As the ingenuity of third party program designers continues to challenge poker sites that need to ensure security for their users, along comes an upstart poker site that has changed one simple rule which could essentially solve a lot of problems for any player concerned about their long term statistics being examined by ruthless competitors.
Firstly though, let's define data mining for those who may not be sure what it is exactly. Data mining is the exchange of shared profiling information amongst a community of other players. As a player on most any online poker sites, it's quite likely you have been tracked through banned programs like Poker Sherlock or Poker Edge or had your information handed over via hand histories in another program called Poker Tracker. Although Poker Stars and Party Poker make this much more difficult (scanning your hard drive for such software) there are round-about tricks that enable them to work but you wouldn't want to describe them as smooth by any means.
Now the advantage of having access to a shared database of information about opponents is that if you happened to join an online table using this software, one or some of your opponents may be displayed via HUD some valuable statistics that may help your decision making during hand. Let's say for example that you are in a hand with a player named WrecklessJoe55. You are holding Th9h and the board shows Jc8cQc Ac and 2d. There is a big river bet put to you for the remainder of your stack to call. We will ignore the odds situation here for now, because either way, it's not the easiest call in the world.
Now let's say that through a purchased exchange of 100,000 hand histories via Poker Tracker you actually have some historical information on WrecklessJoe55 which clearly makes him a maniacal LAG player. Well that information would be leading towards a call. Just the opposite, if WrecklessJoe55 had a VPIP of 11% and PFR% of 7% along with a WSDW% of 72%, then these TAG statistics would be leading toward a fold - in fact I'd be almost sure of it.
The disdain poker sites have for these types of software is that you have never played with WrecklessJoe55 and you shouldn't know that information until YOU have ascertained it, not someone else. Yes, just like a regular live poker room. The Poker Stars security staff basically once told me that that is the guideline with which they want to emulate and all security policy emanates from that thinking.
Now we get to Cake Poker, an upstart network that is actually accepting USA player online! They came up with a policy that would essentially crush the inherent value in any data-mining program. It's rather simple too, as stated on the Cake Poker website:
"CakePoker players will be granted the option of changing their Poker Nickname every 7 Days. By allowing players to change their Poker Nickname often, CakePoker thus negates the effectiveness of shared or prolonged poker data tracking."
I wonder how much time and resources Poker Stars and Party Poker would save in their overall security budget if they adopted the same policy? Allow the players to change their name! It's simple! Big kudos to CakePoker for allowing this defence, in the name of protecting its players. Now although it no longer emulates a real live poker room, it definitely makes for a level playing field, and that's something to think about for the major players to be sure.
Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Data-Mining-Prevention-by-Poker-Sites-or-What-to-do-About-WrecklessJoe55&id=982153
Firstly though, let's define data mining for those who may not be sure what it is exactly. Data mining is the exchange of shared profiling information amongst a community of other players. As a player on most any online poker sites, it's quite likely you have been tracked through banned programs like Poker Sherlock or Poker Edge or had your information handed over via hand histories in another program called Poker Tracker. Although Poker Stars and Party Poker make this much more difficult (scanning your hard drive for such software) there are round-about tricks that enable them to work but you wouldn't want to describe them as smooth by any means.
Now the advantage of having access to a shared database of information about opponents is that if you happened to join an online table using this software, one or some of your opponents may be displayed via HUD some valuable statistics that may help your decision making during hand. Let's say for example that you are in a hand with a player named WrecklessJoe55. You are holding Th9h and the board shows Jc8cQc Ac and 2d. There is a big river bet put to you for the remainder of your stack to call. We will ignore the odds situation here for now, because either way, it's not the easiest call in the world.
Now let's say that through a purchased exchange of 100,000 hand histories via Poker Tracker you actually have some historical information on WrecklessJoe55 which clearly makes him a maniacal LAG player. Well that information would be leading towards a call. Just the opposite, if WrecklessJoe55 had a VPIP of 11% and PFR% of 7% along with a WSDW% of 72%, then these TAG statistics would be leading toward a fold - in fact I'd be almost sure of it.
The disdain poker sites have for these types of software is that you have never played with WrecklessJoe55 and you shouldn't know that information until YOU have ascertained it, not someone else. Yes, just like a regular live poker room. The Poker Stars security staff basically once told me that that is the guideline with which they want to emulate and all security policy emanates from that thinking.
Now we get to Cake Poker, an upstart network that is actually accepting USA player online! They came up with a policy that would essentially crush the inherent value in any data-mining program. It's rather simple too, as stated on the Cake Poker website:
"CakePoker players will be granted the option of changing their Poker Nickname every 7 Days. By allowing players to change their Poker Nickname often, CakePoker thus negates the effectiveness of shared or prolonged poker data tracking."
I wonder how much time and resources Poker Stars and Party Poker would save in their overall security budget if they adopted the same policy? Allow the players to change their name! It's simple! Big kudos to CakePoker for allowing this defence, in the name of protecting its players. Now although it no longer emulates a real live poker room, it definitely makes for a level playing field, and that's something to think about for the major players to be sure.
Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Data-Mining-Prevention-by-Poker-Sites-or-What-to-do-About-WrecklessJoe55&id=982153
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