Will Allowing PokerTracker Change the Cake Poker Network?

PokerTracker 3 is now usable on the Cake Poker Network and Bodog, a significant change for those sites. All of us who use tracking software tend to assume this is a good thing, because we get to use PokerTracker to track all of our favorite fish and because most people on the network won’t realize that it’s available until we have already made a killing.

In order to understand what a big change this is for the site itself, we need to look at the ecosystem that exists in an online poker room. Every site starts with the fish, the weak or inexperienced players. Without the fish, a room fails very quickly because the sharks won’t stick around if there are no fish for them to eat. When a poker room spends money on advertising, those ads are primarily targeted at drawing in fish because the sharks are already going to learn about a good site online.

It’s foreign to most of us who spend a lot of time on sites like PokerSoftware.com, but a significant percentage of online poker players actually have no clue that there are sites where they can learn about the game. Many of them have never visited a poker forum or, if they have, they have only done so very casually. They watch poker on television and play online poker periodically, but know very little about the community that takes their money.

These players, the uneducated casual players who lose money at the tables for the sake of entertainment, are the lifeblood of the system. Without them, the sharks start to eat each other; before long, they are gone. Even the very biggest shark eventually eats the others and is left with no food source at all. He may live the longest, but he doesn’t live long.

In order to keep the ecosystem healthy, new fish need to be introduced or things can spiral downward quickly. If a fish dies and is not replaced, his spot is taken by a shark and the table is now much tougher. The extra shark causes current fish to be eaten faster and before long, each new fish that shows up is eaten very quickly. You can see how this process could spiral out of control quickly.

Because sharks are usually very active in the online community and hear about the different sites on forums and from other players, a feeding ground does not stay secret for long; a very rich feeding ground will have schools of sharks patrolling it quickly. Some of these sharks have stayed away from the Cake Network because they rely on using their tracking software to play a large number of tables. The lack of tracking software has kept the Cake Network healthy and kept some of the most voracious sharks away. I have to wonder if the arrival of large numbers of sharks will follow the appearance of PokerTracker on Cake.

I use tracking software on most of the sites I play, but I’ve always liked that the Cake Network was different. The games had a very different feel. They were more like live games with real opponents who I had to take notes on rather than the faceless numbers that I see on Full Tilt Poker or PokerStars. The players were more active and the fish count was higher. While I am not an industry insider, I always thought that part of the growth of the network came from players who didn’t want to deal with tracking software. Those players could head to the Cake Network and not have to worry about learning to use a bunch of new software just to keep up with their opponents.

Hand histories for sale are soon to follow, but whether it ultimately hurts the network is not for me to say. They made this choice after serious consideration, so I assume they have a good reason for it. I know that I used to send any of my students who didn’t want to deal with learning tracking software to the Cake Network and I’ve had to steer those players elsewhere for the past few weeks.

There is no doubt that this move will bring a short-term increase in rake generated for the network and the number of tables is already going up. My question is whether it will be good in the long-term as the fish die and the sharks realize that the feeding ground is not so rich anymore. If the network can’t supply more fish, it might see its traffic drop quickly as the fish die off and sharks head for richer hunting grounds. 

Some fish are (wisely) afraid of sharks. Some fish even think it’s cheating to use tracking software. While you and I may think it’s ridiculous, I hear this sort of thing at live tables any time the brick and mortar players find out that I play online for a living. It doesn’t matter whether it’s actually cheating or unfair, it matters that the fish might think it’s an unfair advantage and choose to go elsewhere.

We know that one of the reasons behind the poker boom is the emergence of Texas Hold’em as the primary game. The high variance and smaller expert advantage in Hold’em give fish a chance to have winning sessions with some frequency.

The same thing applies to online poker itself, where we see much stronger competition because weak players can only lie to themselves for so long, as they have to pull out their credit card and redeposit on their favorite site if they go broke. In live games, almost every player is “breakeven or up a little” because they don’t keep track of their wins and losses accurately and they remember the wins more than the losses.

If the weak players on the Cake Network are losing money at a much higher rate, some of them will stop playing simply because it’s not fun anymore. Sharks just aren’t that much fun to be around and if the losses come faster and more consistently, it may ruin the fun for fish and prevent them from lying to themselves about their losses. We need to continue to shear those sheep instead of slaughtering them; only time will tell if allowing tracking software on the network will lead to a slaughter or just help us shear those sheep a little faster.

I have to run; I smell blood in the water.