A couple of thoughts about bots

[Zetack]

Ok there may be nothing new here but here's what I'm thinking.

I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with using a bot. But I do think that use must be revealed to the other players. Currently there is no system to do that, so the use currently in online cardrooms would be wrong. Immoral, unethical, whatever.

Why is it wrong to secretly use a bot? That's a harder question to articulate but at the very least online poker has, like almost every human endeavor, implied rules.

Well, gee whiz, implied rules....if its not actually against the stated rules, why should I have to follow it? Well take this example: I make a bet with my buddy to have a foot race--I'm gonna beat him to that pylon down the field, and I'll wager a hundred bucks on it. My buddy takes that bet and we line up, agree to go on the count of three (helpfully provided by a bystander). As the count hits three I knock him down to the ground and take off running and easily make it to the pylon before he does.

Does anybody doubt my (ex)-buddy is going to refuse to pay me a hundred bucks? Does anybody doubt that anybody we ask to judge the dispute is going to deny my claim to his hundred bucks? Its simply intuitively obvious that--even though we never said a word about it being prohibited to knock each other down--that a rule has been violated.
In the online poker world there is an expectation, at the very least an implied rule, that our opponents are people. Does it have to be that way? No, of course not. But unless the user reveals the bot, or the cardroom explicitly allows it and tells its users that they may be facing bots, then there is a very real, if only implied, rule being violated.

I think the cardrooms don't encourage bots because they know most of us want to play other people and will take our business elsewhere if we suspect we will regularly be facing programs.

Now the idea, expressed by winholdem, that such an expectation is just naive, is simply not a justification for employing a bot. The presence of duplicitus, imoral people in the world--cheaters if you will, doesn't releave us of the obligation to behave decently. If you as a user, know or suspect the other people at the table would not play against your bot--how can you possibly believe the deception is not imoral or unethical?

Hey, it may be naive to believe that if I leave my car running, unlocked, with the keys in it, that nobody would be willing to steal my car. It certainly doesn't make it moral or ethical for you to steal my car when you see it left running. And how in the world could it justify my stealing somebody else's running car with the keys in the ignition?

And as for collusion. Collusion is cheating plain and simple. It doesn't matter how many other people cheat, cheating is never correct. "Other people do it"--what a lousy justification for cheating. Show me a way that my collusion only hurts other colluders and not the ethical players, and then I might give it a thought---except I wouldn't. Its cheating. Its wrong.

I've been explaining this bot business to my girlfriend as I type. She doesn't play poker at all and she's quite frankly, outraged. "It's wrong, it's immoral, and and and--it's just bad form!!!" she exclaimed.

See, its not that hard to understand...

--Zetack

[bigpooch]

[mhansen]

I can't say for sure, but I believe I just had my first (known) encounter with a bot tonight on the pokerpages (pokerschool, bugsysclub) site. It was no big deal to me, as it was just a 10 person play money NL Hold 'Em satellite, but I'm pretty sure that at the end, I was heads up with a bot. Of course, I have no concrete evidence, but here is a list of some of the things that alerted me:

1. No conversation whatsoever. Sure, some people never talk, but they are few and far between. Most people will at least acknowledge you, especially when I told him (it) I had to use the bathroom and would be right back, and apologized when I did return.

2. Instant play. Every hand, every time. Not a moment's thought given to any decision whatsoever.

3. When it checked, and I bet, it folded, without fail, every single time, instantly, no matter how much the amount of the bet. Whether it was $10000 or $1, it reacted the same. It took me all of 2 hands to figure that little trick out. Needless to say, it didn't win even a single hand when we got to heads up play. As a matter of fact, it didn't even make a single bet. I had to "blind" it to death.

4. I've played poker long enough to just "know" when something's not right, and I felt that tonight. There is no way on earth that that person was a human player.

I even contacted the live help desk of the aforementioned site, and they were as unknowledgable about the situation as anyone could possibly be. I recommended they look at the winholdem website to read up on the ways the bot circumvents security measures, as that is public knowledge. I'm just posting this I guess because it was the first time I've ever personally encountered a bot online, and quite frankly, it was a weird experience. I, of course, don't support the use of bots for online play, but if that's how they play, then bring em on, I say! Absolutely terrible. That's my review of the bot's play. Thanks.

[bigpooch]

I hope the bots will CONTINUE to play so poorly! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[mhansen]

Me too, but as WinHoldEm Support will most likely post, the formulas can be changed. I'm sure this guy was just experimenting. Even with a formula change, I don't see it playing all that well, to be honest. It won't take a good player long to figure out its playing style, and tear it a new butt.

One more thing I wanted to mention, but forgot to include in my first post, was that I would also tend to agree with the theory that winholdem does indeed install some type of trojan on the host's computer which relays hands back to "headquarters". I, myself, downloaded and installed this program, and wouldn't you know it, everytime I had a large pocket pair, or otherwise great starting hand, the darn thing would fold in the small blind. So, either those events are an example of *extreme* coincidence, or somebody knew what I was holding. I plan on going thru my Windows Registry to see what's in there and I'm also going to try to decompile the winholdem executable and look thru the source code to confirm my suspicions. I'll post my conclusions in the near future.

[WinHoldemSupport]

mhansen,

why didn't you setup your calling/raising hand lists properly?

winholdem support.

[jedi]

Why would he set up a bot for his opponent?

[ QUOTE ]
mhansen,

why didn't you setup your calling/raising hand lists properly?

winholdem support.

[/ QUOTE ]

[mhansen]

Yeah, thanks for answering for me, Jedi. I'm back to working after taking a week off. I haven't had much time online. I was playing *against* the bot. I wasn't running the bot. I did manage to decompile the software, for those interested. Very simple program. Whoever wants the results of what I've found, PM me. There are some interesting things in there that I've found, some of which might concern the users of that sorry piece of software. Thanks.

[Thats Interesting!]

Im not a supporter of bots. But I do know that in the (near) future bots can beat just about any pro. Any site that suports bots should be damn. Any pro that says a bot has no chance against pro players do not know the extent of the threat of bots. The bots out there now are a joke at best, but dont be nieve. Remember what they said about Chess Bots, yeah, whos the grandmaster now. You saying chess is no more complex as poker? Every Pro should push the sites to band the bots now! Be afraid, Be very afraid! Anyone that differs, dont know the extent of a progamers world. [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]