Online poker’s days are numbered ?
 

Hi all

First of all let me say I’m a newbie – apologies if this topic has been discussed many times before (but I’d be grateful for details of where to find more information).

Should I be worried that online poker’s days are numbered ?

Imagine this scenario …

Somebody writes some poker software that recommends how to play in real time. You plug in your hole cards, position, the board, and other players’ actions - and it tells you to bet, call, fold etc.

The software gets popular with beginner players, who find they can make a bit of money on the micro-limit tables, instead of losing money like they were before. (I’m assuming limit holdem, since that’s where most beginners start).

Another company notices the potential, and writes a better program. This one is capable of winning money at the $3-$6 level. Lots of people start buying it. This enables someone with no poker knowledge, and not much intelligence, to make money playing online. Eventually programs like this become widespread (even more so than Pokertracker is now).

Wouldn’t this kill the online game ? If poker players make money from weaker players, all the way down the chain, then we all need a good supply of beginners at the bottom of the pyramid. If beginners can buy a program that plays decently, they won’t lose as much money.

Worse than that – why would they even start to play, if they know their opponents are probably using computer advisors ?

Notice that this scenario doesn’t require a program that can beat top players, or even good players – just one that can beat the many fish who are swimming into the game.

There are poker simulation programs out there, that can probably beat a lot of fishlike players already – so I’m guessing it will be technically feasible.

Can this happen ? Would online poker go into decline if it did ?

I hope you convince me that this scenario is flawed ! Thanks in advance for your contributions.

Mister B.

Re: Online poker’s days are numbered ?
 

This already has happenned, this is old news. Do a forum search for "bot." Most of them are not that good and can only just barely beat the micros. And there is serious doubt as to whether a world class bot could be developed any time soon. Also, sites implement software to detect bots, it will just be a constant struggle between sites trying to detect bots and bots coming up with new ways to avoid detection.

Re: Online poker’s days are numbered ?
 

There is a million threads on this, so I will give you what I believe is the common conception:

These programs will at some point in time be able to beat micro limit and then subsequently higher limit and it may one day kill the online poker industry (not many want to play chess for money on the internet). It is way into the future though, if you study hard on the game you will stay ahead of the bots for a long, long time.

Re: Online poker’s days are numbered ?
 

party poker is already banning people who use software that isn't nearly as dangerous. I cant imagine these multimillion dollar companies being unable to detect if a bot is playing. We already know that there have been some discussions about party actually being able to see what programs are running on your computer while you are playing, so a bot would be easy to detect.

I am sure there will be people who will be smart enough to avoid detection, but once a particular program was mass produced the major poker sites would figure out a way to detect it. Yes, they would probably be a step behind, but by the time a few thousand people had the program they would figure out a way to stop its use.

Lets remember that most players play online poker for fun and wouldnt want to risk getting banned if they got caught. And some players actually have ethics (as noted by the online poker tax discussions).

I think the problem with bots are far narrower and don't threaten the entire industry.

Re: Online poker’s days are numbered ?
 

Good idea... I will have a program done by tonight and rule world!

Re: Online poker’s days are numbered ?
 

Many thanks for your replies so far.

Perhaps detection could be a problem for the sites. You could use a second PC, that wasn't even connected to the internet ...

Re: Online poker’s days are numbered ?
 

I think you should read this Cardplayer article on the subject of the future of netpoker.

http://www.cardplayer.com/poker_maga...amp;m_id=65570

Re: Online poker’s days are numbered ?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Many thanks for your replies so far.

Perhaps detection could be a problem for the sites. You could use a second PC, that wasn't even connected to the internet ...

[/ QUOTE ]

and how would the second computer tell the main computer what to do without a program running between the two? And now we have people spending money on 2nd computers. Again, this is potentially possible for a few people, but i dont see hundreds of thousands of online players going this route.

Re: Online poker’s days are numbered ?
 

Think of online poker like a gold rush. You wanna know how it plays out? Just study American western history from 1848 to 1900. You will find many analogies.

The sad part is I'm only a miner with a pan on Poor Man's Creek. Ok, 4 pans.

Re: Online poker’s days are numbered ?
 

I think the problem is not just about bots though. People could use advisor programs "manually".

Then anybody could make money - you wouldn't need any poker knowledge at all.

Re: Online poker’s days are numbered ?
 

[ QUOTE ]
The sad part is I'm only a miner with a pan on Poor Man's Creek. Ok, 4 pans.

[/ QUOTE ]

lol - nh

Re: Online poker’s days are numbered ?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Many thanks for your replies so far.

Perhaps detection could be a problem for the sites. You could use a second PC, that wasn't even connected to the internet ...

[/ QUOTE ]

Ooooooooor, you could learn to not suck at poker.

Re: Online poker’s days are numbered ?
 

You really think there is a program that can counter this donks moves.....heeeee aaaaaright

Re: Online poker’s days are numbered ?
 

Never thought of that. Thank you for bringing up this topic.
tess

Re: Online poker’s days are numbered ?
 

It was over last tuesday. Duck and cover.

Re: Online poker’s days are numbered ?
 

Your comment is much appreciated - thank you Tess.

I guess I didn't express the issue very clearly, as most of the (serious) respondents seemed to think I was talking about bots.

I will do some more research on this, and post again if I find out anything interesting.

Re: Online poker’s days are numbered ?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Many thanks for your replies so far.

Perhaps detection could be a problem for the sites. You could use a second PC, that wasn't even connected to the internet ...

[/ QUOTE ]

Another chess analogy: There are actually internet chess tournaments with cash prizes. The hosts (eg Chessbase) use advanced engine detection programs, that exclusively analyze playing style (since the cheaters are using second computers). It is quite common that engine users are caught.
I don't know if such software can be written for poker, but I assume the sites will try.

Re: Online poker’s days are numbered ?
 

Thanks Innocentius : that's exactly the analogy for what I'm thinking of.

Do you know how successful these "playing style" detection programs are? I wonder how many times you have to play before a pattern emerges.

It'd be interesting to know how this would apply to a game like Hold'em ...

Re: Online poker’s days are numbered ?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Do you know how successful these "playing style" detection programs are? I wonder how many times you have to play before a pattern emerges.

It'd be interesting to know how this would apply to a game like Hold'em ...

[/ QUOTE ]

In chess, the detection programs are extremely accurate, because all information is available to evaluate "optimal" play in any single game.

In Poker, all information is not available, so "optimal" play cannot be easily evaluated, and bots designed to avoid detection cannot be easily detected.

no
 

When you design a bot, you design it to beat the table. A good player plays a strategy that will beat the table, and is also able to adjust to particular players. Bots will be winning money from most of the table, but they will be losing some of it back to better players becuase those better learn to exploit them.

Once a programmer has a bot engine that wins, the focus changes from making the engine better to making it more undetectable.

I'm not too concerned about bots at the moment.

Stu

Re: Online poker’s days are numbered ?
 

So, (if I understand correctly), it would be difficult for the sites to detect someone using a program that advised them how to play.

Perhaps I'm right to be concerned in that case.

There'd be plenty of market for a program like that, if it could win money for you.

Unless it's illegal somehow to actually *sell* such a program(?) surely there will be some in development soon.

Re: no
 

But ... if programs start making money 'from most of the table', we are half-way to trouble.

If this got widespread, beginners wouldn't take up online poker.

It would deter me much more than the chance of collusion, for example.

Re: Online poker’s days are numbered ?
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Do you know how successful these "playing style" detection programs are? I wonder how many times you have to play before a pattern emerges.

[/ QUOTE ]

In chess, the detection programs are extremely accurate, because all information is available to evaluate "optimal" play in any single game.

[/ QUOTE ]

In chess, there are also fairly obvious situations that come up that show, almost beyond any doubt, that a player is cheating with a computer. Mainly, it happens when there are two or more moves that will give a player a winning game. One of these moves will be obvious, simple, and decisive - that's the "human move." The other is the beginning of a complex combination that is very hard to analyze, but which a computer evaluates as slightly better - say +5.4 pawns instead of +4.8 for the human move. If a person is making these "computer moves" in situations where obvious and winning human moves are available, it's one of the clearest signs they're using a computer.

Re: Online poker’s days are numbered ?
 

Are you asking about bots or are you talking about programs like Hold'em Assistant or whatever it's called? Sounds to me like your OP was asking about programs that help a player decide what to do not bots.

Re: Online poker’s days are numbered ?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Are you asking about bots or are you talking about programs like Hold'em Assistant or whatever it's called? Sounds to me like your OP was asking about programs that help a player decide what to do not bots.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm thinking of programs that advise you what to do next.

I guess they could be marketed as tutorial-type software, but if they get to be good and then widespread, will they change the face of online poker ?

(I've never heard of "Hold'em Assistant" - is that what it does ?)

Solution
 

Require players to play with webcams focused on them and their setup. This wouldn't necessarily need to be broadcast to the players, and it wouldnt have to be monitored all the time obviously. This would be a pain in the ass and drive off a lot of players, but it would work.

Re: Online poker’s days are numbered ?
 

Have a look at this site, which was discussed in a fairly recent thread. The site claims that Party actively scans your hard drive and takes screen shots of your desktop in order to prevent you cheating.

Even if it isn't true at the moment, there is no reason why poker sites couldn't implement something similar in the future if bots became a real problem. Would make running any type of bot pretty difficult.

Re: Solution
 

[ QUOTE ]
Require players to play with webcams focused on them and their setup.

[/ QUOTE ]

I like to play in the nude.
http://ca.geocities.com/paul.henness...mages/kirk.jpg

Re: Online poker’s days are numbered ?
 

[ QUOTE ]
The site claims that Party actively scans your hard drive and takes screen shots of your desktop in order to prevent you cheating.

Even if it isn't true at the moment, there is no reason why poker sites couldn't implement something similar in the future if bots became a real problem. Would make running any type of bot pretty difficult.

[/ QUOTE ]

Party's T&C tells you that it is indeed scanning and taking screenshots. However, there are ways to avoid detection.

BOTs should not be a concern, however, since unlike chess all information is not known, so there is no "perfect" strategy. Therefore, any given bot will advise/play a certain way and you as a player at the table will adjust your strategy against the bot, just as you would any other player.

I didn\'t mean bots !
 

Apologies to everyone I confused in my original post : I wasn't talking about bots. (By which I mean programs that run automatically on your PC and make your call/fold/etc actions without you even being there).

Instead, I'm imagining some software that "helps" you to make a better decision. You tell it what is happening during the game, and it recommends what to do when the action gets to you.

One issue would be speed : you'd have a lot of information to type in. But since this is a possible issue for the future, let's assume you can use voice recognition.

Poker sites couldn't detect you using this kind of "advisor" software, if you ran it on your old PC that's not online. Perhaps they could detect its intelligence at work, indirectly, via playing style detection (but see other posts above).

I guess I'm assuming at least 2 things :

1) that the advisor software will be good enough to win money for people, at least at low limits

2) that people will want to use it in large numbers

If both of these held, I wonder if the online poker growth would end ?

Re: I didn\'t mean bots !
 

The only real way this could work would be for the program to do on-the-fly odds calculations and advise what to do based on the mathematics. There's nothing else a software program would be able to calculate with any accuracy.

There are a few of us that can actually do this in our heads -- without a calculator, even.

Re: I didn\'t mean bots !
 

I actually cheated at chess online a few times. I suck at chess but I set up my PDA so that I could enter moves and easily beat some very high ranking online chess players. So I could see how a very well designed computer program could at least suggest +EV desicions when u have a mathematically complex situation especially at limit poker. If I had such a program I would use it in select situations where its tough to get the math right while 4 tabling. Now, such a program would not improve a good TAGs game by much but it could make a donk in to a TAG. I would always vary my game depending on the surcumstances but I can see a very well designed program like this to be helpfull to most players and -EV to all.

Re: I didn\'t mean bots !
 

I think Texas Calculate em does exactly this. But it's a violation of Party's T&C's to use it.

Re: I didn\'t mean bots !
 

How much time does Party give you to make a decision? 20 seconds? So you'd have that much time minus, say, 2 seconds to enter:
Your cards
The board (assuming you don't need this PF)
Your position
Number of opponents
Position of opponents
Chip stacks of opponents
The preflop action
Action up to your turn

That's the minimum, right? This doesn't include possible reads of opponents or the current texture of the table. Nor does it include details like possible blind steals, etc.

Obviously, you'll get quicker -- and more inaccurate -- "advice" with fewer variables.

Somehow I'm not afraid of someone trying to do this.

Re: Online poker’s days are numbered ?
 

We are no where near the point in technology that a computer can play poker like a good player. Texas Calculatem is an example of a program that you mention and it really isn't that great. I must admit I used this when I first started playing online and it hurt my game, rather than helped.

It was great for helping with starting hands, but not as good as the pre-flop charts that are available on this site that are based on Sklansky's book. The post flop play of these programs is even worse. The only thing it can do for you is calculate where you are pot-odds wise and make a recommendation based on that. It has no idea how to react to things like overpairs, loose fish-type play (ie some idiot who cold-called with 9-4 and hit two pair), etc... Unlike chess, which is logical and contains no deceit, poker cannot be easily played by machines.

Also, you forget the one great fault in all of this. You are assuming that the new players to the game are going to know about and use said software. I am someone who did a fair amount of research before I started playing online, to find a decent site, etc... and never came across stuff like Poker Tracker during my research. The search results brought up poker indicator, poker office and other such software related to poker and that is when I started to look into these types of programs.

Another fault with this theory is this. If there ever were a program that could accurately capture the complexity of a good poker player, and if everyone started using it, wouldn't it negate the effects of the program? I mean, everyone would be getting the same advice so it would again be left up to humans to decide when the program was right, wrong or needed to be modified [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

PS - Texas Calculatem is just one example. Poker indicator is another similar, as is Poker Spy. Poker Office is really the best for this (to bad the rest of the program isn't as good as PT). Poker Office will tell you how many outs total, your pot odds, what outs are "playable". Then you can make your own choice. Since programs that advise must use outs/odds to figure this you can duplicate it by looking at the info already calculated for you.

Re: I didn\'t mean bots !
 

[ QUOTE ]
Instead, I'm imagining some software that "helps" you to make a better decision. You tell it what is happening during the game, and it recommends what to do when the action gets to you.

One issue would be speed : you'd have a lot of information to type in. But since this is a possible issue for the future, let's assume you can use voice recognition.

Poker sites couldn't detect you using this kind of "advisor" software, if you ran it on your old PC that's not online. Perhaps they could detect its intelligence at work, indirectly, via playing style detection (but see other posts above).

I guess I'm assuming at least 2 things :

1) that the advisor software will be good enough to win money for people, at least at low limits

2) that people will want to use it in large numbers

If both of these held, I wonder if the online poker growth would end ?

[/ QUOTE ]

I wouldn't be worried about this. You are talking about a very basic advisor. When I say a very basic advisor you are talking about Lee Jones WLLHE edition 1. This could beat probably upto 1/2 at a comfortable rate. But you could only 1 table due to speed issues.

Do you think people are going to sit at a pc talking information into a headset for $6 p/h

Bots are a much bigger threat than an "advisor"

Re: I didn\'t mean bots !
 

Somebody suggested using webcams to solve this.
Imagine a webcam directed on the screen of your PC. The feed of this webcam goes to isolated computer which screenscrapes all the relevant information and makes an expert decision. You then implement the decision by voice control (or the webcam could be set up so that you do not interfere, or the second computer controls the first via the voice control, and we have a talking bot which is completely undetectable by the site)

Re: I didn\'t mean bots !
 

[ QUOTE ]
How much time does Party give you to make a decision? 20 seconds? So you'd have that much time minus, say, 2 seconds to enter:
Your cards
The board (assuming you don't need this PF)
Your position
Number of opponents
Position of opponents
Chip stacks of opponents
The preflop action
Action up to your turn


[/ QUOTE ]

I'm thinking if you're doing this, you use the advisor program all the time. So you give the program updates constantly including during everyone else's turn.

Re: Online poker’s days are numbered ?
 

[ QUOTE ]

Also, you forget the one great fault in all of this. You are assuming that the new players to the game are going to know about and use said software.


[/ QUOTE ]

The other possibility is : people get *too* aware of the potential !

A few magazine articles / TV pieces about "online cheats" would do damage if people believed it could be done.

Perhaps analogous to collusion : deters a lot of people from playing online when it probably shouldn't.

Re: I didn\'t mean bots !
 

[ QUOTE ]

Do you think people are going to sit at a pc talking information into a headset for $6 p/h


[/ QUOTE ]

Let's not forget there are lots of places where $6 an hour is a very good living.

If it could be done and money could be made, I don't imagine a shortage of takers.