Bot complaint

[MS Sunshine]

Below is a series of emails between myself and alerts@partypoker.com (usually very helpful folks)about a player that checked on the end with the nut hand. This player only barely misses my top player list every month(yes, I still make them, but I no longer post them here) because he is too tight and too passive preflop, for my tastes) Now anyone can misread a hand, but I thought I would have support look at him, because if they did find out he is a bot then the argument that a good-playing bot isn't possible no longer would hold water. The Langley thing also was a factor.

The formletter being back in minutes ticked me off, they should at least put a wait of an hour or so to make it seemed like they "researched" my complaint.

MS Sunshine


Dear ,

Thank you for contacting us.

We have received your complaint and have researched the account rorriecal. We have also examined the hand histories in order to verify your concern.

Lesley, we do understand your frustration about players who 'bluff' and bet or raise, to project a false scenario to other players, even though they do not have the best cards dealt to them. They only do this in an effort to intimidate the other players at the table to fold.

Furthermore, the anonymity of online poker players allows them to be more daring (and sometimes even play bad), as they don't have to sit in front of their peers and colleagues and justify calling bets with really bad cards. I can assure you that in the long run; the good players make the money.

Lesley, let me also assure you that the players you see at the table are all real players and it is not against the house that you find yourself playing. The easiest way you can convince yourself of this, would be to chat with the other players at the table. We have players from all over the world who access our tables and share the excitement. You would also be able to see their cities displayed. If you were to chat with them, you would be surprised to see how the world converges onto your computer, in your own home, through our tables. And Lesley, I am sure that you would find this surprise to be a pleasant one.

The bottom line is that at PartyPoker.com we do not use any form of robots or computer programmed players. All of the players you are playing against are real players. Sometimes you have to go through spells of what seem like horrible beats, but it is just part of the game, and what makes online poker more exciting than live poker.

The site uses the most sophisticated and state-of-the-art technology to run the games. Our teams constantly monitor the game play in an effort to identify and prevent possibilities of collusion.

Our continual commitment to the integrity of the site helps us to create and maintain fair, secure and a spirit filled environment where players enjoy an exciting gaming experience!

This is what we want for our players,

Fun you can bet on!

If you have any further questions, comments or concerns, please contact us at alerts@PartyPoker.com and we will be more than glad to assist you.

Best regards,

Faith Allen
Investigations Team
PartyPoker.com

--Original Message--
From:
Date: 2004-12-05 13:01
To: alerts@partypoker.com
Subject: possible bot?[#2047223]

Hello



Any chance rorriecal is a bot?



Thank you




***** Hand History for Game 1262457231 *****

$200 PL Hold'em - Sunday, December 05, 12:51:49 EDT 2004

Table Ho-Ho-Ho (Real Money)
Seat 5 is the button
Total number of players : 10

Seat 1: toohotty ( $617.15 )
Seat 2: rorriecal ( $414.9 )
Seat 3: rwboyle ( $216.7 )
Seat 4: Cobra289FIA ( $398.95 )
Seat 5: unbr8able ( $805.7 )
Seat 7: Cypressman ( $376.6 )
Seat 8: pnuthead ( $212.9 )
Seat 9: Babisababe ( $616.35 )
Seat 10: Mitchy_D ( $449.9 )
Seat 6: Grizzle420 ( $200 )
Cypressman posts small blind [$2].
pnuthead posts big blind [$4].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to pnuthead [ 9c 2d ]
Cobra289FIA: cause u SUUUUUCCCCCCCKKKKK
Babisababe folds.
toohotty calls [$4].
rorriecal calls [$4].
rwboyle calls [$4].
Cobra289FIA folds.
unbr8able folds.
Cypressman folds.
pnuthead checks.
** Dealing Flop ** [ Qd, 7d, 9d ]
pnuthead checks.
toohotty checks.
rorriecal checks.
rwboyle checks.
** Dealing Turn ** [ 2s ]
pnuthead bets [$14].
toohotty folds.
Cobra289FIA: allk yer chips go bye bye
rorriecal calls [$14].
rwboyle folds.
** Dealing River ** [ Ad ]
pnuthead checks.
rorriecal checks.
pnuthead shows [ 9c, 2d ] a flush, ace high.
rorriecal shows [ Kd, Ac ] a flush, ace high.
rorriecal wins $43.7 from the main pot with a flush, ace high with king kicker.

Hello

I wish to thank you for sending this form letter out so promptly, but I was hoping that someone would exactly look at my concerns about this player. He plays very long hours and is one of the big winners every month at this limit. He sees less than 12% of the flops and only raises preflop 1% of the time. It is possible that he overlooked the nut hand at the river and didn't bet it when he was last to act. I have to admit since that he is from Lanley I'm guessing he works for the government. A wild guess on my part.

I do not think Partypoker runs bots, but with programable bots from www.winholdem.com on the market this is a real fear on my part that some of your players DO run bots.. Since for over four years I don't think my husband and I have ever paid less than $3,000 a month in rake to you folks, you might take my concerns more seriously than an auto-generated form letter.

Thank you

[MS Sunshine]

Another prompt reply, I feel so much better now that Party completed their exhastive investagation in again record time. Why do I even bother?

MS Sunshine

Dear ,

Thank you for contacting us.

This message is to inform you that as part of our initiative to block artificial intelligence or prohibited software/programs that might give players an undue advantage over the other players on the table, we have proceeded to monitor and block the use of such software/programs from running in conjunction with our PartyPoker.com client.

As a part of our Technical Team?s continued efforts to render such applications and software/programs useless we have a security feature in place to detect the usage of the same. We would not be in a position to elaborate on this security measure for obvious reasons.

At the outset let me assure you that we do NOT take screen shots NOR do we have any screen shots of players desktop with us, and no information that is recorded would ever be used by us without the players consent. Further, please check our Terms and Conditions of Use available on our website. Please check Clause 6, Clause 7, Clause 17 and Clause 18 (viii).

http://www.PartyPoker.com/about_us/l...formation.html

We have proactively implemented security measures to identify and block PokerBot applications from running in conjunction with our poker software. As part of this initiative we have implemented technical changes that would ensure that any such applications and software/programs are identified, detected and rendered useless.

Lesley, we hope you understand our concerns in keeping up the fairness of our games and thank you in advance for your patience and cooperation in keeping up the spirit of the game and the integrity of our online poker card room.

If you have any further questions, comments or concerns, please contact us at alerts@PartyPoker.com and we will be more than glad to assist you.

Best regards,

Faith Allen
Investigations Team
PartyPoker.com

[BusterStacks]

How many times do we need to see the same kind of thread before people get it. You aren't up against bots.

[Robk]

common sense suggesets the hand you posted makes it less likely rorriecal is a bot. what am i missing?

[MS Sunshine]

Let's see. They sell bots on the web. Party takes the accounts of players for using bots. My guess is that we are sometimes up against bots.

Some unanswered questions are:

How good are they? How often do I play with them?

MS Sunshine

[IggyWH]

[ QUOTE ]
common sense suggesets the hand you posted makes it less likely rorriecal is a bot. what am i missing?

[/ QUOTE ]

Exactly...

If there is such a bot out there that is good enough to play $200 PL (which I EXTREMELY doubt), then it's smart enough to know when it has the nuts.

[MS Sunshine]

We have two cases:

1. An excellent player misses the nuts at the river.

2. A bug in a series of logic equations of an otherwise good playing bot.

I agree case 1 is much more likely than case 2, but I feel that case 2 is NOT a zero probabilty.

MS Sunshine

[Forum Enforcement Division]

[ QUOTE ]
We have two cases:

1. An excellent player misses the nuts at the river.

2. A bug in a series of logic equations of an otherwise good playing bot.

I agree case 1 is much more likely than case 2, but I feel that case 2 is NOT a zero probabilty.

MS Sunshine

[/ QUOTE ]

The chances of there currently being winning bots in play are probably 90%.

The chance that there is any bot at all that could master NL is 0%.

The AI required for a winning bot at limit is inevitable. There is currently a Heads-Up bot that is said to be nearly unbeatable.

Programming a bot for NL is exponetially more difficult. Those few individuals talented enough to write winning bots would first tackle limit. I doubt there has even been any serious work at all in programming a NL bot.

Finally, even Dumb-bot at Ultimate Bet has never missed a bet with the nuts on the end. This would be covered in the simplest of code. Your fears are not unfounded, but don't worry about NL games.

[daryn]

i thought you were above this?

come on, people misclick all the time. people also misread boards once in a while. it doesn't matter if you are the best player on party.

how many emails a day do you think party gets along the lines of "is XXXX a bot?"?

i would expect this kind of post from the likes of... well let's not make anyone feel bad.

[Schneids]

How can this be anything but a misclick or misread?

I know I've checked the river once or twice in spots I didn't mean to had I clicked right or read the board right.