Other sites may try and emulate what thepokerdb.com does, but no site comes even close. You will often times be playing in a tournament, and one player will say to another "Check my thepokerdb stats." Thepokerdb.com is a site that collects tournament data from the major online sites, and sorts it so that you can see the total amount of money that a person has won, what their ROI is, how many final tables that they have made, etc.

Bluff Magazine announced today that they will be acquiring Thepokerdb.com in a part cash/ part equity deal. The previous owner of thepokerdb.com will continue on with the company in a consultant role, and will also be a part owner in Bluff Magazine now. This was a private deal, so exact terms weren't disclosed by either party.

In my opinion, this was an extremely savvy move by Bluff Magazine, as the site could easily be monetized much better than it is now. Thepokerdb.com, in my opinion, is a cash cow just waiting to be milked, and this was a smart purchase by Bluff Magazine. If they hadn't bought the site, someone else would have.

The long-term prosperity of the site obviously hinges on the sites letting all of their tournament data be collected, but I haven't heard of any sites, except Party Poker, block access to their data. Since sites like Poker Stars don't directly benefit from thepokerdb.com's operation, I wonder if perhaps they might insist on a certain block of advertising in Bluff Magazine in order for their data to be continue to be collected? It's one thing for a small one-man operation to use the data; now that a bigger company has bought the site, I wonder if the sites will be so accomodating. Nonetheless, a smart purchase for Bluff Magazine.

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