Moral question - bots

[WinHoldemSupport]

schneids,

i am participating in a discussion here about the morality of pokerbots and internet poker in general.

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Please stop with the posts every one of yours is nothing but a stupid hidden spam post for an unethical and worthless product that does nothing positive for PEOPLE WHO WANT TO PLAY POKER THEMSELVES.


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request denied.

i dont expect you to accept bots or teaming. but you cannot control the open discussion of the subject which is exactly what i intend to do.

the title of this thread is "Moral question - bots"

im qualified to participate in this discussion.
i work for pokerbot.com. (they make a programmable pokerbot)
i have used a bot to play poker online for real money (many times).
i have participated in sharing and teaming in online holdem for real money (always with a bot never without because its too annoying and tedious).

i am about as qualified to be here as any one of you.

so do you actually want to discuss the subject or do you want to whine and complain and get your panties in a wad?

and i am not spamming. i am being honest about who i am and what i want.

part of my job description is to get online players to openly discuss the moral, ethical, legal and security issues of bots and/or sharing in online poker.

just doing my job man.

winholdem support.

[Schneids]

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i work for pokerbot.com. (they make a programmable pokerbot)


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There you go again.

How does mentioning the site, post after post, do anything to change your credibility? Does it make you an 'expert' on bots or colluding, so much to the point that all of us are somehow missing some important facet about them that only you can see, because you work for this site?

If you want to discuss whether bots or colluding is ethical, go for it.

But when you mention the damn site every post you make it really is pathetic. And it is clearly a spam attempt.

Thank you, I am done talking to you.

[WinHoldemSupport]

schneids,

the size of the ante is obviously an issue.
a one cent ante in a $1/$2 game would have hardly an impact.

on the other extreme, a $100 ante in a $1/$2 would make the betting meaningless and nobody would play.

the purpose of the ante is to defeat playing for free. colluders need to play for free (trust me on this). colluders must wait for the right pocket conditions to make a risky pot jack worthwhile. (you still have to actually get good cards). and in holdem there is nothing that guarantees good cards in the next 10 hands or even 20 hands.

colluders want to play for free as long as possible and then jump and jack when the conditions are right and the conditions are most certainly not right each hand or even every 5 hands. maybe 1 in 10 hands in a 10-chair game.

also, another mechanical change to the game that would allow end-users to perform their own collusion detection (instead of relying on the opc staff to do it for them) would be to require that every dealt card be revealed after the showdown.
please do not flame me for saying this, im not saying i like this, im just saying that it would be a very serious threat to team players (trust me on this). if this happened then every end-user potentially can become a poker policeman (instead of only the opcs) armed with collusion detection analysis software.

it's a mixed debate between limit and no-limit over which format would be impacted the most with a forced reveal.

having done a sufficient amount of team play (more than anybody here is willing to openly admit to), i can tell you that a forced ante and forced reveal would make teaming a very unattractive proposition.

winholdem support.

[clovenhoof]

This is probably a stupid question, but do the online sites have a rule prohibiting the use of bots?

Secondly, for it to be morally wrong, wouldn't there first have to be at least an accepted rule by players that bots shouldn't be allowed?

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.

In chess, at a live tournament, it was understandable. The human interaction was part of what the people bought and paid for, just like what people at a B&M cardroom get.

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

'hoof

[Zetack]

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having done a sufficient amount of team play (more than anybody here is willing to openly admit to),

winholdem support.

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From collusion is just an option we provide, the user decides whether to use it to: "I'm a cheater, I've done a lot of cheating..."

Its not the fact that they provide a bot for use, which is of at least debateable moral and ethical fiber--its the complete moral bankruptcy these people show over and over again...

Look at that tone: "See I'm a good person, I admit to cheating..."

*sigh*

--Zetack

[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

[spike]

WinHoldEmSupport tells us he was recruited to the role of support person specifically because he feels fulfilled by pissing people off. I must say he seems to meet his objectives very well and the mysterious "management" we hear of so often must be very happy with his performance.

He asserts that since other people are colluding, then it becomes an intrinisic part of the online poker experience and such should not be considered cheating.

May I ask WinHoldEmSupport's views on players intentionally timing out or disconnecting in order to take advantage of all-in protection?

This practice is widespread. Does WinHoldEm use this technique? If so, why not?

[Festus22]

Could you please provide me the location and user name of where your bot is playing. I would like to observe it firsthand. If there are no moral issues surrounding the use of bots, then I'm sure you will have no problem providing me with this information.

[WinHoldemSupport]

spike,

excellent post.

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He asserts that since other people are colluding, then it becomes an intrinisic part of the online poker experience and such should not be considered cheating.


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attaching a label to this activity is an emotive necessity and very understandable (but its just childish emotion). all we are trying to do is to get people to wake up and smell the bandwidth (regardless of how they feel about the subject). classic holdem is not safe in an internet environment.

you can either whine about collusion or you can do something about it:

1) learn how to collude yourself to fight fire with fire. (or if you are turned off by this thought then)
2) fix the current flaw by changing the game so that collusion is no longer an issue.

some players will want neither because they truely enjoy whining or because they feel that they simply would not be interested in holdem if it changed too much (also understandable).

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May I ask WinHoldEmSupport's views on players intentionally timing out or disconnecting in order to take advantage of all-in protection?


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playing online is risky. the quality of your internet connection is an integral part of your ability to fulfill your mechanical obligations during a hand of online holdem.

we do not think people should be rewarded for disconnecting, on the other hand we do not think they should suffer if their connection drops just as they draw the dead nuts on the river.

a dropped connection is kind of like a form of 'online death', and a timeout allin is kind of like a default will and testament. the problem is that the allin shields the player from the mechanical requirement of calling.

and this is where an intentional piece of AI could come in very handy. we of course sell programmable pokerbots so we understand formula programming techniques.

why can't the opc's allow end-users to set their own 'drop-connect-playing-formula' that the server will execute for them if they disconnect.

it would be kind of like an emergency proxy, if you disconnect then your formula set plays for you in the exact same way a winholdem formula set plays for you. your formula set becomes your disconnect will and testament. and as such, in a limit game you would NOT have the allin option, your formula set would provide the answers to just 2 questions - should i call? should i rais? (this is exactly what winholdem does btw). if you were in a no limit game then there would be a third question that would need to be answered - should i allin? and this allin genuinly means allin (bet all my chips), not "get-me-out-of-the-game-because-im-a-chicken-ass-whiny-loser-but-even-so-let-me-have-a-chance-to-win-with-a-timeout-allin"

so to sum up:
stop whining about collusion and do something about it; don't just complain.

ask the opc's to ditch the timeout-allin and move to a full formula based AI scripting facility similar to winholdem.

winholdem support.

[WinHoldemSupport]

nuke,

sure np. login to poker professional. currently (right this very moment) there are two bots testing some new headsup formulas against each other on table Arizona.

you can find the poker professional download link at on the pokerbot.com home page at the bottom.

you can even login and play if you want.

poker professional is the best poker client in the world. HDTV resolution, 32bit color, alpha blending, photo realistic cards and chips.

winholdem support.