[Tenoke]

20 years ago online poker was extremely soft, and you could make a profit easily with a little bit of skill. At any rate, what you describe is usually not considered cheating - most sites (with some exceptions now, but likely none back then) explicitly allow software that tracks stats about players - by 2010 (when I was playing semi-professionally online) most regs used software like that (usually Poker Tracker or Hold'em Manager) both to make decisions in a given hand and to avoid tables with too many other regs in the first place.

[cortesoft]

It was a long time ago so my memory might be fuzzy, but I believe he played on pokerroom.com... the cheating part of it, from my memory, was that the tracking software had access to mucked hands, which normal players at the table wouldn't have access to.

[adanto6840]

For most of the sites, the software was reading the text-based "hand history" to collect data. When hands were mucked at showdown, the contents of the mucked hands generally appeared in the plain-text hand history (and most UIs provided a way to view them or to replay the hand action-by-action).

There were a couple of sites where this wasn't the case, or where the hand history wasn't provided in a simple text format (or at all) -- but generally, that's how it worked for the majority of the poker sites/clients.

The reason for being able to view mucked hands (at showdown) is because you can do the same in live games, at least that's the house rule in the vast majority of live rooms. It's almost always frowned upon, to varying degrees, to actually request to see a mucked hand - but generally IS allowed by rule (ie WSOP events explicitly allow asking to see hands mucked at showdown, though an 'anti-abuse' discretionary clause is included in that rule, too).

[john-radio]

Good reminder that any web site's policy that's enforced in the UI, but isn't enforced in its backend API, is really just a polite request.

[cortesoft]

That is interesting… I don’t play a ton of poker at casinos, but I haVe played in probably a dozen or so tournaments at Hollywood Park and a few in Vegas… I have never once seen anyone see or request to see a mucked hand, although I have seen someone get yelled at by the dealer for trying to turn over another player’s mucked hand after the showdown.

[adanto6840]

Years ago I played live games quite often (Vegas), and I do still play a few times a year (also Vegas). I've seen players make the request maybe 20 times total, and probably had the request granted ~50% of the time. When denied, it's usually because the cards were already intermingled in the muck, but on a few occasions it was due to the requestor exhibiting some level of 'menacing/antagonizing intent' to begin with.

You will definitely get yelled at if you attempt to flip someone's cards yourself, 100% of the time. At higher limits, it may get you removed from the game or worse. You can ask/request the dealer to show the mucked hand, though. I'd still suggest that you not request to do so -- it will almost assuredly piss someone (or multiple people) off. There are some rare occasions where it may be worth it and/or warranted, but they are few and far between.

Most common is when someone shows their hand to "half" the table immediately before mucking (at showdown), which often will cause the other half of the table to want to see too. Most dealers handle it well and just move on to the next hand while the players 'disseminate' the (usually useless) information.

[cortesoft]

I have definitely seen the dealer enforce the “show one, show all” rule. I tried googling around after your last comment, but wasn’t able to find any reference to a player’s right to see a mucked hand. Instead, I found a lot of articles about whether it is better play to show or muck losing hands, which implies it is the person’s choice.

Do you have any reference for the rule that a folded hand has to be shown on demand if play is over?

[adanto6840]

Didn't see this until today, sorry.

See here for the Texas Holdem rules that WSOP uses: https://www.wsop.com/poker-games/texas-holdem/rules/

Search for "muck" to find the relevant entry, also below for convenience:

Any player who has been a legal part of the game can ask to see a called hand, even if the cards have already been mucked. Abuse of this privilege can result in denial by the dealer. When a winning player asks to see a mucked hand, that hand will be considered live, and the winning player can lose their pot. When any other players ask to see a folded hand, the hand will remain dead.

[furyofantares]

Everyone (that talked on the forums, a minority of players) ran Poker Tracker / Hold'em Manager but even in that community I think it was considered shady to use a shared database or to undergo a large datamining operation of hands you weren't involved in.

[sgjohnson]

> most sites (with some exceptions now, but likely none back then) explicitly allow software that tracks stats about players

Only from the tables you're playing at. To my knowledge most sites won't allow you to spectate other tables for the purpose of gathering data.