Relevant

The PokerEdge user guide to playing on Poker Stars. This monthly subscription service is normally under the scrutiny of PokerStars and other poker sites as well. So when using the software there are additional precautions to take, which may in fact change from time to time. Not loading the software properly for playing will surely get you noticed by PokerStars security.

Read the full review for Poker Edge.

It is important to know that some sites are now actively scanning players systems for various types of accessory software they claim gives an unfair advantage and they have put on their ban lists.  If you read your user agreement with any gaming site, you give them permission to access your system when you log on to their site.  Without getting into a long drawn out discussion on this aspect on whether you agree or disagree if a software is acceptable or not, I am writing this guide to give you all the information required. 

If you do decide to use Poker Edge you will want to protect yourself when you are on any poker site.  You MUST start your Poker-Edge software FIRST.  Then you can launch the poker site software using the launch feature in Poker-Edge only.  There is a security feature built into Poker-Edge that prevents unwanted intrusion into your computer.

DO NOT LOG INTO ANY POKER SITE WITHOUT HAVING LAUNCHED IT THROUGH POKER-EDGE

...or you may receive a warning and you may have your account frozen pending investigation by the site.  Stars is known to scan hard drives and Browser history, but when you only log into Stars after launching through Poker-Edge, the PE security thwarts Stars attempt to detect. If you follow this advice, you will never have any problems.  Party Poker and Full Tilt also have begun actions against a long list of software they deem inappropriate to use on their site.

Profile your opponents the legal way - watch these videos:

Also, if you are going to use the software for the free trial you will want to go through their forums for information and tips on how to get the most out of the software.  It is presumed other sites have as well but PokerStars security is known on occasion to have visited the Poker Edge forums as they have yet to find a way around the software security.  So for Poker-Edge users protection, the following rules are to be observed:

1) Do not pick a PE Forum username that is the same as your Stars username. (this has nothing to do with your Poker-Edge software username)

2) If you wish to discuss poker hands played while on Stars, exclude any mention of which poker-site.

3) PokerStars support issues/questions will no longer be handled in the Poker-Edge forum. But by e-mail only. If you post anything on their forum that eludes to PokerStars...your post will be deleted.
With Stars, make sure of these things: A) Use PokerStars Default Theme. B) Do not use the preferred seating option or the HUD will not line up correctly. C) If the HUD seems to be scattered on the screen- in the Lookup window of PE select "Options", then “HuD Layouts”...and set the correct table size

4) The HUD will only display at the default table size, any manipulation of the table size will make PE only show icons. Also, in PokerStars Lobby click on "View"...and then if "Remember Table Positioning" is check marked, uncheck it.

5) The Instant Hand History for Stars will flash briefly on a timed basis to gather data...do not manipulate the IHH or stats will cease to be collected

6) When choosing a cash table on Stars, the HUD will be displayed with the first hand dealt. When a player leaves the table, or a new player joins the table, the HUD will be delayed in disappearing/appearing until the upload/download process of PE takes place (every 2 minutes

7) With Stars tournaments you must wait two hands before the HUD will appear...this applies to starting a tournament. When a new player comes to your table or a player is knocked out, it will take a hand or two before the player's HUD is eliminated and the new player's HUD brought up. When you're switched to a new table, leave the table at an opportune moment and then retake your seat....the HUD will be brought up once again for the correct players and position.

8) If you get a message that we are updating Poker-Edge for Stars, it means they updated their software client, and we won't allow access until security is verified. This usually takes very little time...and Poker-Edge will "auto-update" itself when you launch the software when available.

Profile your opponents the legal way - watch these videos:

For those that use a different language than English: If the table name and player names aren't appearing in the Lookup window, use the "English" version of PokerStars. That should be the only adjustment you need to make. However, if you're still experiencing problems after making that adjustment, also change all Regional Settings on your computer to "English (USA)" including Location and Keyboard.

Poker Stars, the dominating force and market share leader is about to take even more steps to make sure that all of its players enjoy the fairest playing environment on the internet. Already with the strictest policy in regards to third party assistant software the security department at Poker Stars has decided that they need to go farther due to recent changes in the third party programming market.

The changes referred to, are an increasing amount of third party designers creating products that blatantly market and claim to have a dishonest edge for users when utilizing their software while playing online poker for real money.

Last year, a friend of mine was trying a product called Poker Edge for review when during my testing a window came up from his poker table alerting him to stop using the software. He later received an email saying that if he continued to use Poker Edge or related products his account and the funds in it will be seized by Poker Stars.  He was just testing for less than an hour when that happened.

He later received information from Poker Stars administration as to why Poker Edge was not allowed and they clearly outlined that the programming actually mines data via a community of users. This data, which can display an opponent's style of play and cash win/loss record can be used by the software user to his advantage. The idea is that you can join a table of players unknown to you and sit down with a dossier of information and history of those players that have happened to be tracked by others who have played with them before.

This crosses the line as far as Poker Stars is concerned as an unfair advantage, and you can lose your account and funds for using Poker Edge and others like it.

One time fee - lifetime license.

To take the fairness issue even further, previously accepted poker calculators like Calculatem Pro WinHoldem, and Poker Pro 2007 which offer BOT like bet, raise, check, or fold recommendations will also likely become banned as those features fall under a newly phrased black-hat issue called programmable profiles which essentially refers to a software's capability of offering advice to the user based on an opponent's style of play.

When you download software from a poker site with the intention of playing online, you also agree to terms during the download process. One of those implicit terms is that the site, in this case Poker Stars has the power to scan your hard drive when they see fit. You could very well assume this is random crawling but the speed of which Stars knows you are using black hat software leads me to believe it is much more frequent than random scans.