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Recently, the popular tracking databases online have expanded their reach, where their focus of the types of poker tournaments they track have overlapped and created more direct competition between each of them. Sharkscope, official poker rankings, and the pokerDB come to mind as those services that have taken on radical changes over last year.
Sharkscope is still charging for their services, which have always been focused on sit and go activity, but do offer 5 free searchers per day from any IP address. Recently they have expanded their search to multi-tables sit and go tournaments, which include relatively large field, and the very popular, 180 seat tournaments at poker stars and full tilt. There are also very popular sit and go tournaments that range from 27 seats to 90 seats.
If you've ever used shark scope, you will also know that they have a handy indicator by your opponents record showing their current form. Form meaning, what your opponent has done recently and the effects of it in terms of tilt. In this regard, it could be blank, or could have indicators such as tilt, super tilt, or hot. Now as far as one tables it and go tournaments go. I have always looked at this indicator and have successfully used it to gauge my opponents mood, especially on the tilt side of things. 
It used to be that if a player lost three or four sit and go tournaments in a row, then he might likely not be feeling too good about what has happened recently, and is continuing to play at a less than optimum state of mind. This is particularly true for the lower limits, where players are far less likely to have any understanding of the variance and luck of the game. That was then.
This is now. Even though sharkscope has added the multi-table tournaments, they have not adjusted the form indicator to take into account the larger field sit and go tournaments. Just because they are sit and go tournaments, doesn't mean performance in them should be rated the same as single table sit and go tournaments. Here's my point - if you do not cash in five consecutive sit and go tournaments sharks go is going to indicate that you are on tilt. One more loss, and it'll be super tilt. In reality, that could be exactly how you are playing too - with tilt on the brain. However, what if you fail to cash in five or six consecutive 180 seat multi-table tournaments in a row? Does that mean you're on tilt or super tilt? Of course not. Tournament players know that in big fields, it can be five, 10, 20, even 30 tournaments before cashing in. You can take a look at some of the best players online, and these prolonged streaks are so common, they are an accepted part of the game.
Those are also the guys that know the mass of tournament poker. Sometimes there's several small caches, and then every once in awhile, there is a big win, and that makes tournament poker profitable. The rounders in poker tournaments usually have absolutely no dilemma about not caching for long streaks. I'm intentionally ignoring the argument here, if someone is actually playing bad, because it isn't relevant to the reality of streaks in MTT's.
I really don't know if the folks over at shark scope understand this about tournament poker, but for that form indicator to have any relevance from here on, either you have to filter the results as a paid member, or completely ignore it because it isn't relevant anymore. |
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