Hi, I want to scrape information off of poker sites. Mainly, I am not sure if they can be considered "sites", because they are more like applications. IE: you don't use a web browser, you launch an .exe file from your desktop, and then you play poker. I want to collect data from the software (circled in red): The buy in for the tournament ($) How many ppl participated in the tournament What place each person finished in How much the person won All this information will be placed into a database (my site), and then ppl can track tournament results, and see who the best/worst players are, etc... There are several site that do this already: http://www.sharkscope.com/index.html (click on search database, then enter a player's name) http://www.bigstack.com/mttleaderboard.php (view many different details, including "leader boards") http://www.highstakesdb.com/ (search through high stakes cash games, not tournaments) http://www.pokersitescout.com/ (tracks how many people are playing on popular poker sites, site traffic) If you do not play online poker, this may be difficult to grasp. Basically somehow I want to collect information from the poker sites, and then reuse it in certain ways. Thanks.
Before anyone can really answer that question, can you post a link to the application in question ..... The chances are the application itself makes standard http and or xml requests to retrieve the data, it'll just be a case of finding out where from .....
Yes, we can check out the application - to start out - i would look into using SPY++ from Visual Studio. This tool enumerates Window's screens and gives you the hooks to SendMessage to if you want to retrieve data from X Handle
okey, I will post several of the most popular poker sites here. (I think thats what you guys mean by application) Warning; don't start playing poker online, (unless you are good), it will cost you lots of $$ Note: the url links are the poker room software, while the poker room names ine the ( ) are links to the rooms' websites. http://www.pokerstars.com/PokerStarsInstall.exe (poker stars) http://download.fulltiltpoker.com/download.php (Full Tilt) ftp://ftp.ultimatebet.com/public_html/releases/active/ubsetup.exe (Ultimate Bet) These are the top 3 U.S rooms, Party poker is a top site, however it is not open to the USA, due to recent legislation. It would be great if you guys could DL, and install these programs, to see how the sites work. If you do not want to download the poker rooms, you can visit the wbesites that I linked in the parenthesis. Note: the only way to play the online poker, or to access the lobbys, etc.. is to download the software. The wbesites simply have Tersm, and FAQs, etc..