PokerStars was successful in its most recent attempt to stop PokerTableRatings.com from continuing to track hands played by poker players on the world’s biggest online poker provider. Earlier this week, Poker Table Ratings agreed to abide by the cease and desist notice delivered by PokerStars, meaning the company has removed the data it collected on PokerStars players from its website and will no longer collect data about people who play on PokerStars.
After being offline briefly at midweek, PokerTableRatings.com went live again with a statement expressing the company’s willingness to comply with the order. The statement reads in part:
“The most contentious aspects of PTR seem to be the premium services we provide, namely player stats, however when compared to widely-accepted poker HUDs from other software providers, we believe the differences are negligible. Tools exist to give advantages to players who know how to use them and who are willing to pay for them, plain and simple and these will not go away. Players will always be looking for advantages and we are just one of many services offering an advantage.
That said, we will fully adhere to the cease and desist notice by Stars, though we do not believe that we are a disservice to the online poker community. We continue to search and most importantly detect bot rings month after month and provide information about these true game-breaking activities to brands that care about the integrity of their games. We’ve provided unrivaled publicity to players who have gone on to become sponsored celebrities of the online poker world and we have given all players a public forum to show off their impressive wins or gain sympathy for their crushing defeats.
We still fully believe in our product and will continue to introduce new and exciting features to our customers. We have been actively developing new tools that will give more control and ownership of profiles to their respective players so that PTR can be a service that every poker player would be proud to use. The latest events, though a disruption in our plans, do not derail them. Our team is committed to evolving PTR even further in order to continue to provide hundreds of thousands of members of the online poker community with valued services and tools to keep the game of poker fun and engaging for all.”
Poker Table Ratings is a data-mining site that claims to record 18,000,000 hand histories daily. The site also suggests that its records are generally 400% “fresher” than those published by the company’s competitors. The data collected by Poker Table Ratings is compatible with Hold’Em Manager, Poker Tracker and Poker Office.
In addition to being able to review statistics related to other people’s play, people can purchase hand histories drawn from certain websites including 888Poker, Party Poker, OnGame and Bodog, among others. People can also pay a monthly fee for a premium service that enables them to do detailed searches on specific players. The fee for Poker Table Ratings’ monthly service ranges from $9.99 to $32.49 depending on the level of service a person desires.
Prices for hand histories vary depending on the site and game. A history of No Limit Hold ‘Em hands at tables with the highest possible blinds and 7-10 players for Absolute currently costs $198 at PokerTableRatings.com. A hand history for a comparable game at Bodog has a current price tag of $207.90.