How new poker players can protect themselves, plus data mining software and its limitations...
A lot of new players ask what precautions they should take when signing on with a poker site for the first time. We would recommend the following simple rules: Is the site a household name or associated with a big media group or corporation? If it is you know they have far too much to lose by being anything but honourable to their customers. If you have doubts about a site make sure you read the Terms of Service and End User License Agreement. Guard your passwords and remember to change them fairly regularly. If you have reason to suspect collusion always report the names of the players and the hand number to the site in question immediately. We have never had this happen on dailystarpoker.com, but it can and does happen on some lesser known sites, so be quick to react.
Policing on most sites these days is very high tech and cheating is extremely rare and easy to detect.
START OUT TIPS! Poker is that very special form of gambling. It’s seductive and compelling. Here are some smart tips to get you started. Common sense would suggest you bet on a good hand and do very little with a bad one. A big majority of players therefore do exactly the opposite in an effort to fool opponents. If you’re starting out don’t be seduced by this type of deceptive play too early.You need to learn when to fold and when to hold. Here’s something to try if you’re in the dealer’s seat with only yourself and the blinds left. It’s called blind-stealing and requires you to raise ahead of the blinds which would probably just check if you didn’t raise. Blinds are much more likely to fold following a raise. It ends the game quickly, usually to your benefit and enables a new hand to bring in a flood of new players and new cash. My closing tip is to look out for “action players”. You’ll see from their pattern of play they just enjoy the thrill of the game. You want these guys in your sights. On a percentage basis they lose more than they ever win. Remember not to become one!
WHAT IS DATA MINING? Poker Prophecy and Poker Tracker are data mining programmes available which can be integrated to poker site software and used to collect data on possible opponents as to how regularly they call, raise or fold under different circumstances. It will also record the number of flops they see and how often they go to the river. Whilst this intel is potentially useful it tends to be overwhelming and in the case of our own site and most of the very large sites hi-tech “sniffers” are used to detect these programmes if they are in operation.
Further Information:
The Poker Tracker Guide: The Poker Tracker Guide explains and demonstrates this "amazingly sophisticated tool for collecting and organizing data" for your online poker sessions with simple and straightforward explanations. "Two seasoned, professional online players take the guesswork out of Internet poker's greatest tool."
