Poker Bot piece

The fact that poker sites are offshore (and therefore not governed by US gaming agencies) is a a turnoff for me. Bots? Cheating? Etc? Have fun trying to protect your rights (if any) against cheaters. No government agency to turn to. Can't sue (if you can, you won't win against some offshore entity). But some say that poker sites have an incentive to thwart cheaters. I doubt that incentive means much given that they can make more money by marketing to future fish than by cracking down on some cheaters. And what is punishment for cheaters? Prison? Fines? Nope - US law won't assist you. And if a site goes bankrupt for whatever reason (debt, Enron-ish mistakes, etc)? You won't get your money - US law doesn't govern. Think about US banks - they are insured (FDIC) and so on. But your money sitting at a poker site? Zero protection.

Ok, went off on a tangent.

Yes, that's probably the most convincing argument. If you have an AMM (Automatic Moneymaking Machine), you surely would keep it to yourself. I know I would.
It looks a bit like all the trading systems that are for sale to trade the markets: black box systems with "proven" records etc. Why sell the damn thing if you can make millions with it in the markets? Because they don't work!
Same with these bots. What does work though is selling the idea because lots of people will buy it. Welcome to the bots!

Imagine: computers ruling the financial markets. They participate, yes, but they don't RULE it.
A human can still be profitable in a field of hundreds of trading computers.

Anyways, cheers!

[subzero]

"No-limit poker may be the ultimate challenge within the domain, since it seems to emphasize the more nebulous poker skills, such as in-depth knowledge of the opponent and the ability to make fine judgements." article

"The game of poker is logistically simple yet strategically complex, and offers many properties not exhibited by chess, checkers, and most other well-studied games. Most importantly, poker is a non-deterministic game with imperfect (hidden) information. Handling unreliable or incomplete information is a fundamental problem in computer science, and poker provides an excellent domain for investigating problems of decision making under conditions of uncertainty." article

More articles on the Poker AI research being done at the University of Alberta here

[SumZero]

[ QUOTE ]

Yes, that's probably the most convincing argument. If you have an AMM (Automatic Moneymaking Machine), you surely would keep it to yourself. I know I would.
It looks a bit like all the trading systems that are for sale to trade the markets: black box systems with "proven" records etc. Why sell the damn thing if you can make millions with it in the markets? Because they don't work!
Same with these bots. What does work though is selling the idea because lots of people will buy it. Welcome to the bots!
Imagine: computers ruling the financial markets. They participate, yes, but they don't RULE it.
A human can still be profitable in a field of hundreds of trading computers.
Anyways, cheers!

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, I agree with you the majority of such schemes and bots that are marketed are likely bogus but there are reasons why some people might be willing to sell their system other than it doesn't work.

1. They are under capitalized and would make more from 1% of the profits of 100000x their bankroll running their system. (Think like some of the money managers for huge investments - like the money managers of the Harvard endowment. They regularly beat the market but probably make more money from their salary and returns on the $20 billion invested than if they were to invest their own net worth in the market).

2. They can only do one part of the system and need you to do the rest. In the case of bots this could be because they can do the work to create the bot, to deal with the sites UI and system, but can't do the strategy or can't adjust the strategy to every site and every level at every site, especially as play changes over time. So they provide the frame work and let you fill in the strategy. Or it could be that betting online or using a bot is illegal where they are but selling a computer program that enables one to bet online (intended for play money .net sites only, just works on the .com version too as a coincidence) is legal and they are willing to transfer some of the profits on their system to other people who either legally can play online with bots or are willing to illegally play.

That said, I agree that most of these systems that are offered are undoubtedly losers.

I also agree with subzero that the bad part about winholdem that is highlighted in the article is the collusion and I think collusion (using bots or not using bots) is a bigger problem for poker than bots.

[Jorge10]

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"Flick on Team mode and you can collude with other humans running WinHoldEm at the table."


[/ QUOTE ]

Yes thats what annoyed me about it, it said that the people using the bot werent just using the bot, they were actually sharing information among themselves and colluting. So if you were in a table with 3 bots, you are essentially playing against 3 people that show each other their cards and they can calculate odds better than humans so their plays will be perfect. This annoyed me a lot because it is technically cheating now, it goes from just using a bot to play which while stupid and annoying is not that bad most good players can beat them to using several bots in one table to cheat people out of their money and its a problem.

[RoundTower]

[ QUOTE ]
Keep in mind that when chess programs were first being developed, programs played like programs; that is, you could exploit a chess program because, for instance, they tended to value pieces more than position and tactics more than strategy. They were exploitable. Deep Blue does not have these exploitable tendecies.


[/ QUOTE ]

Deep Blue had all kinds of exploitable tendencies, and probably played a good bit worse than modern computer chess programs.

Similarly, there will be a poker bot made some time that plays well, even very well, but not perfectly. It will have some exploitable tendencies, like any human player. As development on the bot continues, it will be harder and harder to exploit.

I don't see any reason why the development of poker programs will be much different from that of chess engines. The objections raised "the bot wouldn't be able to bluff!" or "the human could ruin its odds for getting its draw!" are ridiculous. Similar short-sighted objections in the world of chess programming were along the lines of "the program can't sacrifice material" or "it can't make a strategic plan" (this one still debatable).

I've tried to get a message through to those at PokerRoom who might be able to do something about player bots. Maybe you all could try to contact your favorite sites to express your concern. Maybe give them a little more incentive to find some way to defeat bots like WinHoldem.

[nmt09]

I never said it wouldn't happen but I do feel we are far from creating such a bot.

The other thing you have to remember is that for every dollar these geeks invest, and every hour of sweat the multi million dollar poker companies can invest double or even triple on detection methods...

If this ever becomes a problem it won't be for long!!

[Rotterdaum]

I want to email pokerstars support and ask them what they think about bots, what they do against them, and whether they have plans to thwart their development.

I think one good way to thwart a bot would be to randomize the placement of the Fold Call Bet etc buttons on every turn. It wouldn't take a human long to see where the desirable option is, but should be virtually impossible for a program to do it alone, if this feature were programmed properly (randomized image map?). That would make running bot independently impossible, and would be very inconvenient to do it manually (you'd have to have the bot provide you with the best move and then select it... more work than normal playing). Basically I think if effort is put into it, there can be plenty of ways to prevent stand-alone bots

Hello,

I have been reading posts in the forum for quite some time now and finally decided to create an account...

This is a fun topic for me and bots, hand calculators (software etc.) are indeed a reality, however, "bots" as a general term I avoid using... For example:

I am not going to mention the site, tables, etc but this has turned into a nice little bankroll generator.

Within the past month i found a table that had about 4 open seats and the action looked interesting enough to join in...

After about 10 hands i quickly realized who knew each other and who did not. all of the other players, six of them to be exact all knew each other and they were fixing the game in their favor.

Using the time bank to signify if they had a pocket pair and the first digit of the bet to signify the suit and the second digit to signify their first hole card. Add that with the time bank and everyone knew what each other had.

Two other players came in and joined and they had no idea what hit them, and each of them had about 3 re-buys before they finally gave up. Winners would shift and occassionally the prey would get lucky on the turn or river and drag a sizeable pot.

I figured it out prior to their joining by classifying the players like i usually do, LAP, TAP, TPP, LPP and the table mood...

Those players taught me a lot about online collusion and one of them had to have been using poker academy pro, and the others, not to sure but they were all more than likely using software as an aid.

I did have a single rebuy early on, but that was when everything came together. after it was all said and done i frequently search them out and login with various accounts to make money from them.

"Bots" could be used in the same manner, rooms probably don't say much due to the fact that there is not a clear winner/small group consistently winning. Pots were traded fairly frequently. The style was typically a LAP or LPP. Bots would typically be the same, in my opinion. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] Which makes an environment like that easy pickins if you walk in aware of what is going on.

i hope i added something useful to the thread...