An interesting internet-bot article

[Doc7]

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/1...w=wn_tophead_6

[ QUOTE ]
Bornert had no ethical qualms about creating a poker bot. The way he saw it, the poker sites were duping people into believing that a game of hold 'em online was as safe and secure as one at any casino in Vegas. "The reality is that the game changed the moment it moved to the Internet," Bornert says. Bots and bot-aided collusion were inevitable. Rather than seduce anyone into thinking such things didn't exist, Bornert had another notion: Put the power in the players' hands. By democratizing computer-assisted firepower, he'd make it part of the competition. "It's like football - if you don't wear a helmet and pads, you're going to get hurt," he says. "A poker bot is your equipment." And if that is considered unethical, then so be it. "I'd rather be unethical than be a victim," he says. "This is intentional civil disobedience."

[/ QUOTE ]

[USDaniels]

Might be interesting to see how that kind of article would fit into the "legalize live poker" discussion.

Anyone willing to make a prop bet on how many threads reference the Wired article over the next six months, and the number of times it's declared The End Of Online Poker™?

[ QUOTE ]
By democratizing computer-assisted firepower, he'd make it part of the competition. "It's like football - if you don't wear a helmet and pads, you're going to get hurt," he says.

[/ QUOTE ]
Problem is, right now using a bot for poker is like hitting the football field wearing a saucepan on your head.

I read the article, and checked out the winholdem web page and forums. It seems (for those who don't know) that with winholdem, you pay $200 a year for a losing pokerbot, and if you are smart enough, you might be able to fix it up so that it can win at the easiest microlimit tables.

They aren't claiming that the thing out of the box can win at any limits, they come out and admit it is no good. Also, if you get caught using it, not only will your account be banned but any funds you have with the online casino will likely be seized.

It seems that the users of winholdem have found a way around this by running two different computers, connected together via a LAN, and winholdem runs on a different computer than the casino software. In addition, they have to do various other sneaky things to prevent the casino software from figuring out what's going on.

No doubt partypoker employees read the winholdem forums, have winholdem themselves, and are working on figuring out how to crack the new stealth system so they can ban all the current users and seize their funds again.

I do understand the allure of the idea of a winning pokerbot which could run all day and night and make you money, but it doesn't seem to exist yet commercially. Winholdem bots aren't able to look at opponents' stats at all, from what I can tell, so they play the same against a maniac as against the most passive fish.

[Saint_D]

See the "texas hold'em" main thread for more on this crap. It's applicable to ML since they play in our pool. But I don't think there is much worth discussing on this fine board.

Bottom line, my bb/100 is positive. Bring on thier silly wittle bots.

-D

[theben]

my pokerbot is called "theben.exe". problem is, it sucks and loses a lot of money

[Buccaneer]

I can loose enough money by myself thank you very much. I do not need a bot to do it for me.