Bots: How long untill the end of online Poker?

[RED-DOG]

Gotta watch out for them there robo-bots

A masterpiece!

[bundle]

Nice one tank very well written, thoroughly enjoyed that read, my little girl was asking me Daddy what you laughing at. I couldn’t tell her Thomas the tank or I would have been explaining all night.

You should write more..

[RED-DOG]

Nice one tank very well written, thoroughly enjoyed that read, my little girl was asking me Daddy what you laughing at. I couldn’t tell her Thomas the tank or I would have been explaining all night.

You should write more..

http://www.blondepoker.com/index.php?q=taxonomy/term/126

[riverdave]

I think these kind of bots are quite commonplace in these small buyin STT's particularly on Party. The moves are just so standard it is easily programmeable.
The most interesting 'bot' that i have come across is Red Knight on Cryptologic network that plays the heads up big fixed limits 50/100 and 100/200. Now i am reliably informed by other big stakes players on the site that it is a bot and it's predictability also seems to indicate that it is a bot although i have no concrete proof.
I'm amazed that it is possible to programme a winning bot to play such a diverse game but again i have been informed it is a small winner.
One distinct advantage that it does have over a human player is the 'heated' or tilt factor does not come into consideration and in these games it's certainly possible to chunk off thousands very quickly on tilt. Personally i've got a 100 big bet winning record from playing it over 5 sessions varying from 4-8 hours in length and that's after losing 100 big bets in a short space of time in the last session i played. Not enough to prove anything yet although i think i've seen enough chinks in it's armour that i consider it beatable. However i guess the owner would pull it pretty quickly if i beat it consistently. I just hope it's still around next time i feel adequately bankrolled to take another shot at it.

[totalise]

Why are you amazed that its hard to program a bot to be a winning player at limit online? Anything you can do, a bot can do better. Lets say there are players that have predictive lines, like raising UTG/ check-raising turn and then folding turn, or any line. The bot can predict his range of hands with something like 98% confidence. The bot knows his patterns, the bot knows how to react to his patterns, the bot can play perfectly. You cant beat the bot, because the bot doesn't have exploitable tendanices. It will know the correct play in every situation.

This gives way to exploitive counterstrategies, which are mainly math based. This is online, all you have is pattern recollection and math. Bots would be much better at assessing opponents because it has a perfect recollection of every single hand it has played. It can instantly know who raises what, with what frequency, and with what range. How many humans can know that player XS raises utg 8.23% of hands, and check-folds 13.12% of the time? the bots can. Humans cant. Humans have a very weak manner of memory compared to cards, and whilst humans work on such things as instinct/card sense, the bots are working with cold hard facts. As long as the programmer understands exploitive strategy, bots can beat limit games for much higher amounts then the best limit player in the world, because of the above.


Some people say that bots dont have "feel" and cant get a grasp on the tempo of the game, but thats just a strawman. The feel for the game is nothing more then math, pattern recognition, betting/raising/folding frequencies, and bots can KNOW this with 100% confidence and play accordingly. If you know that a river checkraise from a player is usually a bluff, a bot will know this as well, but with a higher degree of confidence.

I have felt for a long time that bots will eventually lead to the collapse of online poker, because of all the above. They can play and beat you because they are working on data collection and math/game theory, and that is unbeatable... unless your game is game theoretically perfect, and if that is the case, you would likely lose to the rake (but luckily crush the live games!)

The good thing is that it would take a long time (years) to write a bot of such a high standard, but once that has been breached, then it will have serious repercussions for the online poker industry, possibly fatal



*** All the above is written on the assumption that the bot is perfectly coded, and is coded by someone who knows how to play optimal poker. Most of the bots out there at the moment are terribly written, so the above doesn't apply to them, but to the notion that bots cant be programmed to win at poker ***

[riverdave]

I wouldn't be suprised in a full ring game because it's such a mathematical game that most good players could play winning on auto pilot never mind bots, maybe i'm being naive, but i just considered the heads up game to so diverse that it would be hard to program even what is perfect poker in such a situation. Having read a few threads on 2+2 tonight though i've been enlightened just hope this bot doesn't improve too much while i'm under bankrolled to play it.

[stallyon]

I wonder if Which Cmoputing are going to do an article on which is the Best Buy when it comes to bots...maybe have a SnG using all the Bots available and seeing which wins 

[Nem]

Why are you amazed that its hard to program a bot to be a winning player at limit online? Anything you can do, a bot can do better. Lets say there are players that have predictive lines, like raising UTG/ check-raising turn and then folding turn, or any line. The bot can predict his range of hands with something like 98% confidence. The bot knows his patterns, the bot knows how to react to his patterns, the bot can play perfectly. You cant beat the bot, because the bot doesn't have exploitable tendanices. It will know the correct play in every situation.

This gives way to exploitive counterstrategies, which are mainly math based. This is online, all you have is pattern recollection and math. Bots would be much better at assessing opponents because it has a perfect recollection of every single hand it has played. It can instantly know who raises what, with what frequency, and with what range. How many humans can know that player XS raises utg 8.23% of hands, and check-folds 13.12% of the time? the bots can. Humans cant. Humans have a very weak manner of memory compared to cards, and whilst humans work on such things as instinct/card sense, the bots are working with cold hard facts. As long as the programmer understands exploitive strategy, bots can beat limit games for much higher amounts then the best limit player in the world, because of the above.


Some people say that bots dont have "feel" and cant get a grasp on the tempo of the game, but thats just a strawman. The feel for the game is nothing more then math, pattern recognition, betting/raising/folding frequencies, and bots can KNOW this with 100% confidence and play accordingly. If you know that a river checkraise from a player is usually a bluff, a bot will know this as well, but with a higher degree of confidence.

I have felt for a long time that bots will eventually lead to the collapse of online poker, because of all the above. They can play and beat you because they are working on data collection and math/game theory, and that is unbeatable... unless your game is game theoretically perfect, and if that is the case, you would likely lose to the rake (but luckily crush the live games!)

The good thing is that it would take a long time (years) to write a bot of such a high standard, but once that has been breached, then it will have serious repercussions for the online poker industry, possibly fatal



*** All the above is written on the assumption that the bot is perfectly coded, and is coded by someone who knows how to play optimal poker. Most of the bots out there at the moment are terribly written, so the above doesn't apply to them, but to the notion that bots cant be programmed to win at poker ***

Another great post Totalise. I'm of the same thought that bots will destroy the online game.

[thetank]

If anyone wants to see something disturbing, check out the WinPoker forum.

A bunch of lowdown bot programmers openly discussing their trade. It's a real eye opener.

[ACE2M]

If anyone wants to see something disturbing, check out the WinPoker forum.

A bunch of lowdown bot programmers openly discussing their trade. It's a real eye opener.

have you got a link tnak?

[thetank]

I hope they all go broke

It's WinHoldem I was referring to.

My apologies to WinPoker, a perfectly legitimate program.

[Nem]

What a joke. The above site Tank has listed is a fourm where cheats can talk about the easiest and best ways to cheat without getting caught out!

[totalise]

What a joke. The above site Tank has listed is a fourm where cheats can talk about the easiest and best ways to cheat without getting caught out!

yes, but the worst thing anyone should do is to highlight it too much.. because its a given that poker-sites also monitor the above, so they are giving the sites at least some free info in the war against bots

Most of the scumbuckets on that site dont even know how to play poker correctly, so what they are doing is programming a bot to play according to their style.. that site is the least of a poker-sites concerns as far as bots are concerned, because people who can program bots correctly aren't going to buy some bucket shop filthy bot from those degens, and will remain underground.

[thetank]

The thing that bothers me is that a lot of them believe they are doing nothing wrong???

[Nem]

A Pokerstars reply,

Hello Nemesis,

Thank you for your concern regarding WinHoldem and PokerStars. 

WinHoldem violates not one, but two separate sections of our terms of
service: engaging in automated play and hole card sharing.   

The use of WinHoldem is absolutely forbidden on PokerStars, as is the
use of any other packages that violate these rules.

PokerStars monitors players to detect the use of WinHoldem, and when
use of this forbidden package is discovered we will take appropriate
remedial action against the player using it.

Thank you for your concern and report.  The integrity of our games
remains our highest concern.  We hope you continue to enjoy the games
here on PokerStars, secure in the knowledge that we do everything
possible to ensure a safe playing environment for our players.

Regards,

William
PokerStars Support Team