New PokerStars Data Policy

[PokerAmateur4]

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bad. think emails to support would change this policy? are they going to ban pokertracker soon too?

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This would come real close to ending my play at Stars. I'm already starting to get on the Full Tilt bandwagon. Stars support is second to none but that only makes up for so much.

Edit: Without PT I would be lost trying to track my own cash game stats.

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I would have to think, though, that banning PT and PAHUDs would make Stars so profitable it would be hard to avoid playing there.

[/ QUOTE ]I don't think that logic makes any sense because if it's too profitable to not play at, everyones there who you are saying left so it's the same.

[foolsgold]

surely there are ways round this by showing ammount of games, player total ammount won, and total ammount spent?

[helter skelter]

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Opt-out is a horrible solution. Do you think JoeFish knows the name of the 55 tracking websites out there?

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I must be JoeFish. Are you just being sarcastic or are there really 55 tracking sites?

So far, I've checked out:

www.officialpokerrankings.com

www.sharkscope.com

www.bluffmagazine.com/thepokerdb

I only saw the opt-in/out feature on the last one, so I assume the other 2 are illegal to use while playing on Stars. Is this correct?

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Any Service Operator found to be in violation of these rules risks having their access to PokerStars’ game client restricted and/or the service impeded, including but not limited to the warning of players who access the Service while the PokerStars client is open.


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I assume this means that it is OK to access these sites when the client is not open, but you don't have to be playing to have the client open. I usually leave the client open to preserve the instant hand histories, whether I am playing or not. I guess that means I have to close Stars completely, whether I am playing or not? Is that correct?

Has anyone here been warned whether playing or not playing?

[hime]

No warnings for accessing OPR yet. SharkScope is specifically listed as a no-no, but OPR is not, last I checked.

[N 82 50 24]

As I understand it, Stars is giving operators a period of time to get these policies implemented and is also giving players a period of time to become aware of the new rules. And also that, at some point, this policy will actually be actively enforced.

[bogey1]

It'd be really easy to create a tool to extract the Sharkscope ROI. Granted, I know how to program, but a simple socket connection on a URL to sharkscope and then some fairly simple string searching on the HTML that comes back would allow it.

Given maybe 2-3 hours tops, I could probably take a sharkscope URL and give you a shell scrip that would do something like:

[foobar%] ./getStats.sh bogey1
ROI -32% over 134 games
[foobar%]

There's no way Stars is going to know what's going on. There's no window or process with sharkscopes name visible and the program would only run for a few seconds anyway.

Hell, I could even automate it to extract the names of players in a HH file and look it up for you.

I get what Stars is trying to do. Just seems pointless as the sharks that play a lot will have people that can develop a work around and distribute it.

[N 82 50 24]

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It'd be really easy to create a tool to extract the Sharkscope ROI. Granted, I know how to program, but a simple socket connection on a URL to sharkscope and then some fairly simple string searching on the HTML that comes back would allow it.

Given maybe 2-3 hours tops, I could probably take a sharkscope URL and give you a shell scrip that would do something like:

[foobar%] ./getStats.sh bogey1
ROI -32% over 134 games
[foobar%]

There's no way Stars is going to know what's going on. There's no window or process with sharkscopes name visible and the program would only run for a few seconds anyway.

Hell, I could even automate it to extract the names of players in a HH file and look it up for you.

I get what Stars is trying to do. Just seems pointless as the sharks that play a lot will have people that can develop a work around and distribute it.

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From my first post in the thread:

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astly, it will drive the creation of underground services to provide such information at a premium ... at least, until those services get to be well-known, at which point they'll get shut down.

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Of course people will find a way around it. I know that it will be hard for Stars to detect advanced ways of seeing the data, but that doesn't mean they can't make it waaaay harder to collect the data. So there is going to be a back and forth for a long time to come on this issue as both sides seem to feel strongly about maintaining their position.

[scarr]

It is just too easy for 'Stars to make it impossible for the database sites to collect the data. I think they are trying to walk a fine line and keep all types of players happy. They don't want to scare the fish away, but they also don't want lose the sharks. The sharks keep coming back and paying the rake for free. They have to spend money to attract new players through advertising and promotions. They want the new players to stay for at least a little while, so that they get their money (through the rake) instead of the sharks.

I don't think they want to remove the ability for third party add-ons and databases to exist. If they did, they would have done something more drastic than this new policy. I am just guessing here as I don't know what is going on at 'Stars, but I think they just want to have some control over the third party databases and software out there.

I get the feeling that they are paranoid of hole-card sharing becoming rampant. If they don't have the approved and prohibited list, they run the risk of some popular software passing hole card info behind the scenes. Just reading their rules and the lists gives me the impression that they are not so much concerned about the databases, they just want to make sure they have a working relationship with these databases so they can have some control over what could be a security threat.

I don't know of any site which takes advantage this, but a website having knowledge that 'Stars is running on the same machine that is looking at their page, is a big security hole. If I was 'Stars, I would do everything possible to make sure only approved software was running on that machine. A site doesn't need to have a client downloaded to be a risk. It is not hard for a website to run something on your machine without you knowing about it. 'Stars is doing the right thing and other sites will have to start doing similar things if they want to allow third-party add-ons to exists, and still insure security.

The player rankings sites (databases) are kind of an irritant because of the complaints they are getting from the losing players. They need to appease them and I think this plan is workable as they are allowing databases (w/o ROI), however, this is not as important as securing their site, which I feel is the real motivation for all of this.

[rabbitlover]

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I get the feeling that they are paranoid of hole-card sharing becoming rampant.

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Is this a statement that software exists and is being used to give away hole-card information?

[scarr]

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I get the feeling that they are paranoid of hole-card sharing becoming rampant.

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Is this a statement that software exists and is being used to give away hole-card information?

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No, I just saw it mentioned as an example on their website. I don't think it exists, but 'Stars is on top of things and there is the potential. It would have to be a very popular site amoung PokerStars users inorder for the holecard info to be useful.