Stupid Me (Whoops !)

[GainerRakeback]

I play a lot of the $5 Double or Nothing SnG tourneys on PS. I find it's an easy way to win without risking a lot of money. For those unfamiliar, the object is only to finish in the top 5 and the tourney ends, everyone winning $10.00 (doubling up). You can play from $1 to $100 buy-ins. I use [xxx] to find tourneys with a bunch of fish whenever possible.

So this morning I find one that's ripe, quickly look for the tourney number on PS, and double click it. I register right away since it's filling up. I go get a cup of coffee and it starts when I get back. I'm playing my normal game for this style tourney, doing ok , and after about 30 mins it gets down to six (6) players. I'm thinking this is gonna be over soon. Shortly thereafter the 6th guy busts out. At this point, the screen is supposed to pop up saying, Congratulations You won ! I'm getting out of my chair, but much to my surprise, the tourney continues !

I'm like WTF! I go look at the tourney lobby and it's a regular $6 SnG ! I'm like Holy Sh*t. How could I do that? I guess I rushed a little too much. Play is down to five and the top three pay. Now my brain has to completely switch gears. It probably helped me that I didnt know, since I played kinda conservative up to that point and was all-in only once. I started playing more aggressive and get to the final three. I'm happy since at least I win like $10 if I bust out. But I played it out, got down to HU, and I ended up winning> $27 for 1st.

So that's a mistake that turned out good (for a change) and I won a lot more than I expected.

Anyone else ever do that? Or something similar?

[braveboat27]

LOL Actually, I did just the opposite. I was quite surprised, and thought PS was broken, when the tourney stopped after the 5th guy busted out... I kept the money, tho.... ; )

[kingprowl]

i just can say pokerstars is called jokerstars and that s why i never play there

try full tilt poker best poker site ever

[C8H10N4O2]

i just can say pokerstars is called jokerstars and that s why i never play there

try full tilt poker best poker site ever

So why do you propose Full Tilt is called Full Tilt?

I love comments like this.

[GainerRakeback]

LOL Actually, I did just the opposite. I was quite surprised, and thought PS was broken, when the tourney stopped after the 5th guy busted out... I kept the money, tho.... ; )

It's comforting to see someone else made the same mistake, and if we did then lots of others did too. I think the problem is that the rows of tournaments in the PS lobby are constantly moving up and down as they fill up and disappear since there's so much action there. If it moves as you're about to double click it, you get the one right below or above.

[liladypokerpro]

My "oops" isn't as glamorous, but I accidentally joined a bounty game once and ended up winning it lol (I don't care for bounties)

I wanted to let you know too, to be careful using sharkscope when you're logged on to PS...they put a clause in their Terms of Service disallowing the use of sharkscope while playing on their site. They've apparently got some kind of cookie or something now that can sense when you navigate to the sharkscope site, and said if they catch someone using it while logged on to their PS account, they'll serve a warning and suspend the account. So be careful...

http://www.highstakesnews.com/2008/1...of-sharkscope/

[liladypokerpro]

Here's another article...where they said they were second guessing their "ban" but apparently it's still in full effect, just their methods have changed:

The site feels it made an error, however, and made a statement regarding its recent decision:

"We understand that players have expressed concerns regarding our recent detection methods, and we recognize that we made a mistake. Consequently, we will explain the error, and correct it.

"We detected players who visited the SharkScope website by having the PokerStars Client monitor active network connections using built in Windows functions for that purpose. The data returned by this function is similar to that which is returned by the Windows accessory called 'Netstat'. A periodic query to Windows determined whether the SharkScope IP was being accessed. This was a YES/NO query, purely regarding access to the specific SharkScope IP address. If a connection to the SharkScope IP was detected, this fact and only this fact was sent back to the PokerStars server. We then sent warning emails to players who had accessed SharkScope in conjunction with the PokerStars Client.”

"This technique ensured that players accessing the SharkScope website were detected without breaching their right to privacy. At no stage was a player's internet browsing history ever queried, or transmitted from the PokerStars Client to the PokerStars Server."

Based on the feedback from players, PokerStars elected to disable the detection feature from its software. Sharkscope will remain a prohibited service on PokerStars, but only while players are involved in a game on the site. Meanwhile, PokerStars will continue to attempt to limit datamining sites from gathering player information without permission of PokerStars or its players.

[EliminateU]

Here's another article...where they said they were second guessing their "ban" but apparently it's still in full effect, just their methods have changed:

The site feels it made an error, however, and made a statement regarding its recent decision:

"We understand that players have expressed concerns regarding our recent detection methods, and we recognize that we made a mistake. Consequently, we will explain the error, and correct it.

"We detected players who visited the SharkScope website by having the PokerStars Client monitor active network connections using built in Windows functions for that purpose. The data returned by this function is similar to that which is returned by the Windows accessory called 'Netstat'. A periodic query to Windows determined whether the SharkScope IP was being accessed. This was a YES/NO query, purely regarding access to the specific SharkScope IP address. If a connection to the SharkScope IP was detected, this fact and only this fact was sent back to the PokerStars server. We then sent warning emails to players who had accessed SharkScope in conjunction with the PokerStars Client.”

"This technique ensured that players accessing the SharkScope website were detected without breaching their right to privacy. At no stage was a player's internet browsing history ever queried, or transmitted from the PokerStars Client to the PokerStars Server."

Based on the feedback from players, PokerStars elected to disable the detection feature from its software. Sharkscope will remain a prohibited service on PokerStars, but only while players are involved in a game on the site. Meanwhile, PokerStars will continue to attempt to limit datamining sites from gathering player information without permission of PokerStars or its players.

Easy to defeat. Put laptop next to desktop, play Pokerstars on desktop, search sharkscope on laptop...done.

[liladypokerpro]

LOL yeah, providing the IP address doesn't match for the two... I'm not sure what kind of tracking they're using now, but if it deals with the IP address, then you could have 10 different computers online and it wouldn't make any difference (unless you use a static IP).

[GainerRakeback]

Thanks for the tip lilady. I was unaware of PS prohibited applications. I looked up the FAQ on PS site and it says:

Some examples of tools and services which are prohibited only while PokerStars is running are:

7. SharkScope

See http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/room/prohibited/

I only use the free five (5) searches; I don't subscribe or use the HU display. So you can get info on players while PS is offline, then go online and play. Hummm... All the searches do is provide stats on wins/losses/ROI, etc. Based on the rules I see, I think PS is more concerned about player collusion and bots that play automatically. If PS really didnt want the site accessing player results, PS could just block the site's IP.