A basic guide to data mining in online poker

Jace Thomas : November 6th, 2007

UPDATES: Since this article was published, some rooms now prohibit the use of Idleminer. Check with rooms before purchasing.

In an era of increasingly tough online games, if you’re not collecting (and utilizing) data on your online opponents, you’re giving up a pretty significant edge. This article is intended to provide a basic explanation of what data mining is and an overview of the tools you’ll need to get started.

So what is data mining? Basically, it’s the process of acquiring information about your potential opponents through the use of automated tools that record hand histories. Think of it as the online equivalent of scouting a live game from the rail, except you get to scout dozens of games at once without having to do much more than opening a few windows. What’s the point of data mining? By collecting and analyzing hand histories, you make it easier to identify soft games and avoid tough ones, you improve your decision making in marginal situations and you save some bets that you’d otherwise use to acquire information from your opponents.

There are a few simple tools, all readily available and easy to use, that you’ll need to collect and analyze data effectively. These are all popular tools that are (as of the time of this article) approved for use by the major online poker rooms.

IdleMiner: This tool, available at www.idleminer.com, does pretty much what the name suggests – it grabs hand histories in the background, allowing you to accumulate data while you’re playing at other sites, working, or sleeping. Idleminer is very easy to set up and use, and can be customized in a variety of ways to grab hands from the tables you want. Idleminer is available for Full Tilt, Party Poker, Absolute and Pacific, with each room functioning as a stand-alone product. Cost: $55 each.

PokerTracker: The granddaddy of hand history analysis tools, Pokertracker (available at www.pokertracker.com) is a database-driven program that takes the hand histories you collect (Idleminer writes hand history files in a format that works fine with PT) and aggregates the data they contain. With Pokertracker, you’ll be able to dissect your play (and your opponent’s play) from just about every angle imaginable, allowing you to find weaknesses that you can plug in your game and exploit in others. PokerTracker can also be set up to import your hand histories as you play, allowing you to collect and utilize information in real-time. PokerTracker works with just about every online poker room, although some smaller sites are not supported. Cost: $55.

HH Purchase Sites: It doesn’t do you much good to have the world’s best tool for data analysis if you don’t have any data to feed into said tool. That’s where hand history purchase sites, such as Hand HQ come into play. HHQ (read our review here) and similar sites basically offer you the ability to make bulk purchases of hand histories – you specify the room, the type of game and the limit and HHQ delivers you anywhere from a few hundred to several thousand hand histories that give you a wealth of data on how the regulars at those limits are playing. Ever wished you could know an opponent before you sat down? Now you can, albeit for a price. Whether that price is worth it, we can’t say – it depends on how much you determine the information is worth to you.

Datamining will earn you some extra profit, but you can make even more without doing anything but getting rakeback BEFORE you sign up at an online poker room. Learn more about all of our exclusive rakeback deals, powered by PartTimePoker and RakeBackNation, by completing the form below: