What is datamining?

I have heard talk of data mining. I assume it's some kind of recording without actually having to play the players. Is this legal/ethical?

How is this actually done?

I've never done it, but I think this is close.

You need a program like poker tracker or pokerstove. You start the program and login in to your poker site. Then you open as many tables as possible, but don't take a seat. At this point, your tracking program will be recording stats for anyone playing in these rooms.

I'm sure it's legal and I think it's ethical.

It used to be possible on some sites that allowed you to get hand histories from observed tables (without actually having to sit down or play). Then all one had to do was load all the HHs into Poker Tracker, and you've got everyone's information. I used to do this on UB years ago.

AFAIK, most sites these days don't allow you to get HHs from observed tables. I'm sure there are ways around this, but if the site doesn't allow it, you shouldn't do it. No need to consider the ethics.

UB doesn't allow it, and I can't get it to work on AP, so for me that means they don't allow it.

FT on the other hand DOES. However, a warning... You can suck down a ton of data in a couple of 24 hour sessions. Depending on what hardware you sporting, it will affect your PT/HUD speed. And I already think FT software sucks from a performance standpoint... so the added delay of a large PT database - esp when it's potentially a bunch of $10NL folks u never gonna see again - can cause more pain than it's worth. I'm more interested in the stats of the people representing at my table right here right now. The rest of it's so much b-llsh!t without a manageable sample of steady regs.

</preachin' on it>

I work in the IT industry, data mining is a great tool, but in the poker world it could be seen as an unfair advantage. In essence though, tools like Sharkscope are technically data mining, pulling the result data from events and ranking players based on it.

Think of it this way, if you are keeping your Hand History, and you go back through it looking for data on a particular player, you are data mining yourself, just in the IT world we tend to automate it.

since when can you not datamine UB? i used to datamine there all the time.

Same with AP. I think the only site that is still a problem is Stars and that is not impossible from what I have heard, although I have never.

I'd also like to note that PokerStove has nothing to do with datamining. It's just an equity calculator.

Originally Posted by bode

since when can you not datamine UB? i used to datamine there all the time.

Never been able to get PT to pick up "observed tables" on UB... just the ones I'm actively seated at. Through PAHUD I can get it to pull past hands instantly as soon as I take a seat (mine's set to go back 100 hands and pull those in...) -- this didn't work for a while there, but now seems just fine.

guys, how can you datamine at stars? it is against their rules tho..right?

Originally Posted by youngsterrr

guys, how can you datamine at stars? it is against their rules tho..right?

Read Above.