Would online poker benefit from 3rd party clients?

[Ludanto]

Imagine Poker Stars (or any other major online poker room) would publish something like an application programming interface which would describe how to connect and communicate with the Poker Stars server.

The way would be clear for any kind of commercial or open source client and a new market could be born. Suddenly a huge amount of restrictions would disappear and many new +EV and -EV aspects would be available to the users.

I first started to think about an open source client because there are flaws in functionality (IMHO) and appearance in every client I have used until now. But with openly publishing an online poker server API there are things possible which reach a lot farther than simple appearance changes or one-click-sit-in buttons.

I can think of many interesting and powerfull stuff that could be done this way. But I am wondering what other peoples thoughts are.

Please feel free to speak your mind.

[TheCutter]

Bots? Not being able for the site to check what a user has running?

[freecard4all]

+ easier collusion

The PS is making it hard to read every possible info from lobby/tables (that's why there's no opener still). It's not like they don't know how to make it easy. It's like they try to make it as hard as possible.

[Ludanto]

TheCutter,

why do you think the bot problem would be worse than it is now?
Is it really best for online poker if the server side is able to decide which software should be allowed to run on the client side?

freecard4all,
why and by how much would collusion increase?

[peyote]

The collusion problem could be solved: They (the poker side) could publish a closed source client-side module (e.g. library) which could do all the collusion detection stuff. The third party GUI would have to use the modules interfaces to connect to the server.
This is technically possible but expensive to implement (for the poker side)...

[TheCutter]

[ QUOTE ]
TheCutter,

why do you think the bot problem would be worse than it is now?
Is it really best for online poker if the server side is able to decide which software should be allowed to run on the client side?

[/ QUOTE ]
Why? Because simply connecting to a server as a plugin to a poker client is MUCH easier than screen-scraping the tables, lobby, etc. Also, the pokersites not being able to detect abusive programs is IMO indeed a great problem, the user would be able to do anything he might want.

[Ludanto]

It would be technically easier to connect a bot to a poker server but it would also be easier to datamine the games. Because of this it is probable that bots would be identified faster.

I think it would be naive for online poker sites to think that they can prevent collusion effectively by not allowing certain software to run on the client machine. Any kind of 'abuse' by 3rd party programs can change its shape very fast thus hiding from the poker site detection.

In general I believe that it is easier to change the path of a continuous force than to neutralize it.

[madmonk]

Yes this would be pretty interesting. But if thinking this from business point of view, what kind of business opportunities this kind of API would offer for e.g. pokerstars?

Branding, own look and feel etc. are very important aspects when people choose where they play. Just providing servers and multiple clients makes things hard for people. Also I would like to see one good client instead of 10 bad ones.

Technically interesting but otherwise I don't see where's the beef is.

[freecard4all]

[ QUOTE ]
it would also be easier to datamine the games.

[/ QUOTE ]
yea, and as big databases are crucial for bots (they lack common sense) it would be easier to make a bot.

But anyway the sites watch you for many "bad" habits. e.g. they control if you don't go to certain site, if you don't datamine "too much" (some sites) or if you don't use banned software.
Yes, you can buy a second computer to run that "bad" software there. But the fact you can break into a treasury doens't mean that banks will store their deposits at the deck.




They would lose the possibility to effectively control users.
Plus by using "unified" software for all the sites the sites would lose one of their advantages.





If you want that then make them to join a shared network. We all know why it doesn't work (because the sites focus primarily on high volume players and steal them from other sites).
In both players and rooms interest should be to take in new players.