Has Pokerstars Killed All Hope Of Play Money

[avlflush]

I saw that there is a post talking about a beta of PT3 that supports play money.

I started up PS for the first time in about a week to play a few hands of play money and found that the software no longer worked. Following their instructions I installed the new version of the PS software. Once I started it up I found that they have disabled the hand history feature.

Is there a way around this problem or has this move by PS all but crippled PT3?

This is a very sad state of affairs.

[kraada]

This is the first I've heard of this issue - I'm a bit surprised that they'd do that - are you certain you're running the PokerStars software as Administrator and that PT3 is pointing to the proper directory?

[avlflush]

Since black Friday I have not been using PT3 at all, which obviously means that I'm a US player. I've been monitoring some of the threads concerning the modifications to PT3 to work with play money but have not gotten around to trying it. I know that PT3 relies on HH files and was concerned that I'd never be able to use PT3 again.

A few days ago I started up PS and got a message telling me that there was a problem with a recent software update and that I had to go to pokerstars.com and download the game software. I did this on two different computers and got the same result.

It looks like PS is forcing me to install using the PokerStarsInstallPM.exe which is the play money only installer. This version of the PS does not appear to support hand history files. I have an older version of the PokerStarsInstall.exe but it will not run anymore. If there is a newer version of PokerStarsInstall.exe then that might do the trick.

I sent a note to PS support expressing these same concerns about HH files but have not received a response.

I hope that I'm doing something wrong here.

Thanks for your prompt response.

[kraada]

I'll look into it and see what I can find out and let you know.

[avlflush]

Thanks.

If I hear something from PS I'll pass it along.

[avlflush]

I just got a response from PS about this issue.

The only version of the PS software that is available to US players is the play money version that is provided on pokerstars.net. This version of the software does not support the recording of hand history files. It also does not support a slew of other features found in the full version of the software.

I know that PT3 depends on hand history files. From another thread I know that PT3 has been modified to support play money games.

This leaves one big question to be answered. Will PT3 be able to be used use PS at all?

I'll post the full response from PS is a new thread.

[WhiteRider]

If PokerStars do not write hand histories then there is nothing for PT3 to import, but it will still work with the full version of the software (for those not in the US), or if Stars start writing hand histories for play money hands.

[avlflush]

Thanks for your prompt reply.

Let me throw out an idea.

If I remember correctly, PT3 has the ability to store either 20 or 30 observed hands. These hands do not have hand history files created but PT has the ability to create a pseudo hand history file that is stored in your database. Can PT be modified to go ahead and create your own hand history files and just ignore the pokerstars limit on the number of hands that can be observed per PT session?

As a software developer I realize how easy it is for the customer to ask for something without any idea as to how much work may be involved to implement the feature.

[WhiteRider]

The thought occurred to me too, but I doubt this would be allowed. PokerStars do not allow datamining - the 30 hand limit was agreed to allow some table selection.
I will mention the idea to our development team, though, to see if we can come to any arrangement with PokerStars for play money tables specifically. I can't promise anything, though - as I say, I think it's unlikely.

[avlflush]

I don't see that PS would consider this data mining as long as the player is sitting at the table instead of just observing.

If development can make this work it would be nice if there was a free or very inexpensive version of PT3 that would only work on play money tables.

Thanks for your help.