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Thinking out loud - Sharkscope.
Morning.
A Post elsewhere this morning piqued my interest, & so I thought I run a thread, & see what you think.
Some of it might get a bit, you know, delicate, but I'm pretty sure that these days we can have this sort of debate here without resorting to personal or improper comments, bad blood, or ill-mannered stuff. It's just something I think it's worth chewing the cud over.
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Comments
Elsewhere today, "chicknMelt" posted this comment after Sharkscope mis-reported a Tourney result......
"....something up with sky's results reporting??....."
Without fear of exaggaration, I bet I get 5 or 6 PM's or e-Mails every week on the same subject.
"Why do Sky not send the correct results to Sharkscope?" sorta thing.
It seems to me, possibly, that many don't understand how Sharkscope actually works.
For starters, Sky Poker do NOT send, or "report", ANY results to Sharkscope, in fact, nor does any other Poker Site. It's a bit of an oddity that people assume otherwise, but it's actually perfectly understandable.
What actually happens is that Sharkscope "scrape" Online Poker Sites for such information & results. I've no idea, nor do I care, why they so often get it wrong, but they do.
They don't pay for this information, nor do they have explicit permission to "lift" it. They just take it - & then sell it!
No way, in a milion years will Sky Poker change any reporting systems to accommodate Sharkscope, why should they? It's not as if Sharkscope PAY for the info. They "lift" it, then sell it.
In the process, they also make available information to all & sundry about you, me, & everyone else, UNLESS we choose to opt out.
That seems bang wrong to me. Surely it should be that we should have to opt IN before they have the "right" to use our private information? They are SELLING info about you & me. I'm not sure that sits well with me, personally.
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We also see a lot of players getting upset because, when a bit of a ruck goes off in the chat box after, say, a "bad" call, people use Sharkscope Stats to abuse others.
Sharkscope's T & C explicity forbid this, on pain of censure, but I've never seen any demonstrating that they exercise that right.
Do you think it's right that they put info out there, especially as to players who don't play too successfully, such that others can use it to abuse them?
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You wouldn't want your bank to publish your bank statements online would you?
Edit*
Isn't there a copyright or data protection issue here, with SS "lifting" data without permission and selling it on?
Shouldn't the "opt-in / opt-out" choice be made on here rather than on SS?
Some poker sites have challenged Sharkscope's "rights" to do this recently.
One site that has done better than most recently is 888, & I believe they refused Sharkscope permission to report 888 Tourney results UNLESS the player first opts in.
I gather Full Tilt have done something similar recently, too.
This is all part of the realisation that Online Poker needs to look after players better, make the playing field more level, or as level as possible.
As you know, & I believe it is generally approved of by the majority of players on Sky Poker, third party software & "aids" are NOT permitted here, never have been, & never will be. Sky Poker think is it bad for the players, & the site. Unless I misread the Sky Poker jungle drums, that stance ain't ever going to change. But that's not the point here.
The point is, what do people think about the whole logic of Sharkscope being able to lift this info about you & me & everyone else, without our permission, & then go publish it for gain?
I actually think it is possible to stop it happening, & I can't imagine Sky Poker would suffer much, if at all, as a result.
And your views would be........?
Took me 3 long Posts to say what you said in a few lines.
But you were forced to opt OUT, surely that's back to front. Far more effective would be that we had to opt IN?
PS
If i want to see how i'm doing i just look at my balance at the top of the page and if its more than i deposited 2 years ago i'm happy :-))
I think the strangeness of it is from the fact that what it seems to be doing is in direct contrast to contract law.
In contract law it is clearly stated that lack of refusal does not mean acceptance. So they are giving out the information on people who have not agreed for this to happen, and the only way to stop it is to tell them no.
That being said i think the worst thing about sharkscope is the fact of peoples perception of it. They seem to believe that everything there is the gospel truth. Have seen it so many times on the cash tables where after a dubious play at the table someone starts spouting how bad someone is and using the sharkscope stats as proof of it.
The default is back to front, imo.
I might get appraisals of how I do my job, here at Sky Poker, from the Suits, but that's private, between them & me, not for putting in the domain.
How much you, or I, or anyone else gets paid is private, too. Why would it not be?
I might be getting this round my neck, but it just seems wrong to me.
Sure it can be used to abuse players in chat etc, but the type of people that do that are te type of people that will just abuse them verbally in some other way if that info wasn't available.
PS - You CAN hide it, as some other Online sites already have stopped Sharkscope doing so unless the player chooses to opt in, or that is as I understand it.
"It's OK as long as people know when they sign up they are being tracked".
But they don't. Do you think a poker newbie KNOWS that? There is nothing in Sky Poker's T & C's which says "another site may publish your Sky Poker results unless you specifically opt out". Sky poker do not knowingly allow it, it just happens.
For the record, yeah, I like Sharkscope, too, but that's hardly the point.
Sounds ominous, do you think sky will take action to prevent SS publishing results in the near future?
As a skope-o-holic, for selfish reasons I wouldn't like this to happen but it can only be a good thing for poker.
Skope will increase a winning players edge, and poker sites don't want that to happen?
Doubt it will, but I hope this post doesn't influence the decision
2) Agreed, it has to be, on balance, a good thing for poker.
It's good to see that several of us, me included, DO like using Sharkscope, & readily admit it, but we can still accept that it is not necessarily a good thing. That's exactly the sort of discussion I was hoping for.
It is not, if I understand it correctly - perhaps the Suits will correct me - with or without Sky Poker's "blessing", but I do know there is no contact or contract, & Sky Poker, or any other online poker site, do nothing to assist Sharkscope, & do not "supply" them, as such, with info directly or intentionally.
It just happens.
Quite an interesting do, really.
I doubt they'd ever block it completely, but making it "opt in" instead of "opt out" must be a valid consideration. So the player has the choice. Many don't even know Sharkscope exists, of course, so opting out is a bit difficult.
I fully understand why people have concerns over Sharkscope and may wish to opt out.
But I quite like sharkscope, I was on a FT a couple of days ago and 5 handed decided to sharkscope the other 4 opponents 5 handed, which was quite helpful. Unfortunately one of the players was minus £1000's playing low stake games, which is ashame, but I felt I just had to find the right spot against this opponent which I did and managed to get most of his chips. I don't use it often but definatly find it helpful at FT's, just to get a better understanding of how certain people play, are they winning or losing players.
I would also say SC was instrumental in helping me improve at MTT's, I was winning or ftabling infrequently, I think I was min cashing a lot, so knew I was doing something wrong, that fundamentally I was making a lot of mistakes, it was at that point I decided I would give it a go and try and improve my mtt game. Sharkscope was a wake up call to me to put a bit of effort and time in to try and improve my game.
Personally I really like sharkscope, but understand why people may feel differently, and there will be many reasons for it.
They have created this beast when all along they should have kept it at a level playing field.
I read somewhere recently the reason for the big sites to allow HUD's etc.. was a bad one and are only now realising they are stuck in a spot where they can't ban them cause they would lose customers. But also because they are allowed, they in turn are losing customers. Essentially the poker sites did not intially ban HUD's etc.. when they found out they were being used they just let everyone carry on using them. They should have banned them from the start, now it's snowballed into this horrible state of online poker.
all a bit dumb dumb
If all the poker sites in the world got toether and collectively banned HUD's etc.. then it would not be a problem.
You will alwasy get one site not banning them to get all the clients.
This is the main reason why they never banned HUD's in the first place, because of the fear of losing players in bulk to the rivals.
This is why you must applaud Sky and the like for their stance on 3rd party software and for me it's one of the main reason I play here.
Also fwiw Sharkscope is like the worse invention for online poker in so many ways.
It's a shame far too many players are too short sighted to see it.
Plus it's a joke site.
My ss says i am down £1200, i have been playing for over 2 years now , so i am losing about £11.52 per week .
I have been verbally abused by some small minded people for been a losing player ,
When i have ss them a lot of the time they have opted out.
Which reminds me of the old saying smashing up your neighbours furniture doesnt make yours any better.
Ihave no problem with people knowing i am a losing player so i choose not to opt out.
does ss record sky poker rewards payments, if not i earn between £10 to £15 per month , so my losses are under a grand not bad considering i have allowed my self £40 per week budget.
All the best Rainman397.
PS. DEEPSTACK @2.20PM FOR £2.20 TIKAY ALREADY REGISTERED 4 TOURNAMENT.
Hi Tikay
I find sharkscope quite useful for tracking my results and yes I have used it to look at some other players all available info should be used if all can see it.
The big problem I have with it is it can give a false impression on mtt results if like myself you play a lot of sats
and qualify for bigger tourneys then you could end up showing a big loss when this isn't the case eg you sat into the big roller for 5 quid and don't cash you have lost a fiver sharkscope shows you have lost 110 quid
I was fuming at the time how could they do this I actually contacted customer care here to complain to be told they could not do anything about this. I seriously considered stopping playing I was that mad, I wasn't one of those losing by the way at that time.
It was after this I found out about SS and that it was available on virtually all the main poker sites. I have visited the site but only read the terms and conditions faQs etc I have never used it to scope myself or anyone else for that matter even with the 5 free scopes per day you can use.
At this point in time personally I feel it would be a backwards step for Sky to take any action to prevent the results being scraped as you put it (whatever that is lol) without other sites doing the same thing. You would probably just see many of the serious tournament and SAG grinders take their business elsewhere. However if as you say Tikay that other sites are moving away from allowing this scraping or taking other steps to get it stopped then I would love to see it happen here also.
ill join you rainman! got some paperwork to do for a few hours so can play!
Sorry to single you out but this is like the reason it's so bad for online poker.
The idea of a level playing field is just not true with online poker, hence why it's in decline.
If your using SS, HUD's other tracking software it's basically giving you an unfair advantage.
You may say but, it's available to everyone - that doesn't make it right does it.
How far do we take the use of computer software.
If I program a computer program to play against you online is that fair ?
I mean anyone can do it right !
Why did the poker sites not ban tracking software/HUD's when they first knew about them being used ?
Surely this was cheating at the time ? Why did they let it continue ? MONEY - ALL ABOUT THE MONEY!
MONEY! The same reason you want to use SS and get an unfair advantage and win MONEY.
Poker is corrupt from it's core!
All the best
Rainman397 In Response to Re: Thinking out loud - Sharkscope.:
That's pretty terrible people would talk like that and is totally unacceptable.
Whether it was online or in real life. Unfortunatly some people will act different on here, to how they would in person.
It's cool you have a budget for pokers and enjoy playing recreationally.
I would say, sometimes, we can make small tweaks to our game to help improve overall. A few months ago my sharkscope was minus £300, I made a few posts on here looking at ways to improve my game, and I've done ok over the last few months. It would just a matter of changing really small things.
The community on here is fantastic, especially the poker clinic, it's really good for posting hand histories and getting analysis from players who play all different levels.
Good luck, and continue to enjoy the game.