[Zetack]

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I once ran a very large chess tournament where I allowed a computer -- Phoenix, from the University of Alberta, which had a playing strength of about 2100 -- to enter the event. I allowed all players to designate whether or not they were willing to play against the computer. I don't recall the split, but lots of players didn't want to, but not enough so that we had any trouble doing the pairings.

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So put the people on notice when playing poker that their oponents are not people. I favor an icon next to a bot disclosing at a glance that its a bot. Then people could make the choice.

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Online, why does whether the player is human or computer matter any more than whether the player is black or white?

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It just does. I think that holds true for a lot of people. Certainly a site could set it up so that when you sat down at a table all nine of your oponents would be programs, designed by the site. Real money exchanges hands, perhaps the site funds all nine of your oponent programs, perhaps people could sign up to bankroll the various personas (without having the ability to influence the play) but you'd know everytime you sat down to play that you were the only human playing. The programs don't get to share cards. Hey its just like real poker isn't it?

Assume the site was able to program the various personas to play with the same range of skills you'd expect to find at table of that limit filled with the people who typically play that limit. Assume a good players win expectation over time was the same as against real people and a bad players loss expectation would be the same as against real people...

Would you play there? Would anybody?

--Zetack