angry). I also think it's objectionable, even
though I don't really mind personally, and would usually give
permission voluntarily. Hand histories really are molehills by
comparison.
Okay, one more aside, because I don't want to start a new post. mph
posted a few minutes ago that if the signup agreement made all this
clear, nobody should complain. And it looks like it did. I could
almost reverse my position on that, especially since I doubt anyone
thought it was liable to become a controversial point when the
agreement was drafted. But I still intuitively feel like if there's
something to which you want a friend to agree, and you think there's
any chance, however remote, that they'd object, you simply would not
bury it in tiny print among pages of legalese. If it is so buried, it
suggests that they either wanted to trick people or that they didn't
realize privacy was a knee-jerk hot button topic. Probably the
latter. Having made that mistake, there's no way to go back and warn
people more effectively.
Okay, finally let me add one concrete nugget. My day job involves
spending a lot of time with temporally autocorrelated time series.
It's possible that poker results behave similarly. I don't know if
adapting the solutions I'm used to for modeling these time series will
turn out to have any practical application for understanding poker
results, but I can imagine trying to estimate the structure of the
autocorrelation from a large dataset.
dan
The Baron
> Mike Caro wrote:
>
> > I'm confident Roy doesn't use the hand histories to analyze the play
> > of individual customers. We wouldn't approve of that.
>
> But Mike, Roy did specifically reference his friend's hand in his Card
> Player article.
>
> Personally I don't like the idea that someone can look at player's
> hands and know their identities. But I realize it is a neccessary
> evil to preventing collusion. It should be kept completely private,
> IMHO.
>
> Napa Scott
It's not a necessary evil by any stretch of the imagination. There is
absolutely no reason the analyst needs to know the identity of the player.
He's there to analyze patterns of game play to determine if there's indication
of collusion. If you have two players named John and Phil, you can analyze
John and Phil's game data. If you have two players who are identified as,
"011sswee3edi88" and "110088ddd8d989ii11", the game information remains the
same. If there's indication of collusion, you print it out, attach your
analysis, highlight the two identifiers and ship it off to your security
people. There's no reason in the world for the analyst to know their names and
actually, knowing them imposes a bias on the analyst. If he knows the player,
there's no way for him to keep his personal interactions with the individual
out of the analysis. In the military and government information security
circles, one of the basic premises of analysis is, "Analyze the data, not the
source."
The Baron
>
> If you're saying that a bulk analysis of the way 40,000 anonymous
> players have fared with A-A, hopefully leading everyone to understand
> how much the hand is worth, is unethical, then I disagree. I don't
> mean to be argumentative, but I do.
>
> applauded for not hording the information and offering it everyone,
> including competitors.
>
>
> I know there was at one time a coordinated effort to stop me from
> doing this, because some people think I will get an edge on them in
> that, I'm puzzled by these sudden negative comments (not yours
> specifically) about the ethics of my behavior. They sound like a
> stretch to me and I'm very disappointed by them. But maybe I'm just
> wrong.
>
> Straight Flushes,
> Mike Caro
What we're dealing with here is a number of interconnected issues. Among
them is the concept of "Assumed Confidentiality." Information that can't be
obtained by Joe Schmoe just walking by and seeing it should be considered
confidential. This is one of the basis of the United States Search and Seizure
laws. (Yes, I realize that not everyone is from the US, I am and its laws are
those that I'm most familiar with.)
Some people simply don't like giving out or making available their
private information. This can range everywhere from the color of their socks
to what bizarre things they do with farm animals. Regardless of the apparent
significance of that information, it's private. Because it's private, there is
a presumption that it's to be held confidential if it's made available to
another individual. Just as the police can no longer use a thermal imager to
gain probable cause or a warrant,(Joe Schmoe probably wouldn't have a TI with
him and as such, couldn't just look up and see what the TI saw.) so too do
people not want to put on display the brain fart on the turn where they didn't
see the other eight outs and missed their straight.
If making play information available is a condition for play on the
site, that's one thing. The players are making an informed decision that their
private information will be included in the other uses of the data. If it's
not required of everyone on the site, as a condition of use, then it strikes
me as not only unfair but a bit manipulative and were the business in the US
or a US possession, would likely be completely illegal.
In short, there's really only a difference in subjective assessment of
severity whether the data is your online play stats or your realworld medical
and legal history. Some people just want their privacy. Given the number of
poker players who seem to have a profoundly libertarian view of their own
business, I suspect there will be somewhat of an uproar when you notify the
players of your intent for their play data.
SNIP
Mike Caro
wrote (in part):
>As an aside to Mike Caro, I'd like to say that I didn't enter this debate in
>order to join in on a public stoning of you, and I hope you didn't take my
>contributions to this thread that way. I thought we had a reasonable and
>civil disagreement that was not merely the result of someone nitpicking a
>trivial topic, and I'm sorry if you saw it otherwise.
>
>Tom Weideman
Tom --
I agree that our discussion was "reasonable and civil" and I have
always very much appreciated the intelligence and candor you bring to
poker. I apologize to you for being too sensitive. It was my
impression at the time that too many people were making too much of
this issue at my expense, but on reflection I believe that many of the
points were reasonable and sincere -- even though I can't quite buy
the arguments.
Straight Flushes,
Mike Caro
The Baron
> Not everybody feels the need to make the world a better poker player.
>
> Some people do, especially cardroom executives.
>
> Cardrooms have long done things to deliberately help weaker players play
> better, mostly because it is in their interest for players to play
> adequately because they are likely to put in more hours, have more fun, not
> lose all their money in a brief instant, etc.
>
> Sensible winning players understand this too. It is better for new players
> to have a fighting chance and for longterm losing players to not be
> completely overwhelmed. Giving the bulk of players a *chance* of getting
> better, and encouraging new players to play (and play more) should be
> important to any sensible winning player.
>
> What Mike is proposing/doing is something that has never been done before,
> but it is not fundamentally different than a card room offering free
> lectures or structuring games with antes. These things benefit non-advanced
> players, deliberately. This database thing may be an example of something
> that goes *too* far -- that is something people surely can dispute -- but
> objecting to the idea of a cardroom consciously doing something to help its
> players play better is to run uphill against history.
> --
> Steve Badger
> http://www.playwinningpoker.com
Sorry, but what Mike is proposing is exactly analogous to taking the
health records of every United States military veteran and offering them up to
whoever would have them. Poker play statistics may not be as critical as
medical information but the risk of abuse is still there. We've already got
clear evidence that the site in question doesn't have adequate security in
place for its play data. There's no reason to put exclusive identifiers on the
information going to the analyst, this is in fact a complete contravention of
normal information handling techniques.
The ability to concentrate and consolidate an individual's game play
information is one of the reasons I don't play online. I don't like giving my
name to telemarketers and I don't want my play being made available to anyone
who happens to be able to get into the system to get it. I certainly don't
want it made available to be analyzed by everyone who happens to come by and
purchase it. Some of us are just picky about who gets our private information.
There's a vast difference in the card room's actions as you described.
There it can be attributed to simple greed. The more players they get in the
room, the more tables are dropping per hour. The better players they get in
the room, the more of the large games are dropping per hour.
Mike Caro
I know, generalized scanning of the hand histories IS always done
without targeting or considering the identity of players. It's the
last-stage scrutiny, where we use Roy's expertise, that identities are
often part of the equation (meaning we're checking up on specific
players who often have been notified of an investigation and suspended
pending the outcome).
Nonetheless, I see your point, and perhaps we should reevaluate how we
handle these matters. I'm not sure what's best in my own mind. We
really do try to act prudently.
Straight Flushes,
Mike Caro
The Baron
> Hi, Steve --
>
> Actually, all I was planning was a matrix of how all 169 possible hold
> 'em starting hands fared (when played by 40,000 anonymous opponents of
> all skill levels) in actual "units" wagered from various positions
> under various conditions (raised, first-in, see-flop-for-free, and so
> forth). I already have this data. I was trying to be fair about
> providing it to everyone, rather than hoarding it. It's just that
> simple.
>
> Mike Caro
You're dealing with fixed data sets. A 10-20 HE game only has a fixed
number of variations on bet combinations. This is what computers do best.
Everyone folds to the BB is betting combination 00000001. 00000001= $15 (BB)
Family pot that's capped and called all the way through the river is betting
combination 100000000. 100000000= $2160 (Plyr-6) or whatever it happens to be.
The problem is that you're not using anonymous opponents. You're using
live players who had no input on whether you were going to use information
about them that they may well consider private. If all you're trying to do is
show the performance of the various card/betting combinations, then there's no
reason to use live bodies at all. Generate computer models and keep the player
bias out of it completely. Your data won't be as "real world" but experimental
data isn't supposed to be. It's supposed to be as close to pure values as you
can get.
I admit I'm always going to be biased towards the avoidance of using any
private information at all. When it's all down to the river, I just don't
think it's right to use something belonging to someone without their informed
consent. In this case, since equivalent data can be generated without using
private information and that artificially generated information will be devoid
of the bias inherent in the player data, I can't see a justification for not
using the artifice.
The Baron
The difference is the source of that information about the 77.
First of all, the data you're collecting from the player histories isn't
unbiased by any stretch of the imagination. While I'm not a statistician, I do
have a fair amount of experience in analyzing and collecting data. One of the
things you try to do, no actually the most important thing for you to do, is
eliminate as much subjective bias as possible. This goes as far as typing in
hand written data sources and then printing all of the data in exactly the
same format so as to eliminate spelling, punctuation, regional and linguistic
biases. The information you collect from player hands is specifically biased
towards 40,000 separate sets of, "how do I play poker THE RIGHT WAY", bias.
Mike Caro
I searched for, but cannot find, your private e-mail. You just
presented yourself quite eloquently and I think there is much merit to
what you say. I wish we could all disagree in such a reasonable and
enlightening way on this forum.
You might be surprised by my opinion about one of your arguments,
though. I don't agree that making this information public will
necessarily help the weak players at the expense of the strong
players. Yes, it's to a club's advantage (real-world or online) to
equalize the playing field so that players survive to pay more rakes.
It's an industry secret. Don't tell. But I don't think that's likely
to be the effect here.
Theoretically, weak players could see the results, slap themselves on
the heads, jump up in unison, and shout, "That's what I've been doing
wrong. Now I can play much better. Thanks." In reality, I think the
weak players pay no attention to solid advice or information. It's
usually the serious players who get value from it.
So, I think the information would be more helpful to us RGP types than
to the weakest players who treat poker like bingo. This is not
necessarily true, but that's where I'd put my money.
I have only one other quibble with your very reasonable and
well-stated post: I don't remember ever saying that Planet Poker has
the best software. It doesn't. But it will.
Straight Flushes,
Mike Caro
The Baron
> Mike McClain <mmcclain_...@omsoft.com> wrote:
>
> > Not only is it not your position to do so, it is an abuse of
> > your position.
>
> Maybe I'm too paranoid but I can't see playing online and somehow
> thinking that all the data I'm giving to the site I'm playing on is
> going to be kept entirely private. When I started playing online I
> _assumed_ that what MC is doing/has done would ultimately be done. So
> I'm not so inclined to believe its an abuse of his position.
>
> What made you think that when you started playing online that this
> data would be gathered? Would you prefer it be quietly, privately
> used to better some elite groups of players games or would you prefer
> it be public?
This is one of the reasons I don't play online. There's essentially no
way to protect an individual's private information. Even if they could resolve
the problems with cheating and collusion, there would still be that little
voice in the back of my head every time I sat down in a B&M cardroom, "hmmm...
that guy in seat-6... he looks like a computer geek... I wonder if he hacked
the UltimateWorldofBestPoker.com site and studied my game play? I wonder if he
works for them and is being paid to analyze customer's game play and is going
freelance now that he has the data?"
SNIP