Pokertableratings switching to Opt-In mode?

[Dan Druff]

Pokertableratings.com, also known as PTR, is a data mining operation that shares cash game results with the public.

Their existence has changed the way online pros game select in cash games. Whether you like or hate PTR, you are stuck using them if you want to play online cash games seriously.

Pokerstars has recently demanded that PTR stop data mining their site, and threatened legal action against PTR for doing so.

Surprisingly, instead of giving Pokerstars the middle finger, PTR is going to introduce an "opt-in" system in a few months, according to this report:

http://www.casinos-online.co.uk/news...poker-players/

If this is true, it would pretty much ruin PTR, as players would have to voluntarily opt-in to be listed (which means fish just about never would, as they wouldn't even know about it).

Of course, perhaps instead of Opt-In, they really mean Opt-Out, where people would have to ask PTR not to be included, but would otherwise be included by default. That wouldn't affect much, as the opt-outs would mainly be from pros who don't want their results being seen.

Either way, it would remove one of the best things about PTR: The ability to easily catch cheaters.

PTR's mining of nearly every cash game allows a quick and easy view of any suspicious account. Had it been around during the UB/AP superuser days, these scandals would have been detected much sooner.

Nowadays it's impossible to win a ton in a short time and fly under the radar, which is a good thing.

If players are allowed to Opt-Out, so will the cheaters.

This is a very bad thing for the security of online poker, and I hope that PTR reconsiders.

[Steve-O]

Pokertableratings.com, also known as PTR, is a data mining operation that shares cash game results with the public.

Their existence has changed the way online pros game select in cash games. Whether you like or hate PTR, you are stuck using them if you want to play online cash games seriously.

Pokerstars has recently demanded that PTR stop data mining their site, and threatened legal action against PTR for doing so.

Surprisingly, instead of giving Pokerstars the middle finger, PTR is going to introduce an "opt-in" system in a few months, according to this report:

http://www.casinos-online.co.uk/news...poker-players/

If this is true, it would pretty much ruin PTR, as players would have to voluntarily opt-in to be listed (which means fish just about never would, as they wouldn't even know about it).

Of course, perhaps instead of Opt-In, they really mean Opt-Out, where people would have to ask PTR not to be included, but would otherwise be included by default. That wouldn't affect much, as the opt-outs would mainly be from pros who don't want their results being seen.

Either way, it would remove one of the best things about PTR: The ability to easily catch cheaters.

PTR's mining of nearly every cash game allows a quick and easy view of any suspicious account. Had it been around during the UB/AP superuser days, these scandals would have been detected much sooner.

Nowadays it's impossible to win a ton in a short time and fly under the radar, which is a good thing.

If players are allowed to Opt-Out, so will the cheaters.

This is a very bad thing for the security of online poker, and I hope that PTR reconsiders.

They have no choice really. PokerStars had their ISP shut them down, and was willing to keep chasing them from ISP to ISP. It's the same arguement Bodog has making for years, PTR is selling their intellectual property, they are in some cases illegally datamining these sites and selling the information for profit; it's a pretty clear case.

What PTR does is akin to a person standing at the register of McDonalds and recording every transaction, and then selling this information to BK, Wendy's and so on, only in poker they sell it to other consumers.

As far as catching cheaters, they have only been involved in a handful of cases, the most famous of which was the StoxTrader collusion, and in reality just provided further evidence of what players already suspected and felt. Even with this added evidence nothing was provable beyond a reasonable doubt. Personally I'd rather see a few cheaters get away with it than deal with the numerous detrimental aspects that data-mining has brought to poker.

Could they have helped in the AP/UB cases? Yes, but only IF the cheaters followed the same pattern.

The reality is that if PTR was around at this time the cheaters would have been far more careful imo, and possibly even harder to detect: jumping from account to account, losing money to another super-user account to alter their stats, etc. I think the only reason they were so brazen was because there simply wasn't a really good way to track accounts outside of player's private databases at the time.