integrity
Help during a hand is the line, and we sit on it too.
Real time assistance is anything outside your own head that answers the question while you are still in the hand. Every operator we read forbids it, and no two of them draw the line in the same place. Pokiq builds a coach, so this page also has to say where our own line is: it refuses to help with a hand you are playing right now, and that refusal is written into its prompt rather than left to its judgement.
policies read on 30 August 2026
two policies, two lines
We read the published policies of two large operators on the date above. Both ban real time advice and automated play outright. After that they diverge enough that a habit which is fine on one site will end your account on the other.
One operator forbids the whole category
Its policy forbids tools or services designed to support the execution of poker actions and so influence gameplay decisions, and names real time assistance, bots whether fully or partly automated, solvers, charts and heads up displays in the same breath. It defines real time assistance as external help that gives an unfair advantage, influences your decision in real time, or lets you play in a way you could not otherwise. The listed sanctions include a permanent ban and confiscation of funds, and it reserves the right to scan the device you play on.
The other draws a line through the middle of it
Its policy also bans real time advice and automated play at all times, but permits some things during play that the first bans outright: a display of basic game information such as pot odds, simple static starting hand charts, a heads up display built only on hands you played yourself, and hotkeys that do not remove the decision. Advanced equity, range versus range and ICM tools are allowed to exist, but not while the poker client is running. It also says in as many words that a human must decide the action and the exact relative size of any bet or raise, and that its list of examples is not exhaustive.
Both are linked at the bottom of this page. Read the one that applies to you, not this summary of it: we have no way of knowing which site you are on, and neither of these documents promises to stay as it is.
why it is treated so seriously
The decision is the product
Everybody at the table is paying for the right to make a decision under uncertainty against other people making decisions under uncertainty. Outsource yours and the others are no longer playing the game they bought into. That is why this is treated as fraud rather than as a strong edge, and why the sanctions sit next to the ones for cheating rather than next to a warning.
The same tool is fine on Tuesday and not on Friday
A solver you run on Tuesday to understand a spot is study. The same output open next to a live table is assistance. Almost all of the genuine confusion about this rule is about the clock rather than about the software, and one of the two policies above makes that explicit by allowing advanced tools only when the client is closed.
The rules move, and being out of date is not a defence
Both documents changed over the years and both reserve the right to change again. What a thread said in 2019, or what a page like this one says today, is not the text you agreed to. The terms of the site you play on are, and reading them takes ten minutes once.
It is enforced statistically, not by a confession
What operators act on is a pattern across many hands, seen from a position no player has. We are not going to publish which patterns, for the same reason we publish no detection signals for cheating: that list works just as well as a list of things to avoid.
Software that plays the hand instead of advising on it is the neighbouring problem, and it has its own page on poker bots. The wider list of what counts as breaking the game is on the page about cheating.
where our own coach stops
Pokiq ships a coach that will discuss any hand you bring it. That makes this the page where we owe you the boundary, not a page where we can point at other people. The four points below are what the system prompt actually says, read in our own repository on the date above.
It refuses a hand you are playing right now
The system prompt has a section headed as a hard boundary against real time assistance. Its first rule: if the player is in a live hand or a live session at this moment, give no concrete advice for that hand, because real time assistance is against the rules of nearly every poker site and can lead to a ban. The refusal is not a side effect of a careful model. It is written down, in the prompt, above the parts about tone and length.
It says no kindly, and offers the alternative
The second rule tells the coach to say so in a friendly way, explain briefly why, and offer to go through the hand together as soon as the session ends. A refusal that leaves you with nothing gets worked around; a refusal that hands you a better time to ask does not.
It will not tell you what your site allows
On questions about which software, heads up displays or trackers are permitted, the prompt instructs the coach to name no poker site at all and to make no statement about the policy of any specific site, not even in general terms. It says only that it differs per site and that you should check the terms of your own. The reason is written into the prompt: those terms change, and a confident wrong answer from us could cost you your account.
What kind of guarantee this is, honestly
It is an instruction to a language model, not a lock. The coach cannot see whether you are sitting at a table, so the rule works on what you tell it: say you are in a hand and it declines. We are not going to claim more than that. What we can say is what the boundary costs us, which is a feature people ask for, and that we wrote it down rather than leaving it to the model judgement.
The rest of what the coach can and cannot do, including the closed list of links it is allowed to produce and the fence around your own hand histories, is written out on the coach page.
study is the other side of the same clock
Nothing on this page argues against knowing the numbers. It argues about when you look them up.
Before the session, not during it
Ranges, equities and the arithmetic behind a call are worth knowing by heart, and the way you get there is repetition away from the table. That is the whole point of learning the numbers: at the table you should not need to look them up.
After the session, with the hands in front of you
The review that actually changes your play happens when the money is no longer live. Import what you played, look at the decisions rather than the results, and take one thing into the next session.
A home game is a different thing
A clock or a timer running on the table at your own kitchen game is not assistance to anybody. The rules that this page is about are the rules of an operator whose games you joined, and they apply where you agreed to them.
The ranges themselves are drawn out on the preflop charts, what a solver is and is not is explained on the page comparing solvers, and the after the session part is what the leak finder does with the hands you already played.
sources
Read on 30 August 2026. Operator policies change, so the date matters more here than on most pages.
- GGPoker, Security and Ecology Policy
Defines real time assistance and bots, and lists a permanent ban and confiscation of funds among the sanctions. Also forbids solvers, charts and heads up displays outright, along with remote access software, virtual machines and tools that hide your location.
- PokerStars, Third Party Tools and Services
Prohibits real time advice and automated play at all times, while permitting a basic heads up display built on your own history and simple static charts during play, and placing advanced equity, range and ICM tools in a category that is allowed only when the client is not running. States that its list is not exhaustive.
- Pokiq, coach system prompt (lib/coach/prompt.ts)
Our own code. The section headed as a hard boundary against real time assistance is quoted in substance further down this page.
next
Read what the coach refuses to do.
The boundary on this page is one of six, and the others are the same kind of thing: a closed list of links it may produce, a fence around the hand histories it reads, a hard ceiling on length, and a weekly message that may not invent a single number. They are all written out, with the file they live in.
questions
What is RTA in poker?
Real time assistance: any help from outside your own head that answers the question while you are still in the hand. One operator policy we read defines it as external assistance that gives you an unfair advantage, influences your decision in real time, or lets you play in a way you otherwise could not.
Is RTA against the rules?
At the two operators whose policies we read, yes, and the sanctions listed include a permanent ban and confiscation of funds. What counts as assistance differs between them, though, and both reserve the right to change their lists. The only text that binds you is the one on the site you actually play on.
Are solvers and charts allowed?
That is exactly where the two policies we read disagree. One forbids solvers, charts and heads up displays outright. The other permits simple static charts and a heads up display built on your own hands during play, and allows advanced equity, range and ICM tools only when the poker client is not running. Studying with them between sessions is not the disputed part; having them open while you play is.
Does the Pokiq coach give real time assistance?
No, and it is written into the system prompt rather than left to judgement. If you say you are in a live hand or session, the coach gives no concrete advice for that hand, explains briefly why, and offers to review it as soon as the session ends. It also refuses to say what any specific site allows, because those terms change and a wrong answer could cost you your account.
How do poker sites detect RTA?
By looking at patterns across many hands from a position no player at the table has. We are not going to be more specific than that. A page explaining what gets somebody caught is also a page explaining what to avoid, and we would rather be less useful here.
Can I use a poker calculator while I play?
On your own home game, that is what a clock or a calculator is for. On a real money site, treat the answer as no unless the site own terms say otherwise, and read them rather than guessing. One of the two policies we read allows a basic pot odds display, the other does not, which is the whole reason this page refuses to give you one answer.