Review of HighStakesDB.com
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Railbirding high stakes online cash games has been a growing subculture over the last few years, and it’s not hard to see why. High stakes poker is pretty entertaining, even when it’s stripped down to the somewhat spartan version that online poker has to offer. There’s something about seeing thousands of dollars move across a table that’s exciting to a good amount of people, regardless of whether that table and those dollars are real or virtual. One side effect of this growing subculture of high stakes railbirds has been the creation of sites that cater to the information they seek - sites like HighStakesDB.com.
Overview
HighStakesDB (HSD) is one of those sites where the name pretty much says it all - this site is a database of high stakes online poker hands. The site covers high stakes action at a number of rooms, including Full Tilt, Prima and Ladbrokes. Users can view replays of a deep archive of high stakes hands played online at these rooms, with new hands added several times a day.
Look
I like the look of this site. The color scheme is muted, but not dull, and the site does a good job of getting all of the relevant functions (or at least previews of said functions) right upfront, including links to recent reports (quick blog entries summarizing high stakes sessions), the latest massive pots played online, and the search feature, which lets you filter hands from the database by player, game type, minimum pot size, and so on. There are a couple of ads, but they’re more or less out of the way.
Content
This site certainly doesn’t cover all of the high stakes action that takes place online, but it covers enough of the major sites that you’ll have plenty to dig through. The replayer feature is nice, but I’d like it better if you had the ability to pause, rewind and otherwise control the playback of hands. The session reports are a little short and often lack context, but they do highlight the key hands.
Unique pros / cons
I think this site does a great job of giving you several ways to access what would otherwise be an overwhelming amount of content. There were some quality decisions made here in terms of presentation and structure, and that certainly shows from a user perspective. The dynamic quality of the site is nice as well - it’s cool to be able to see the largest pots played online in the last hour or so, and if you’re into railbirding the listing of current games will be useful.
A few features require you to make an account, which some might find annoying.
Bottom line
If you’re into high stakes poker online, you’ll probably find something to like here
