Archive for May 2012

PokerStars Opt-In Changes

For the past few years we have made great efforts to collaborate with PokerStars on their 3rd party data collection policy, trialling various opt in procedures but unfortunately now the time has come where they are requiring us to completely implement their opt in procedure on their .com network, even for subscribers.

The changes will affect both the SharkScope website and the SharkScope HUD, but will mean that SharkScope and all its tools are now fully permitted by PokerStars, even when the PokerStars client is running.

The opt-in procedure is as follows:

By default all ROI and Profit data is hidden. To opt-in and show this data the user must send $0.03 to the user SharkScope on PokerStars.

To block your data from all users including yourself, users need to send $0.01 to the user SharkScope on PokerStars.

If you are unable / do not wish to send money from your account then you can simply email support@pokerstars.com and they will pass on your request.

To minimize the affect of these changes for our users we have, through our Opt-In Cash Giveaway and other means, managed to increase the number of opted in players to nearly 150,000, which is many times more than those who have chosen to completely block their statistics. Thousands more players are currently opting-in each week.

Whilst in the short term these rule changes do significantly reduce the amount of information available to most users with regards to looking at other PokerStars player statistics there are still many ways SharkScope can still be used effectively:

  • Ability Rating

    The Ability rating is a relative score that only has interpretive value when compared to the Ability score of others but is an extremely effective way of quickly judging the strength of your opponents. Although it’s calculated based on actual gameplay and takes advantage of the wealth of tournament data available to Sharkscope to provide a statistically significant assessment of success, there is not enough information publicly available to reverse-engineer its algorithm, and so private player information remains safe and secure.

  • Versus Me Functionality

    Once you have configured your own player names if you search a player who has not opted in yet, or even has blocked their name, you will see the full statistics derived from the games that you have played against that player.

To assist you in understanding these options we have created a tutorial video which is now available to watch on our SharkScope Tutorials page.

It should also be noted that the Tournament Selector is unaffected by these rule changes and will continue to function as before, allowing you to find the easiest possible tournaments, and these changes do not effect any of the other 30+ networks that we cover.