Today I get to interview Anton, developer of the newest poker software that helps you with one of the most important parts of your poker skill set, Table Selection!
Warren Karp (PokerMD) Hi Anton thanks for joining us today
SharkyScanner Anton: Hi Warren.
warren karp: You’re the creator of SharkyScanner but let me ask you first, how long have you been into poker and online poker
SharkyScanner Anton: I’ve been playing since 2007, mostly HU SNGs.
warren karp: Wow long time and mostly online then
SharkyScanner Anton: Have never played offline, it’s kind of prohibited in Russia. 😀
warren karp: In those early days there was no software to use except maybe Mike Caro’s poker odds calculator and SharkScope. Tell me the difference between those days and todays highly technical envoirnment
SharkyScanner Anton: Actually, in those days i didn’t even think that i may need some poker tool to help me win. But the more i played the more i realized that all these tools really work and bring you money. So I’ve decided to create my own software that could significantly increase my ITM.
warren karp: ITM for the readers is?
SharkyScanner Anton: In Tournament Money
SharkyScanner Anton: Or replace with “winnings”?
warren karp: Great so that was the birth of SharkyScanner, what year was that?
SharkyScanner Anton: Started to make it in 2012 maybe. I used it for about one and half year and even didn’t think to open it for public.
warren karp: What was your motivation or in other words what were you looking for from it that didn’t exist
SharkyScanner Anton: The motivation was to automate the search of weak players in lobby by getting their SharkScope stats. Before i always sat first to HU tables and had to play with strong players pretty much often. Then I thought why not to avoid them. And writing SharkyScanner was a challenge for me as well, I just like programming, do it since 14 yo. 😀
warren karp: Programming sounds like a passion to you, did you feel like this was a need in the industry or was it originally just something you thought would help you?
SharkyScanner Anton: As I said before, at the beginning I used it just for myself and had no thoughts to share it with anyone, because it helped me a lot. And sure I realized how helpful it could be for many players.
warren karp: Ok so the big question, what exactly does it do and what do you think is the most important part of the program
SharkyScanner Anton: The main feature is the search of weak players. You just say SharkyScanner what kind of players you want to play with and it searches those players for you. It can be used for searching empty tables as well, which is useful for HU SNG players.
warren karp: And where do you get the data that tells you who’s weal and what parameters makes a weak player in your opinion
SharkyScanner Anton: SharkyScanner requests a lot of stats from SharkScope, so users can select any needed stats to decide who’s weak. The most useful stats are ITM, ROI and Ability score in my opinion.
warren karp: So basically you’ve determined the useful stats from SharkScope and developed an easy to read platform that shows players the best opponents to play against in HU SNGs. What other catagories/games are covered
SharkyScanner Anton: That’s right. Currently SharkyScanner supports any SNG games, the only condition is that player list containing nicknames must be visible in the lobby of a poker client.
warren karp: Sounds like SharkScope has been very instrumental. What kind of feedback are you getting from your subscribers
SharkyScanner Anton: Yeah, without SharkScope it would be impossible to make this software. Since all major bugs have been fixed we don’t get many letters, ha-ha. But I’m really happy to get letters where subscribers say they really like it, ha-ha.
warren karp: So I’d say the major difference in this software is that it pulls the info from the lobby so you can decide who to play against or more to the point which table would be the better fish pond
SharkyScanner Anton: Right, I really don’t know any other software that can do this.
warren karp: Would you say it’s a SNG tool or both SNG and MTTs?
SharkyScanner Anton: Currently SharkyScanner doesn’t support MTTs because there is no player list in lobby for this kind of tournaments. But! I plan to make support for MTTs soon. SharkyScanner will just open tournament lobby and read nicknames there.
warren karp: That would be a great upgrade, I also notice that right now it tracks both PS & FTP is there any plans for expanding to other networks?
SharkyScanner Anton: Now it works just with PokerStars. FullTiltPoker and Ongame rooms are supported too but temporarily unavailable due to testing purposes. It will be available in few weeks. And sure I will do my best to make SharkyScanner support as much networks and rooms as possible.
warren karp: Now that you’re listed and available in SharkScope’s Tools and Apps section have you found that the word is getting out and that it’s in more players arsenal?
SharkyScanner Anton: Yeah, most of our subscribers found us there. Thanks to SharkScope guys!
warren karp: Well that’s great to hear, is there anything else you’d like our readers to know?
SharkyScanner Anton: Just want to say that everybody can try how powerful SharkyScanner along with SharkScope is! Visit our site http://sharkyscanner.com, get free 7-days full-featured trial and go for finishing, ha-ha.
warren karp: Perfect! Our readers I’m sure will take advantage of your generous free trial offer. We really want to thank you for your time today and for building a very important tool for our community
SharkyScanner Anton: Thank you Warren, hope to meet and talk again when we have some brand new features and offers.