Let's take a poll

[TIME]

In a recent post concerning the play of a hand, it was suggested that the hero look up the villian on one of the many poker tracker sites while the hand was in play to assess his strengths/weaknesses in order to aid his decision making process. I stated that I didn't particularly like that option because
1.) I felt it was almost or at least bordered on cheating and 2.) From my experience with those data bases, I don't put a lot of stock in them. I have seen players misrepresented good and bad.

In retrospect I was a little surprised that no one jumped on that part of my post. I play more live than internet and you don't have that option sitting at a live table. That's my stance and I'm sticking with it.

What say all of you?

[mattjacknine]

I don't share your view that it is cheating to use a database such as Sharkscope or Poker Tracker. If all players in the game did not have equal access to such a service then that would be unfair but as long as everyone is able to use it if they wish then I have no problem with it.

But whether people interpret the information in a useful way and are able to profit from it is another matter. I routinely use a Heads Up Display (HUD) for cash games but it is up to me to make profitable conclusions from the data displayed. I do not consider myself to be cheating when I use it, just utilising a tool that is available to everyone.

[Tim]

Is it cheating? No, certainly not in my opinion. Is it right that one should have access to this information about other players? No, I don't think it is. Are such sites good for the future of online poker? No - there will always be losers in this game, and they should be able to lose in peace. Do I use such sites? Yes - I do use SharkScope from time to time, but only the free options (5 searches), and I disagree with you Tom, as I usually find them quite accurate in confirming my suspicions about a player.

Software like poker tracker is very different, and I think it is acceptable to log your own performance and it's a great tool for analysis, and picking holes in your game. While I use the HUD, I don't think this is particuarly good for the game as a whole - neither is table checking software. Don't get me wrong, they're great tools, but maybe I'm just a purist.

The online poker sites do not like these tools, and for good reasons. It's bad for business. What can they do about it? Well one idea is to allow people to change their user names or have multiple user names (perhaps linked to one account). I'm not sure how this would work though, and it has to be said that the tracking tools have been successful in exposing certain cheating scandals, i.e. Absolute Poker (which you won't find promoted on this site).

One of the next articles will be about data mining - written by Gerald.

[TIME]

There we go ... different opinions. I love it.

I think you both make good points. Certainly since the tool is available to all the playing field is level. Maybe using the "C" word was too strong and divisive. Let me put a little differently ... I DON'T LIKE IT! What happened to one player to a hand? If you asked for time in a live game to consult with another as to what their opinion of your opponent was to help you make a decision everyone would jump out their chairs!

Again, as I stated, I play serious poker live and just "fool around" on-line and maybe this is the crux of it. I've looked at the various tracking tools and as Tim said just for the free searches but I really didn't think they added much. The data is taken out of context ... you're playing the villian in the here and now and their collective assessment may well not be the current reality. Just my opinion but I respect other opinions as well. Hope we hear from others or more from you two.

[Tim]

Yes the data is taken out of context I agree, but I think they do give you an impression of the player - i.e. winner or loser, shark or fish. This can help with decision making, but it shouldn't. I too do not like these tools overall, but will use them since they are available.

I think the online poker rooms should do more to prevent this data being made available. I know Party Poker no longer have lobby areas for their SNGs, which confused the hell out of me when I was playing there. It was annoying as I wasn't sure how many were paid and had to check their website. I thought afterwards that maybe it was to prevent data mining, since this is where most of the data is taken from.

In truth I'm not sure what can be done, other than opting out of their database. Let's not forget that the rooms themselves don't like data mining, and if it was easy to prevent then I'm sure with all their millions they'd be able to.

Note: if I had your stats on SharkScope then I'd love people to know about it. Not bad (understatement) for someone "fooling around". But I know this isn't the issue.

[skipoles]

So far in my limited playing experience I haven't played with any of these tools yet. My main reasons why:
1) I don't think/know if the information that I get from them would be of much use in my current limited experience
2) I'm already suffering from information overload when I'm playing without adding a whole load of other information and statistics into the mix as well
3) PokerTracker only works on Windows and I'm a Mac user. I could fire up a windows virtual machine, but I'd rather not!

That said, I don't see any reason why I wouldn't use such tools at some point in the future once my experience has grown enough to gain value from them. However, I'm much more comfortable with the concept of a tool that just monitors/tracks just my performance and allows me to assess and improve the way that I am playing.

A tool that monitors my opponents and points out mistakes or weaknesses in their play for me to exploit seems to me to be somewhat against the spirit of the game. I'd hope that as my experience grows that I develop the ability to do this analysis myself and be able to read my opponents based on their play. I feel that a tool that is doing this for me would probably just weaken this side of my game and hence put me at a disadvantage when I have to play without the tool (such as in live games, with friends or if the tools are ever banned).

Additionally, tools that recommend tables that you can regularly win at also seem counter productive to me. While I can see that making money is much easier like this, especially if it's a full-time career choice, I think sometimes you learn more from being thoroughly beaten than you do from an easy win. Only by gradually playing better and better players who will push your game (and quite probably take some of your cash) is your game going to grow and improve over time. I want to play sharks sometimes as I'll learn from watching how they play.

One thing that I do have on my 'fun projects' list is to build a tool for analysing my own play. Why? I'm a software engineer and I like fiddling around with little projects like this for the challenge and to just try out new tools and programming techniques. I figure something that just trawls through hand logs, tracks things like tightness and aggressiveness and looks for cases where I'm playing dominated hands, calling with insufficient odds and making poorly sized bets will be a good learning tool.

[skipoles]

Oh, forgot to mention the level that sites like SharkScope go to mine the data. I know that on some poker sites these tools even go as far as capturing screenshots and then using Optical Character Recognition to extract the statistics data (I'm friends with one of the tool developers). I'm not sure how any poker site can ever defeat this level of persistent mining other than to not publish result data - but the software could still sit and rail each game and collect the data on the fly if necessary. Challenging but technically possible.

[TIME]

Couple of reactions to recent posts:

Tim,
I guess thank you for the sharkscope comment but it cuts both ways. I'd just as soon have them call me a fish than alert opponents with their little swimming shark. I like to keep under the radar and these tools do not help!

Skipoles,
Good post. Just starting out and trying to grasp every nugget of wisdom and make major steps forward in your play/performance you can go on information overload and adding these tools is not something you need to focus to at this juncture. Your energies are better spent elsewhere.

Your thought as to using this data as a crutch instead of learning how to properly and thoroughly assess your competition is a great point. A new article, that our esteemed editor has not even seen yet, will go into this very aspect of the game. Again, I may well feel a lot stronger about this issue as live play is my domain.

[AcesUp]

I dont think data mining and tracking programs should be allowed. You cant have them when you play for real so why should you when you play on the computer.

[Tim]

Originally Posted by skipoles

I know that on some poker sites these tools even go as far as capturing screenshots and then using Optical Character Recognition to extract the statistics data...

Yes I figured this must be the case (without knowing the name for it), and its very interesting. You obviously know a lot on this subject - can the poker sites not just move the placement of certain images, even just slightly (so not to annoy users), to "cock up" the bots? Or would this be a battle in vein?