PokerStars Remove SNG results from display unless you entered tournament

Sign the Petition against this

There has long been a running battle between poker results databases (such as Pokerdb, OPR, and Sharkscope) and the site PokerStars.  From Stars’ perspective they were concerned that if players knew they were losing money they’d stop playing.  To guard against this perceived potential rake loss they have said that only winnings could be displayed by the database sites, but not P&L related data.  Sites like OPR and Sharkscope were reluctant to comply, as it was not good for their general business models or service offered if the stats were not very comprehensive.

Stars have tried a few things to encourage an acceptable level of compliance and also made some threatening noises before about the consequences of not doing so, but seemingly none of this has had much joy in getting the level of compliance they desired.  

When the pokerdb was sold to Bluff Magazine they complied with all Stars requests regarding an actual opt in requirement.  This basically involved full stats only being made available to people who sent a small nominal amount to Stars to prove they were happy with their results being displayed. 

However OPR and Sharkscope are independantly run, and dont have anyone directly to answer to.   They are both run by technically competant indviduals with excellent programming skills relating to datamining.

Although PokerStars could potentially have a scan running when their software was actually open to check for the use of Sharkscope, once the client was closed, it would be highly illegal for them to continue to run scans on someones PC.  So they cant actually do a lot to stop the players using the tools completely.

However they have now decided to adopt an entirely different approach.  Not requesting compliance, not requiring opt ins, and not scans, but actually cutting off the results of completed SNGs themselves.   Yes actually removing them from sight.  You can no longer see the result of a 90-seater and 180-seater SNG, unless you actually played in it. 

This could be disatrous for OPR and Sharkscope and all the many online players who use them, as the general fear could easily be that the policy could be rolled out by PokerStars to other SNGs, or even MTTs.

Here is a screenshot of the result removed:

“Additional tournament information is available to the tournament participants only” (Applies to both running tournaments and completed tournaments)

Thankfully the result can still actually be requested via email:

PokerStars Tournament #153061183, No Limit Hold’em
Buy-In: $20.00/$2.00
180 players
Total Prize Pool: $3600.00
Tournament started 2009/04/03 17:23:57 ET
Tournament finished 2009/04/03 21:46:44 ET
  1: eraelk (Doral), $1080.00 (30%)
  2: TurboTurk (Cardiff), $720.00 (20%)
  3: ChrisWPK (Hamilton), $428.40 (11.90%)
  4: toomany7s (Avon Lake), $288.00 (8%)
  5: 26aug76 (hk), $234.00 (6.50%)
  6: GOD UR UGLY (Austin), $180.00 (5%)
  7: Dodosuave (Voisins le BX), $126.00 (3.50%)
  8: lockey369 (calgary), $93.60 (2.60%)
  9: Zteif9 (Högsby), $61.20 (1.70%)

But it can safely be assumed that PokerStars will simply impose a limit of how many tournament result requests can be made per user, thus cutting off the possibility of datamining from this source.

It would be tragic for all online pros, semi pros, serious amateurs, and stakers if databases like this get lost completely, so it looks like a battle is well and truely on.    OPR are already encouraging players to email PokerStars to try to prevent the expansion of this policy to more tournaments.