Computer Program Bot to play Poker for you?

[RED_RAIN]

I was wondering if this was illegal in anyway? I think it's do able but not sure if it's against any of the sites rules.

[Festus22]

From Party's website:

"6. Artificial Intelligence.
We are committed to detecting and preventing software programs which are designed to enable artificial intelligence (non-human) to play on our site. Such programs are often designed to send information about cards or players to an external program. Information sent to an outside program is not permitted. The company will take measures to prevent and detect the use of such programs using methods including but not limited to screen scraping or reading the list of currently running programs on a player’s computer."

and see viii

"17. Forfeiture, Account Closure and Confiscation.
Company reserves the right, in its unfettered discretion, to void any winnings and confiscate any balance in your PartyPoker.com account (and any ESP account or Company related account including other websites and casinos owned or operated by Company) in any of the following circumstances:

i. If you have more than one active account at PartyPoker.com;

ii. If the name on your PartyPoker.com account registration does not match the name on the credit card(s) or other payment accounts used to make purchases at PartyPoker.com;

iii. If you participate in a PartyPoker.com promotion and withdraw before fulfilling the requirements of that particular promotion;

iv. If you provide incorrect or misleading registration information;

v. If you are not of legal age;

vi. If you connect from a jurisdiction where participation in the Games is prohibited by law;

vii. If you have "charged back" or denied any of the purchases or deposits that you made to your Account;

viii. If you are found cheating or attempting to cheat, or if it is determined by Company that you have employed or made use of a system (including machines, computers, software or other automated systems) designed specifically to defeat the system or you are found to have colluded or attempted to collude with other players of PartyPoker.com in order to defraud the Company;

[RED_RAIN]

Thank you this is what I was looking for. I still may try to create one in my spare time to see how well it could do. Just not for real money or on a poker site.

[sublime]

[ QUOTE ]
I was wondering if this was illegal in anyway? I think it's do able but not sure if it's against any of the sites rules.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not to mention its HIGHLY unethical.

[StellarWind]

Bots are a no-no as Festus showed you.

Any sane internet poker room will treat bots for what they are: a threat to the existence of the entire industry. If the fish (excuse me, customers) discover that effective bots are playing for money they will abandon internet poker in droves. It's one thing to be a sucker and another thing entirely to feel like a sucker.

Unlike good human players, a good bot will become thousands of good bots in the twinkling of an eye. They will rapidly suck up any easy money that is foolish enough to keep playing with them.

Some will argue that machines cannot play complicated poker games well. That will change in the near future as software becomes more sophisticated and computers double in speed every year or two. It's been many years since a computer defeated the world backgammon champion. Now they are gaining supremacy in chess and other games. Poker's turn will come.

Once computers play well we will see the other side of the situation. Computers never get tired, never make careless errors, and never tilt. Computers can download all of the hand histories from a site into a giant database and construct opponent profiles with frightening detail. They can also access them in real time while they play. Even a world champion cannot begin to duplicate that advantage.

The problem for the internet sites is that in the long run I do not see how they can reliably detect bots. Poking around the PC running the client is a very crude solution. There are simple cables running from the PC to the supposed monitor and mouse. Who knows what is actually attached to the other end of those cables? Why shouldn't it be another computer that pretends to be a monitor?

[mikeyKay]

on a side note to the whole bot thing, i think the idea of having poker tracker keep the stats of every player at your table was something that never sat quite right with me, and i dont think its very fair. Im not exaclty sure how that feature works (i do not have poker tracker), but it just seems like something that cannot be done without a computer. very few people would hand write a giant database of everyone they play with. i think its perfectly fine to use a computer to find all kinds of intersting stats about YOUR play...but having a computer find so much about the other players just seems a little unfair. anyone else agree, or am i missing something?

also, doesnt it seem that just exporting your hand histories to poker tracker is a problem? "Information sent to an outside program is not permitted." maybe im viewing this the wrong way.

-mike

[blackaces13]

Yeah I have to say that when it comes to online poker people are a little fuzzy about exactly what is ok and what's not.

In a way it boils down to being selfish. The fact is that programs like PT combined with the fact that hand histories show mucked river hands HELPS good players. Programs like winholdem HURT good players and could even concievably ruin internet poker entirely.

Although I use neither, I certainly would use PT but obviously I would never use a bot. Even though I think the player notes feature on PT is cheating even if only to a small degree.

I know a lot of players here will be upset that I think PT is cheating but what would they say if there was a guy sitting at their table in B&M with a laptop recording all the moves of everyone at the table into a database and also using the "I want to see that hand" rule on EVERY hand? Just something to think about.

[RED_RAIN]

The reason I don't see a problem with pokertrack and other programs (?) is since hands historys are available to everyone and since it's up to the website to show or not show winning and non winning calling hands, then it's public knowledge to all. The person who wants to hand write it all can do it, the person who wants to put it in a program to save time can do that too. No one has an advantage since all have the hand histories. It's sorta like going to a public accountant who has a calculator and one who does everything by paper and pencil. Both would have the same data, but one might be more efficent. Perhaps that's a bad way analogy. The player must still play and player notes are just that, notes, not a program telling you what to do, if someone has a preflop raise of 0% over 500 hands and then he preflop raising in front of you, you can still call with your Q4o and hope to murder him, but you can also guess he has As or Ks. PokerTrack just sorts the public data, does not play poker for you, nor telling you what to do. It's up to the player to interpret the data.

[blackaces13]

You make a good point. Believe me I have no problem with people using PT. Just from a strictly traditional view of poker I believe it is probably a bit outisde the rules. But then again, playing online necessitates the rules adapting.

[RED_RAIN]

[ QUOTE ]
You make a good point. Believe me I have no problem with people using PT. Just from a strictly traditional view of poker I believe it is probably a bit outisde the rules. But then again, playing online necessitates the rules adapting.

[/ QUOTE ]

Good point, once it goes online, I think different rules apply.