PokerNow is detecting PV/PT or possibly PokerStove

[ckessel]

It's completely different. One plays for you, one assists in decision making.

There are plenty of losing players with stats tools. Understanding what to do with them is what matters. You don't understand anything with a bot.

[Orpheus]

The typical "fish" doesn't play more than a few hours a month. Poker isn't a big part of their lives. A 4-tabler who is making decent money for playing can easily generate more table hours (and rake) as 100 casual players. If only 1% of the players are multitablers, they can be in the neighborhood of half the total revenue at the stakes they play.

Worse, the top sites NEED those table hours (filled seats): it'd be darn hard to recruit 100 "few hours a month" fish to replace each lost 20hr/wk four tabler that leaves, and unlike the four-tabler, who is a steady long-term customer, most fish will move on after they lose enough, find another hobby, or find a baseless "rigged" rumor that justifies their losses and makes them feel smart for not playing instead of dumb for losing.

That's a key: it's not the truth that matters. Baseless rumors work just as well. Ask any random guy at your office who played for a while and lost. Then look at the flip side. How many Party fish know or care that they are paying much higher rake -- or even know how much rake they payed? How many read a book and follow its advice. No, they're just out for some fun, not some profit. People are completely accustomed to paying for entertainment.

Ever broken even, much less turned a profit, on a movie or orchestra ticket? (Funny how we don't have any "movies and classical music are rigged" threads) It's completely different mindset from a 2+2'er

Rampant bots would be a real problem, but they'd kill the game for themselves as well. I'd argue that you could assess the impact of moderate levels of bots by assessing the impact of the rumors and misinformation about poker rigging and bots reported by many major newspapers. After all, NO ONE bases their decisions on the "true facts" but EVERYONE bases their decisions on what they BELIEVE the facts are, right or wrong, confirmed or unconfirmed.

The effect is "nil". Actually, it's probably significant, but it's buried in our baseline for normal. We're used to it so we don't notice it. We don't imagine what the rates of poker playing mught be if poker sites were considered the most unimpeachably fair institutions on earth and churches were preaching that poker was more wholesome than overly sexual/violent/secular atheist TV, books and movies (Hey, there's more sincere prayer in any casino at any hour of the week than in any church during Sunday services [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] )

There are a hundred factors that adversely affect our +EV from poker, but we don't notice them (e.g. many 2+2'ers consider Party's rake irrelevant to maximum returns) As much as I hate the idea of bots, I am fairly certain that we'll either adapt or give up the game -- and the fish will have left long before we have, killing the industry. (You can count on the industry stopping that)

How can the industry stop bots? Well, I can think of many possibilities, especially as the market grows. They could make/give away self-verifying "security boxes" (advertised as a player protection measure) which plug into a USB port and run the actual client (on a non-wintel architecture). It would take a featurelss box with less than a old GameBoy's worth of computing power, produced at pocket calculator prices (at million unit volumes and tomorrow's CPU power) That's just one idea. Sure, the boxes could be hacked, but they could build on the huge amount of digital rights management hardwre/software being developed. Unlike a CD/DVD where the hackers are just converting the data to another form, a poker box must actively communicate with (and auto-update its software from) the server to be useful.

That's just one idea of many. Pocket calculators and digital watches went from costing hundreds of dollars (when some new carssold for $2K) to being promotiuonal giveaways in just over a decade.

[Beach-Whale]

[ QUOTE ]
With PokerTracker and PV/GT+, you still have to be a winning player to win. With a bot, it makes no difference, as the player's skill does not come into question.

[/ QUOTE ]

So it's OK to use a bot if you wrote it yourself? Clearly, you would need to know how to play well to write a successful bot. So your skill comes into question, no doubt. You just automate a tedious activity that you know how to do. Like collecting info on your opponents.

[ QUOTE ]
The fundamental point is the concept of artificial intelligence. Bots make decisions for you, PokerTracker and PV do not. That draws a clear distinction between the nature of the programs.

[/ QUOTE ]

I guess this depends on the nature of the bot. If you (the programmer) know exactly how the bot makes "its" decisions, I would say that it's really you that makes the decisions, only you have automated the decision process that you yourself would have used. So it's your decisions, and the bot is executing your decisions.

If, on the other hand, the bot works in a way totally different from how you, its programmer, would make your decisions, like e.g. chess bots do, then I'd say that the bot is indeed making its own decision, and making them for you. But at the same time, you still created the decision making process that the bot uses, and that should be worth something, right?

Maybe you are thinking about people who buy a bot written by someone else. Well, then I'd say that it's the author of that bot that is making the decisions for his customers. Not the bot itself.

Anyway, I still say that it's a matter of degree, not character.

[ QUOTE ]
One allows winning players to win more, while the other allows any jackass to win.

[/ QUOTE ]

As I have said above, this argument is only for people who use a bot someone else has written.

And in the same spirit, these programs that people use to collect info on other peoples style of play lets any jackass collect this info, and give this jackass the opportunity to win much more than he really should have, should he have had to collect the same info himself.

And these opponent-modeling programs are really quite crude at this point in time (like the bots), but what about in the (near?) future when they can analyze the thought processes of your opponents in an advanced way far beyond the capabilities of most human players? And present selected info on a player based on the situation of the current hand? Like "This player check-raising in situation X means that he has trips or better with 90% probability," or something like that (presented, then, in situation X)?

Reading your opponents is a HUGE part of playing poker really well. Having advanced software doing it for you is a huge advantage. AI has its most "intelligent" job to do in this area, I believe. Much, MUCH, more so than in the "decision making" part. And having software read your opponents is OK, while having software making the decisions of your actual actions is not?

It's a matter of degree, and while the difference in degree might be somewhat large today, it could become quite small tomorrow.

[PennyAnte]

You will never change their minds. Remember these are professional fish rapers who make a living using these cheating programs to make a living pointing and clicking instead of getting real jobs, so they have a vested interest in protecting the use of these programs.

I refuse to play online poker as long as there are programs that store every single hand I have ever played and use it against me to clean me out, and as long as the poker sites allow and even encourage such programs. It is literally like playing against Big Brother. Poker is entertainment for me and I at least want a chance to win once in a while.

[smb394]

[ QUOTE ]
You will never change their minds. Remember these are professional fish rapers who make a living using these cheating programs to make a living pointing and clicking instead of getting real jobs, so they have a vested interest in protecting the use of these programs.

I refuse to play online poker as long as there are programs that store every single hand I have ever played and use it against me to clean me out, and as long as the poker sites allow and even encourage such programs. It is literally like playing against Big Brother. Poker is entertainment for me and I at least want a chance to win once in a while.

[/ QUOTE ]

I work a full-time job and play 10-15 hours/week, multitabling low limits. And I use PT/PV.

Question: Do you have a problem with Pokertracker or with the real-time stuff like PV/GT+?

[kdog]

[ QUOTE ]
How you can play more than 4 tables without it? If you say "I am not playing 4 tables" then let me guess that you make living off something else. People who live off poker need to squeeze as much as they can so HUDs are very valuable.

[/ QUOTE ]

People who live off poker SHOULD be doing it because they can play the game well enough to beat the other players at the SAME game, not beacuse they employ decision aiding software allowing them to play more games and have a rakeback deal.

[kapw7]

[ QUOTE ]
I really hope this isn't a trend...

[/ QUOTE ]

I will laugh out loud if it's true

[kdog]

[ QUOTE ]


Quote:
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Poster: Pokamastah
newbie



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Speaks for itself.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well I'm far from a newbie and I agree. The playing field needs to be level. And don't tell me the software is available to everyone because we both know that's bullshit. When it really is available to everyone I'll change my opinion.

[kapw7]

[ QUOTE ]

How you can play more than 4 tables without it? If you say "I am not playing 4 tables" then let me guess that you make living off something else. People who live off poker need to squeeze as much as they can so HUDs are very valuable.

[/ QUOTE ]

Get a job or learn better poker. LOL

[sthief09]

this thread is stupid. Party knows where their bread is buttered and it's by the multi-tabling middle limit TAGs. I would guess that probably 1/3 of the hands played on 10/20 above are played by 5 or 10% the players. why chase those away by taking away rakeback or banning these programs.