Import of observed PokerStars hands

[Thomas42]

I noticed that in the next beta it will be possible to import observed PokerStars hands. How will that work? I thought PS didn't allow for this?

[ffrllc]

Yes, very interested in this as well.

[Depops]

From the PokerStars web page on prohibited software:
"The practice of datamining (observing games as a non-player for extended periods in order to build up a large database of hand histories for future reference) is prohibited."

I don't believe observing 30 hands breaks this rule. While I'm waiting to be seated in a card room, I watch from the rail to see if I can find an especially juicy table so I can request a transfer when I get the chance. This new feature seems to have a similar goal.

[Thomas42]

Of course I like this feature as well. I just want to make sure that it wont bring PT into a grey zone where this can be an issue.

However, from what the team has said about other things people want to be added, I know they are very careful with adding features that might take it into the grey zone and risk it ending up on the list of banned programs.

I know it says a large amount of hands on PokerStars and that PT3 only will observe max 30. What happens if I simply close and then reopen the same table again? Will that reset the counter? Another question is what PS consider to be a large abount of hands. If I open 30 tables I will be able to observe 900 hands. Sure it is still small, but if I can simply close the table and reopen it I will be able to quite quickly "harvest" a few thousands of hands...

I would still like to hear something official from the team about this, such as that they have an agreement from PokerStars to do this.

[WhiteRider]

I can't give you a full official answer to all of this, but Josh/Derek have stated that they have agreed this with PokerStars and that what PT3 does will NOT break the T&C.

[Josh]

PokerStars made an official statement about this months ago. One of our competitors was allowing unlimited import of observed PokerStars hands. PokerStars stepped in and asked them to restrict it to 30 hands and allowed other trackers to do the same.

[fly1fisher]

So in the new build 15, I tried the import of 30 observed PS hands/table and it worked great. I can see the hands fine in my observed database, etc. What I can't seem to do is actually find the observed HH files. I've looked in PS3/Processed and PS/HandHistory (the default locations) and there aren't any files. Where are they being saved?

Thanks and keep the updates/fixes coming!

[WhiteRider]

Since there aren't any HH files (PT3 is reading the hand info directly from the Stars software if I understand correctly) I imagine they aren't saved anywhere.

[fly1fisher]

Ahh, I see. Thanks for the quick reply.

[Thomas42]

PokerStars made an official statement about this months ago. One of our competitors was allowing unlimited import of observed PokerStars hands. PokerStars stepped in and asked them to restrict it to 30 hands and allowed other trackers to do the same.

Thanks Josh, all I needed to hear.