Party Poker makes hand history anonymous

Party Poker announced last month that it will make major changes to the way hand histories are recorded in ring games.

On October 5th, these changes were implemented with the removal of player names. Thus, now Party Poker users, when viewing hand history files, do not see nicknames, but the inscriptions “Player 1”, “Player 2”, “Player 3”, etc. The only exception is for the player himself - his name is indicated in full.

Why did they do it?

Party Poker believes this will create an even bigger field and render third-party software ineffective in ring games. Since the HUD and poker tracking software depend on the names of the players listed in the hand history files, it will now only be possible to see your personal stats with this software.

This, in turn, will reduce or even eliminate the effectiveness of all registration scripts. They were dealt with last year, when the policy of eliminating queues for separate tables was adopted. Instead, players can queue by limit and table size by signing up to the general pool.

To further reduce the effectiveness of third-party software, the network allows users to make a one-time nickname change. Why let someone know your past history when you can, according to the new rules, start from scratch? Also, if you play at Party Poker, learn to make good notes. You need to know when you've seen the player before and some of the style details you've noticed. Moreover, there is already software for automatically creating notes - NoteCaddy Text Notes.

Player reactions and comments PartyPoker

Many applaud this move, but those using third-party software are upset about the change. In addition, many of them are concerned that without complete hand history files, it will be difficult for players to detect collusion, bots and other forms of deception.

Party Poker addressed both of these issues on the 2 + 2 forum, where a poker representative made the following statement:

It is important for us to provide our players with an honest and ethical product, while allowing them to learn and improve their skills. Party Poker offers a level playing field that allows players with different abilities to compete.

We've reviewed and reviewed recent community feedback and can confirm that we will continue to implement our plan to anonymize hand histories. We strongly believe that this will help prevent datamining and protect all of our players, as well as improve the environment at Party Poker.

I'd like to address some of the issues raised by our users since last week's announcement.

The security tools are in place, there has been new investment in the Risk & Fraud team recently and the software is being updated. Therefore, we are confident that we have adequate leverage to prevent bots, third-party software and data copying from being used on the network.

Since October 2015, when the first environmental changes were made to the network, we have closed more than 200 accounts, and we will redistribute the remaining funds by the end of this month.

As stated in our recent announcement, each player can change their nickname once. This allows users to free themselves from previous data mining.

At the moment, these changes only affect cash players, although we will look at the possibility of improving the environment in tournaments and "fast forward". We will continue to closely monitor the impact of these changes on the environment of cash games, value user feedback, and will take them into account in any future actions.