Founded in the mid-2000s, Sharkscope is an exceedingly useful resource that collects and stockpiles the results of online tournaments and sit-and-gos. In doing so, Sharkscope enables poker players to carry out searches on their opponents to observe their past performances and make judgements on their opponent’s ability. This level of insight is available and supported by the majority of major poker networks, rooms, and skins, with an extensive list available here.
This Sharkscope review will provide a detailed focus on:
- The many facets of information that Sharkscope collects on each poker player from their results
- Why Sharkscope is an essential resource, especially for those wishing to take poker seriously
- The various subscriptions available as well as what is included with each one
- The advantages of integrating the Sharkscope heads-up display (HUD)
- The steps involved in order to opt-in or opt-out of whether your tournament data is made publicly available
What information does Sharkscope collect on myself and my opponents?
By logging in to Sharkscope using your social media, you can access up to ten free username searches which will divulge a wealth of information on that selected poker player. Once you have conducted your search, you will be presented with a table of statistics similar to the one below.
These statistics can be better understood if you consider these definitions:
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Profit History | A miniature graph that displays whether an opponent has been winning overall since playing poker on that specific network. |
| Count | The number of tournaments and sit-and-gos the player has participated in. |
| Average Profit | A statistic calculated by dividing a player’s overall profit by their count, including rake. Therefore, Jaylee18 makes a profit of £1.81 for each tournament or sit-and-go that they enter. |
| Average Stake | A figure that refers to the mean expenditure of each entry. |
| Average ROI | A statistic that indicates a player’s average return on the money that they stake. |
| Profit | This number is calculated by subtracting the total amount of money staked and raked from the total amount of money won. In this instance, Jaylee18 has profited £86,611 once the total amount of money staked and raked has been subtracted from their winnings. |
| Ability | A figure between one and one hundred determined by all of the data that Sharkscope has accumulated on that player. |
| Form | A graph that demonstrates whether the player won or lost in the eight most recent tournaments or sit-and-gos. |
To accompany this information, you are permitted to view an overall line graph of the player’s results, along with a deep dive into their statistics. The $ signs indicate especially significant tournament wins.
There are several key takeaways that can be made from this information which infer that Jaylee18 is a very competent poker player:
- They have managed to accrue a significant profit and maintained it over time.
- Their count of 47,888 indicates that their results aren’t a result of luck or chance.
- Only 5.5% of the tournaments or sit-and-gos they participated in resulted in an early finish. This is especially significant when we consider the amount of volume this player has put in.
- Based on all of the data collected, Sharkscope judges Jaylee18’s ability to be 83 out of 100.
What’s more, given that Jaylee18 has been active for a period of almost fourteen years, it might be the case that they have managed to stay up-to-date with the latest strategies to ensure that they are at the top of their game. We can test this assumption by conducting an advanced search on this player.
How might an advanced search be beneficial?
The data that has been discussed above is available for free for users that conduct a basic search. However, those that elect to purchase a Sharkscope subscription have the ability to perform an advanced search that delves into the finer details of a player’s results.
| Purpose | |
|---|---|
| Entrants | Some players may specialise in heads-up formats, nine-max sit-and-gos, or multi-table tournaments (MTTs) with thousands of entries. This setting will allow the user to pinpoint if their opponent has a specialty that the majority of their profit is derived from, or whether they are competent across many formats. |
| Stake + Rake | Filtering by stake will allow you to determine the buy-in level that your opponent is winning the most money at along with the volume they have committed to that stake. If you discover them at a significantly higher buy-in level than what they would normally be accustomed to, it may suggest that they could be slightly out of their depth and not be as competent as other regulars at that stake. This may allow you to deviate from your usual strategies in pots against them. |
| Game Type | Sharkscope allows users to filter their opponent’s results by speed (deep-stack, normal, turbo, etc), prize structure (progressive knock-out, bounty, satellite, regular, etc), along with the variant of poker (no limit hold’em, pot limit omaha, razz, stud, etc). Identifying the game type that your opponent performs best in is crucial to make judgements about their abilities and tendencies across a number of situations. |
| Date Range | Filtering by date range will allow you to identify your opponent’s performance over a given period of time. This may allow you to determine; how long they have been a winning player, or whether they are still a winning player as some players may have accumulated the bulk of their profits during a time when poker wasn’t as competitive. |
Why is Sharkscope a fundamental instrument for successful tournament players?
In the example above, Jaylee18 has an average stake of $14.01. Tournaments with these buy-ins tend to attract thousands of entries which means it is highly unlikely that you will have gathered a sufficient amount of data on these opponents. In contrast, cash games are more likely to have a smaller field of players that regularly play certain stakes. This would give you the opportunity to use a heads-up display (HUD) to obtain a significant amount of hand histories that will allow you to make educated decisions against those opponents.
As this is not possible during a tournament, Sharkscope becomes an essential instrument for MTT and SNG grinders by permitting them to quickly identify the competent players from the vast amounts of data available. Having prior knowledge regarding the perceived skill level of your opponent makes Sharkscope an invaluable resource as this information will actively shape the strategies and decision-making that you make throughout the course of that tournament. In instances where Sharkscope indicates an opponent has only entered a small number of tournaments, this is likely evidence of an inexperienced opponent as you would expect a competent player to have committed significant volume.
How much does Sharkscope cost?
As mentioned previously, you can receive ten free searches by logging in through your social media. However, if ten searches aren’t enough, there are three subscription plans available with various incentives.
For instance, the bronze subscription gives users an additional ten searches each day with access to the advanced search filters that have been discussed previously. An additional benefit to this subscription is that it allows you to reset your own statistics. This may be useful for players that have done a significant amount of studying and therefore previous results may not be a fair reflection of their ability.
The next level up is the silver subscription which grants users one hundred and fifty searches each day as well as all of the benefits included in the bronze subscription. However, the key advantage of the silver subscription is the inclusion of the Sharkscope HUD. Similarly to other available HUDs on the market, the Sharkscope HUD overlays information about each player at your table automatically, without players being required to search each individual player on the Sharkscope website. The Sharkscope HUD can be customised to include six statistics from a choice of thirty-six including; ability, average stake, tournament count, profit, and total ROI to name a few. In addition to this, the Sharkscope HUD will highlight profitable players in green, whereas unprofitable players will be highlighted in red.
If that wasn’t enough, users can subscribe to gold and receive one thousand searches each day. This subscription includes all the advantages of silver, with the additional benefit of the Sharkscope hand tracker and Sharkscope SNG guide. The SNG guide includes more than twenty hours of poker training videos by Mark Schmid who won a $1,000 event at the WSOP in 2011 for $488,283. In these videos, he covers several topics including:
- Bankroll Management
- Performing poker concepts such as value-bets, bluffs, three-bets, and donk-bets
- How to play effectively with various amounts of big-blinds
- How to play in and out of position
- How to approach the bubble and final table
- Calculating pot odds and implied odds
Is it possible to hide my information from being displayed on Sharkscope?
In a nutshell, yes. It is possible to prevent your tournament and sit-and-go results from being shared on Sharkscope. In fact, certain poker networks will only make your data publicly available if you decide to opt in. Each network has its own methods of permitting players to do so. Certain players may desire their results to remain hidden because being an unknown entity against their opponents until they have managed to gather enough data through the use of their HUD can give them a significant edge. In instances where your results have already been shared with the public, you can visit the Sharkscope website, select ‘opt-out’ from the ‘options’ tab, and Sharkscope will provide you with instructions on how to opt out for your chosen network.
However, there are some advantages to making your results publicly available on Sharkscope. For instance, if you are part of a stable it may benefit you to give your backer complete transparency on your past performances so that they can allocate funds to players who perform best in certain formats, structures, game types, etc. Additionally, if you wanted to sell a percentage of your equity in a tournament or package to potential backers, it would benefit you greatly if you can prove that you are worthy of their investment.
Summary – GipsyTeam’s Verdict On Sharkscope
Sharkscope provides a treasure trove of information on player’s tournament and sit-and-go results that cannot be ignored. We recommend the silver subscription in particular because having immediate access to player data through the Sharkscope HUD without having to make any prior observations is simply invaluable. Other poker resources such as solvers can often require users to have high-specification computers and hire a server. However, with the barrier of entry for Sharkscope being so low, we recommend all serious tournament players take full advantage of the services they provide. Additionally, as Sharkscope is such a well-known and commonly-used resource in the poker community, its use becomes essential in order to level the playing field.
