PokerStake Removed Online MTT Rankings

Why PokerStake’s Changes Matter

From 2005, PokerStake — previously known as PocketFives — had been the only resource of full and comprehensive statistics of online MTT players. This website accumulated all publicly available information about player participation in online poker tournaments on different poker websites and also created leaderboards and other types of rankings — such as All Time Money list or yearly TOP cashes.

Players all over the world used it to follow opponents, peers and stars, but also to show their result in a comprehensive manner to those who don’t play poker. Moreover, this website helped poker content makers to identify players by their nicknames and to gather details regarding their career.

Lastly, it worked as a social platform where players could find friends and share their journey, thoughts and insights.

From 2021, PocketFives allowed players to make staking and backing deals. On December 26^th, 2022, it underwent a rebranding and became PokerStake with primary focus on stacking features.

What’s New On PokerStake

On October 4^th, 2024, PokerStake’s letters informed players that Terms & Conditions, Privacy Policy, and Cookie Policy have been updated.

So, Privacy Policy had a new tab “GG Pass Service” as follows:

15.1 GGPass is a service that provides you with a Single Sign-On (SSO) feature for streamlined onboarding and account management across multiple platforms.

15.2 By utilizing GGPass to facilitate access to other platforms, you agree to the transferring of your data to a third party. The legal basis for the transferring of that data is your consent. However, the third party acts as a separate data controller, and any data processing performed by it, is done independently of us. If you use GGPass to facilitate the onboarding and account management with a third party, that third party becomes a data controller of your personal information.

15.3 User information that may be transferred through the GGPass service includes the following (where available):

• Email address;
• Mobile number;
• Data provided through Google, Facebook or Apple social login features;
• Your chosen account security measures, including your password (in encrypted format) and linked two-factor authentication services;
• Your chosen nickname;
• Your chosen avatar; and
• Your linked accounts with services offered by other parties.

15.4 By utilizing GGPass, you expressly consent to the processing of your personal information as described herein, authorizing and ratifying the transfer of such data to group entities for the provision of GGPass services, or to third parties, as chosen by you.

On the first attempt to log-in since this update, PokerStake requires authorization by resetting the password if you already have an account on the website or use GGPass.

The main page now includes only two sections: Staking and Poker Stories but also “King of Staking” leaderboard. The only mentions of rankings can be found in the Private Policy section “The Information We Collect” and “About Us” but without details.

And if you try to open any “Scores for” player from Google search, PokerStake redirects you to the main page without showing previously available ranking info, you can check out an example — Scores for Lena900.

Chris Moorman’s Crusade To Save Rankings

The first noticeable reaction from well-known poker players came from Chris Moorman. He was upset about situation and shout out to community on X (ex-Twitter) for support:

Chris also suggested in the comments that the reason for this change is a new partnership with GGPoker.

His tweet factually informed the community about the situation and stimulated others to share their opinion publicly. Curiously, not all opinions were negative — we collected a few examples.

Santi G-M: Those rankings were part of poker history! Very sad decision. Just as live poker has Hendon Mob, online poker had PocketFives. Until now 😢 #BringRankingsBack @JoshuaArieh.

Bye Bye @pokerstakecom rankings 😢

Bye Bye POY 2024 ranking 😢

Bye Bye Online All Time Money List 😢

Bye Bye Best Online Cashes by Player 😢

Just as live poker has Hendon Mob, online poker had PocketFives (now PokerStake). Not any more.

Patrick Leonard: One of the saddest things in recent online poker history.  It was always something that people even disconnected from the game like Mums and Dads would follow. Can’t underestimate how impactful this was for so many people. Has to come back. This is like Hendon mob being deleted

Katie Stone: I doubt the data is available anymore 😭. Prob costs a lot to store and maintain the database which is likely massive, each search could also cost something .. Let’s hope they saved it

Jason: Imo GG is in charge, they want to make it impossible to know how much people have won, whether they are strong players, etc. 

This is all to protect and encourage recreational players to play.

Nathan Tuthill: So disappointing that they would do this and more so with afaik no notice. I sit here really pondering who was involved in this decision. No way to archive all the data? Give everyone a 2 month heads up so they can take screenshots etc. of data, rankings, history and scores 😡

Julian McIntosh: Don’t take away our rankings!

Сan We Help Return PokerStake Rankings?

At the moment of this article publication, PokerStake’s founder Joshua Arieh has not commented on the situation yet and neither has the PokerStake account on X.

You can try to influence this decision by the following:

1. The first way to get involved in Chris Moorman’s crusade is by sharing this information on the Internet to make as many members of the poker community aware as possible.
2. The second is to try to reach out to Joshua and PokerStake on X or other social platforms.
3. The third and final way is to send a request to PokerStake support via e-mail: [email protected].

When doing so, please be polite and write only about PokerStake rankings and your experience with it.