Moral question - bots

[EnderFFX]

I have an usual question. Is creating a bot for one's own purpose morally wrong?

Here is my argument, why it is not wrong.

If I were to program a bot, I am programming what I believe to be smart plays and smart strategies into the bot. However, since I am not a great player, what I could be creating is a bot that is playing wrong in certain situations and thus creating a negative EV for myself.

I feel that if I create a bot from the ground up and use it, that is ok. But if I were to purchase a bot, and use it to play, then I am cheating because I am letting someone else play for me.

[stupidsucker]

It is wrong on a many levels.

1)You can easily do research and have your bot programed to make choices on the fly.. calculating pot odds, EV situations etc. You your self may have access to this information, but as a human, if you are not VERY GOOD you cant do it fast enough to actualy put it into use. Your bot can.In my early poker days, I made myself a preflop guide for every starting hand/position. I could study it, and the information was right in front of me, but I could not access it in time to put it to use. It was better used as a study guide.

2)Your bot will never gamble, it will do what it is programed to do. Poker players often make mistakes on Gut feelings or "poker sense" Or they TILT after a few bad beats(I know I sure do)It doesnt get tired, doesnt miss a good hand cause it had to take a piss.

3) The pokersites have said they are not welcome. You are breaking their trust and the trust of everyone that plays if you make a bot. Reguardless if you think its ok, they said its not. Its their site, if you dont like it dont play if you cant play by the rules.

I myself am convined that a good bot programed for EV and aggressive play will be a longtime winner over most of the typical players online.(even up to 30-60 play) All this talk about beating world champions doesnt even matter... the bots dont need to beat world champions, they only need to beat joe schmoe.

[superleeds]

[pudley4]

Ask yourself this question:

Is there anything the bot could do that you yourself couldn't?

1-Play unlimited hours
2-Put in long hours without a decrease in play due to fatigue
3-Play multiple tables without a decrease in WR at each table
4-Play 10x as many tables as you could
5-Never tilt
6-Have instant access to all of the opponents previous play
7-Have perfect recall of opponents previous play (these two assume you will use pokertracker, or another database program)

Seems a little unfair, no?

[DrSavage]

I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
I'm actually amazed at how most poker players view themselves as knights in shining armor and not scumbags which they really are ( myself included ).
The bots would kill the online poker though, no question about it, like they killed online backgammon for instance.
But that's a different topic.

[bigpooch]

On the backgammon site, TrueMoneyGames.com, there is still
quite a bit of backgammon action and the site does detect
players that make too many snowie-like moves! As far as I
know, almost every player that I have watched there either
doesn't use a bot, or uses a bot rather infrequently. In
any case, most humans make enough mistakes that an expert
will make some money despite the rake! The rake there is
reasonable for players that play for $10 a point or higher.

I do agree that backgammon is a game that is in jeopardy
compared to poker: it's too easy for someone to get snowie
for $380 and use it to make close to optimal checker plays
and cube decisions to scoop up the money. But it won't be
that easy: after most of the fish are gone, most of the
remaining players left will be the nits! Not only will the
bot-users be recognized, but they will be blacklisted or
ostracized: nits have to eat too! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[DrSavage]

More people use gnuBG instead of Snowie since it's free and has similar strength.
I really don't see how they could monitor that, are they just banning people for playing good ? That's ridiculous.

[jedi]

There's no moral question about using a bot (unless you're violating a site's terms of agreement).

The question is an ethical question, not a moral one. Unless you're using that crap bot WinHoldEm in cheating mode, using a bot is perfectly moral, although I'd claim that it's on the unethical side of things.

WinHoldEm's cheating bot is OTOH, completely immoral.

[WinHoldemSupport]

very simply put,
online texas holdem as it currently stands is based on the honor system.

if you wager real money in an online game you are automatically placing trust in the opc for sure and you are placing trust in every other player at the table.

we believe that it is pure insanity to build any game, that involves real money, on top of an honor system that is only as good as the humans involved.

1) it is ridiculous to believe that other players will not use bots.
2) it is ridiculous to believe that other players will not collude against you.

these are two glaring weaknesses of online poker.

many players feel that if they campaign loud enough and long enough that somehow they can stop bots and stop collusion. this is a childish fantasy.

we at pokerbot.com no long expect that online poker will be bot free and collusion free. and this is why we built a bot that assumes from the start that other players will be using bots and that other players will be colluding against you (whether they use a bot or not).

the human desire to play poker is not going to be extinguished by bots. players will continue to player regardless.

however, if the game continues in its present form, then player collusion can have an impact. one of the ways that online poker can make collusion a non issue is to change holdem to a forced anti-system (blinds may be optional).
or a forced all-blind system.

we would gladly sit at any holdem game with a forced anti-system even if we knew that the other 9 chairs were all colluding against us. we do not care if they manage to get their best hand to the river (which they will not be able to do 100% of the time without heavy losses).

winholdem was built from the ground up to survive under these worse case scenario conditions - 10-chair NL tourney where all 9 opponents are colluding against you.

there is no other software in the world that can do this (successfully).

so while many players are expressing the worst kind of sentiment possible toward bots, collusion and winholdem in general, it is nothing more than the expected evolutionary death pangs of a breed of poker player attempting to survive in an online environment where the rules of the jungle environment are no longer as they were.

these players have two choices -
adapt or die

we at pokerbot.com have chosen to adapt.

winholdem management

[WinHoldemSupport]

typo in previous post

'anti' should be 'ante'