Online databases

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Permalink Reply by Davrick Liles (CEO of PPSN) on February 20, 2008 at 1:19am

I don't know any answers those questions, good ones though.

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Permalink Reply by Frank Frisina on February 20, 2008 at 11:05am

The only place I know where you can remove your name is Bluff's pokerDB. To remove yourself you must send 3 cents to a specific poker account. The other databases..... I am not sure.

I always thought these databases were unethical and should be illegal. I too would like to know how this information is made public? I consider it a violation of my privacy and I think the poker sites should do something about it. Without them cooperating it wouldn't be possible right?

Imagine walking into a poker room and being able to request an info sheet on each player....

I am interested to hear what others think about this....

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Permalink Reply by BamaDoug on February 20, 2008 at 4:38pm

I think these databases discourages any new player from playing at all. It's like having a target painted on your back when you sit down at a table. The players with big rolls will raise you out of the pot every time you try to play a hand so it puts the new player in a situation of playing for our entire stack everytime we enter a hand. The only way I have been able to break people from doing this to me is to have the nutz everytime I bet. Since it isn't often to have the very best hand everytime, the new player is at a severe disadvantage in my opinion. A new player can't bluff at a pot at all because the rest of the table has no respect for their raise. I've also seen players follow me to every table I go to. Since I don't know them and they have never seen me play, I know they are using something like this to identify newer players. I don't mean to sound paranoid but I know I'm not imagining this. It has happenened to me several times.

These databases even tell whether or not you have won or lost money at each site. I haven't lost enough money to be flagged as the biggest fish and after busting up a few tables by proving my game (taking thier money), it has gotten a little easier for me but I still don't like it.

The only way I've seen to break them is to do just that. BREAK THEM. i.e. I raise to $1. they raise me to $5 so I push in $20 more and take them down with aces. I guess everyone doesn't have that level of aggression so it has to be harder for them than me. It still stinks to have to gamble this hard on 2 cards but it does seem to make them back off.

I guess in a way I have learned to look at this as an advantage instead of a disadvantage. Most times, I don't have to raise. They will raise for me expecting to outplay or outbet me postflop. It's a lot of fun to dissapoint them but it takes great hands and a lot of patience to do it.

Now I don't mind programs that keep up with the hands you have actually played against them. I use pokerspy myself to quickly identify a players range of hands.

I guess another way to get around this is to change your screename often if you are a losing player. Any pro can do this easily but the pokersites don't allow just anyone to do this and I think that is wrong also. I think we should have the right to change our screenname anytime we want to.

My advice.... play at limits you can afford to lose money and play back at these stalkers really hard. If you take enough of their money, they will eventually go find an easier target.

Just a noob's thoughts.

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Permalink Reply by Goozik on February 22, 2008 at 5:29am

Many new players online don't know about these types of sites. As a matter of fact, a lot of online players period don't know about them.

As for being an invasion of my privacy, I do agree that they are of sorts. I think all pokersites that do send information to the database sites, should let thier players know, either by "pop-up news" that always pops up when you launch thier site. Or threw the "help" tab in the main lobby of each site. Somewhere other then the "terms of agreement" that no one really reads when you first sign up.

Anyone with the time and desire could sit on a given site and look at completed tourneys/sngs and fill out thier own database. While I don't think anyone would really do this, you could and I think that's why the sites allow the database sites to do it.

As for accuracy of the sites, I would say they are at least 98% complete/accurate. Some of them round to nearest dollar, or miss a few tourneys/sngs here and there. Slightly less accurate when factoring in rebuys/addons cause the poker sites themselves don't keep track of who rebought X# of times, so the database sites have to make assumptions on this based off total # of rebuys/add-ons in the tourney.

As for helping people out, if you pay for some poker software you can get peoples stats overlayed on you poker table based off the databases. So I think this is far more helpful if you play larger buy-ins as most smll stakes players simply don't have the funds and/or knowledge for this type of software. While the databases do load and search fairly quickly it's simply not practical to look up all 8 or 9 people at your "new" table each time while playing a MTT. As for SNG's I will sometimes take the time, but if the person I look up doesn't have much of a total number of SNG's played, the info I gained is very minimal at best other then, they haven't played much SNG's on X site.

For being removed from the database sites. Yes you can. As for them complying I can not vouch for that as I have not done so.
Bluffs poker DB is already described below.
OfficalPokerRankings you simply send an E-mail and are removed(see last question of thier FAQ's)
Sharkscope you fill out a form on their site thats completly removes you from free searchs, and MOST of your info from paying subscribers. (see FAQ section of their site under the General section 2nd to last question)

Have fun and Good luck.

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Permalink Reply by Robert (Scotsman420) on February 24, 2008 at 12:55pm

I have to say I don't agree that people whom I have not played before have information about the way I play poker online. I am also of the opinion that this is indeed an invasion of privacy, as to whether it is legal or not I don't know. Although myself I feel the question here is one for the major poker sites that allow such software to be used. Personally I don't believe it is ethical however the fact of the matter is that some sites gain financially from the affiliate deals they have going with these software companies.

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Permalink Reply by viii_ball on February 28, 2008 at 5:22am

I think they are horrible and should be shutdown.

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Permalink Reply by Eric T. Benoit on March 4, 2008 at 8:58am

I think they have their uses, I like to use the Bluff DB to track my own performance. It allows me to track wins and losses over quite a long period of time, including ROI and saves me the trouble of having to do it all myself. Very rarely do I use the DB to look up anyone else's info as I don't find it to be as useful as people think. So someone played in 10 tournaments and cashed in 9, final tabled 2...ok, all well and good but that doesn't mean they are going to cash or final table this game so the info does me little to no good, it doesn't change how I am going to play against them as I am going to play against based on what I know of their performance in the current tourney not past tourneys.
Just my $0.02

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Permalink Reply by The Future Poker Star on March 27, 2008 at 6:13pm

I found out about these sites a few weeks ago. I knocked someone out of a sit n go and had the "n00b", "donkey", and "go read a book" comments thrown at me.

I never talk in a poker room chatbox so obviously I didn't reply. About 5 mins later he came back with my ROI's and all kinds of statistics about my username! It was almost scary that someone would take the time to go and look me up because they lost their $1.20.

Anyway, I think there should be an opt-out at the actual poker site that you are playing on, as opposed to the sites that is collecting and displaying the data

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Permalink Reply by newbs on March 28, 2008 at 8:07am

A couple of questions. How specific are the statistics. I play mostly cash games. Do these DBs extract hand information, such as my showdown information, amount won, range of hands, etc.? I know they can track tourneys pretty well as stated before. Are hand histories available to anyone? I would like to know when I sit down at a ring game how much betting information is available to my opponents before I even start playing against them. I know a lot of people use poker tracker, but correct me if I am wrong; Poker tracker only garners information on games I played against the person using Poker Tracker. Any information would be appreciated.

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Permalink Reply by The Future Poker Star on March 28, 2008 at 4:41pm

OK I've done a bit of investigating!

Apparently PokerStars banned SharkScope (one of these database sites), then changed their status to "pending", had a little think about it...then banned them again! So it against the terms of use if you are a PokerStars player to check the site out.
Source

Now what I really found interesting that the PokerStars checks what sites you are looking at while the software is open!
Source

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