The well-known website pokertableratings.com (ptr) stood up to the poker industry giant, Pokerstars.com, and lost. Information came out yesterday, April 19, that Pokerstars had repeatedly asked ptr to stop providing their players information publicly, but ptr had ignored these requests. Earlier this week however, stars showed that they meant business by filing a cease and desist order against ptr. Ptr has since complied with the legal action and removed all Pokerstars tracking from their site. They did manage to get in the last word by posting an article this morning that was riddled with sarcasm. They outlined several productive things they do for the community including discovering bot rings, improving player experience and discovering mid level players who deserve recognition. They then said they would reluctantly agree to stop tracking stars player accounts, while making it quite obvious they did not wish to do so.
ptr is down for the count
Ptr does offer a unique experience as the lowest level players can see their results on their own personal profile page. This can also be a negative thing for the poker community however, as it enables regulars in the games to ridicule and easily track down the biggest fish in the games, making playing online poker a less enjoyable experience for recreational players. With stars being the ‘be all, end all’ of the online poker world at the moment, ptr is sure to take a major hit to their traffic, and as an extension, their future plans. It will be interesting to see what ptr does from here in an attempt to save their site and their reputation.