Database and Poker?

 

Well if you didn’t know I am a big Poker fan. Now that does not mean that I am any good. But it did get me thinking last night. Think about all the places that we are not using databases, Is Poker one of them. Think about it this way. If you have watched any of the Poker that has been on TV you will see that there are percentages or odds on how good your hand is based on what you know your cards are and how many cards are showing. Either way there is some magic formula that they use to come up with this percentage.

As I got to thinking about it, what are they not tracking, what can be a factor but is not in the odds. In Poker it could be where you are sitting or maybe even how tired a player is. When I think about it there is a lot that is a factor here and are these being tracked. Lets switch gears…

I am a hockey fan as well. I know that there are all kinds of Stats: Goals, Saves, and Blocks …. But are we using the database to keep track up things like the number of games in a row that this player has played. How does that impact his or her performance?

So the ramblings of the mad man (that is me) today really are just that of are we looking and keeping everything we can in our databases. Is it important, with all the advancements that they have made with Analysis Services, Reporting Services and the announcement of Kilimanjaro are we really looking at all the ways that we can and should be looking at the data that we looking at.