Julie Steinecker

The only legitimate defense of a HUD in online poker is that it helps players to multi-table more effectively. Playing just one table at a time is not optimal for the typical professional player (more tables, more profit) or recreational player (more tables, more action). Being able to play more than one table at a time is one of the great advantages of online poker over live poker.

The decision of how many tables to allow a player to play at a time is a crucial design element for a site. In my mind, 24 tables is clearly way too many. My guess is somewhere between 4-6 tables would be best. For example, Bovada is known for the softness of its games for a variety of reasons, but I think the 4-table cash game limit makes the biggest difference overall.

My suggestion is that a poker site should sharply limit the number of tables AND have a HUD built into the software (as a table option that could be turned on or off, like the 4-color deck). But the HUD should be limited to very basic preflop stats only (VPIP, PFR, possibly 3bet%, maybe number of BBs in play for those of us [OK, just me] who aren’t fond of mental math). This would allow players to more easily multi-table without having to have their focus on only one table at a time (again, more exciting for recreational players, more profitable for professional players). Everyone would be on the same playing field in terms of having access to the stats. It hopefully wouldn’t scare recreational players as much and wouldn’t give pro players a ridiculous amount of data.

All real-time third party software should be banned. I’m not sure how feasible that would be to enforce in the real world, but I think that is the only real solution for online poker going forward. Also, if a built-in, limited HUD is not a good solution for some reason I haven’t thought of, then I think it’s clearly better for the future of poker to ban HUDs altogether.

Sorry for the TL;DR. Does anyone else have any thoughts on this?

Please consider returning at some point in the future if your schedule allows for it; your videos are fantastic!

OMG, if I were as good at poker as I was at playing the sims, I'd be a zillionaire.

LOL, I never even considered the possibility of colluding on these likes. Leave it to poker players to find the flaws in a system.

Everyone who is in the top 5 list has clearly been a great contributor to this site, so it can't be that bad of a system. I do wish there were an ignore list option for certain users, though.

I dunno; I thought the last picture was the best of the lot. :-)

My only disappointment in this video was that you didn't answer that dude's question about liking fennel.

(Great job, as always!)