Poker Robots - Online Poker Bots
Is the threat of computer software programs winning at Internet poker real?
Online Poker for Americans
Unfortunately, most poker rooms no longer accept USA citizens! Once you have found a good Internet poker site that accepts Americans, you then have to figure out how to deposit into the poker room, and cash out your winnings down the road.
There are still a number of great online poker deposit methods out there that work for USA residents, for more info check out: Poker Deposit Methods
Online Poker Bots
Pull up a chair at a friendly poker game in a buddy’s den and you probably know the other players and have some idea of their card-playing weaknesses – like Big Al's habit of fingering his chips when he's itching to raise. But take a seat at a table in one of the rapidly multiplying online card rooms and there's no telling who’s sitting to your right – or if the player is even human.
Concern is growing in online chat rooms and news groups devoted to poker that sophisticated card-playing robots – known as “bots” in the nomenclature of the Web – are being used on commercial gambling sites to fleece newcomers, the strategy-impaired and maybe even above-average players.
“It is pretty much a certainty that bots are playing online,” said Gautam Rao, a 43-year-old Canadian poker pro who regularly plays three high-stakes Internet games simultaneously. “… What we don’t know is how strong they are.”
Widespread use of bots capable of beating your average player would pose a significant problem for the red-hot online poker sector, which has grown exponentially in recent years and is expected to top the $1 billion revenue mark this year. Without some way of verifying the identity – and humanity – of players, the business could be significantly undercut.
However, the threat of poker bots is VERY minimal...
“The strategy of the game is difficult and to sit down and write a program that can beat a table of experienced human players is no trivial task,” he said. "The only game potentially effected by poker bots would be limit poker which most people don't even play. And even then, a poker bot does not have instinct, a major part of online poker above the $0.50/$1 level."
While bots have been used to play the optimal strategy in other online card games, like blackjack, poker is a different animal. The biggest obstacles lie in the amount of information unavailable to the player and the need for the program to be able to employ a variety of strategies at different times, such as bluffing and laying traps for opponents, explained Billings, a doctoral student and master poker player.
A program that can think??? “With chess – I don’t want to trivialize it – but it’s just a matter of calculation,” he said. “With poker, you really need to write a program that can think about the game and reason.”
On top of this, there are two poker rooms that have created a poker bot detecting technology nearly impossible to defeat. Online poker rooms Poker Stars and Ultimate Bet are both using state of the art robot detecting software. While the exact details of this technology are not known, by dissecting both poker clients we were able to conclude that the software was periodically taking screenshots as well as capturing a users keystrokes. It is rumoured that the Full Tilt Poker client has the ability to see what other programs are running on the clients computer (as well as take screen prints when manually trigged by FullTilt security staff), but this is unconfirmed. The Absolute Poker "super user" account that allows players to see others hole cards was an inside job linked to the former CEO of the company, so this type of cheating is more or less impossible.
Professor Billings, creator of Vex Bot, expects online poker to continue to thrive in spite of efforts to develop the “killer bot.” In fact, he added, it may grow even faster.
“I don’t foresee a danger of bots killing the game in any sense,” he said. “More likely, there will be a large contribution of cash from people who try to create bots and fail.”
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Screw online poker bots - there are so many fish over at Carbon Poker (accepts US residents too) you won't need to cheat to make big money! |
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And what are you making an appeal to? Outright stupidity? How does your ability to cite textbook fallacies in many of her comments change anything? There has been no actual evidence presented that she has been running a bot. Her arguing skills are sub-par. Her general demeanor and ability to respond on point leaves something do be desired. But that doesn't mean she's wrong. She has appeared to have trouble answering some simple questions, but Mr. Gatorade is much more guilty of side-stepping simple questions and providing non-aswers than she is.
She said she mostly opens tables and sits. Yes, it's highly suspicious if there is evidence that she has never played many "bots" which play her limits, but such evidence has not been presented, and even if it were, it would doubtless be incomplete. Even if there are good statistics out there they would have to go all the way back to the time at which she created her account for them to have much bearing given the explanations she has already provided.
Multiple people in this thread have said she has sat with them and played them. That's a pretty big strike against the accusers. Sure, people can say "she plays ridiculous marathon sessions and sits at empty tables for hours," but is that true? Or is that just people speaking of what such a bot would behave like and assuming it is true?
Huh? What do you mean anonymous?
McGatorade repeatedly told FTP that beatme1 is operating a bot. FTP knows exactly who beatme1 is and they proceeded to ban her and confiscate $70000. Probably her name is now on some industry-wide cheating blacklist as well. It may be hard for her to ever play again.
A statement was made about her and it apparently led to enormous financial damages. Of course none of this matters if McGatorade is right. But if beatme1 is serious about her innocence then I think she should consult a lawyer about suing McGatorade for libel. Libel doesn't just mean public humiliation. Telling lies to someone's spouse, employer, customer, or supplier and getting them divorced, fired, dropped, or cutoff is quite sufficient.
P.S.: The "illegal gambling" aspect might create problems in court. I don't know and that's what the lawyer is paid for.
Do you think the fact that she doesn't use PT means anything? Most good players use PT, but I know extremely successful players who either do not use PT or use it only for tax purposes. Specifically, people who play HU or even 3 to 5-handed at the higest limits often find little use for it.
Maybe there is evidence out there. Maybe she's running a bot. But that evidence certainly isn't in this thread. All I'm seeing is a lot of, "I have proof, but I won't say what it is." These statements are particularly suspicious when the "proof" that has been given is the farthest thing from incriminating.
I don't want to get into a semantics-off, but I don't think OP's explanation is even "plausible" in that it makes no common sense in the real world for a human to never, ever sit down at a table over tens of thousands of hands at which another player is sitting. There's not even the appearance of truth in that argument IMO, hence it's not even "plausible" (IMO).
If you're saying OP offered a theoretically-possible-explanation-that-few-if-anyone-would-believe-could-be-true-in-real-life for why she never played a single hand against a bot, then I agree with you. I took the tone of your post w/bold included as implying that it was less likely/people should think it's less likely that OP was employing a bot. I guess that's not your contention.
-Bots sit at tables and wait for opponents.
-Humans sometimes sit at tables and wait for opponents, and sometimes sit at tables where opponent is waiting, and over tens of thousands of hands it's virtually impossible (abesnt some odd circumstance/reason) to have never of sat down at a table with person already there.
-BeatMe1 has zero hands against bots that only sit at tables and waits
-BeatMe1 says, "oh, that's because that's just what I do" without offering any logical reason for such behavior (not that it would add much credibility to the argument)
-Statement by BeatMe1 (while addressing the issue that she has never played a single hand against other suspected bots) decreases the likelihood that she is a bot by roughly ZERO % (down from whatever % one in their own judgment, based on the semi-sparse evidence presented, has placed on said likelihood).
But of course, there's a lot of facts out there that we don't/won't have access to, so it's all largely conjecture on our part. Something smells pretty damn fishy though.
I’ve been playing at Full Tilt ever since the majority of poker sites closed to US players. For quite a while Mr. Gatorade has been posting on 2+2 and on his site, endlessly saying that I am a bot and encouraging others to complain to FTP. I do not use software to help me play, and in fact do not even use poker tracker or any other external aid. I developed my game through years of hard work. I got tired of Gatorade’s slander a while ago and challenged Gatorade to a live match but he never responded to my email. I am not a bot.
Full Tilt recently barred me and confiscated my money. They won’t have a conversation with me. They just keep telling me the equivalent of black is white and up is down so for the sake of decency and all that is good and just they must steal my money. You can read for yourself the proof they cite below. I played strictly heads-up limit on Full Tilt.
Some of the winning players who frequent this site might be happy to have me out of the way but you should consider this -- when I’m out of his way and he can’t beat you then YOU will be a bot and the weaklings at Full Tilt will listen to Mr. Gatorade and determine that you are a cheat because the real definition of bot is anyone Gatorade can’t beat. McCarthyism is alive and well on 2+2.
For Full Tilt to claim that they are confiscating my money to compensate the victims is ludicrous. I am the victim. My reputation and livelihood are destroyed. Full Tilt has profited over 70k and Mr Gatorade will profit from easier games, conveniently. His campaign put Full Tilt into a game they cannot win – they either bar the players Mr Gatorade wants gone, or they succumb to his threats of attacking them through the media. They chose the easy way out.
If this group wants to preserve the game I suggest that you folks tell Full Tilt they need proof of wrongdoing before they bar a player and steal her money. And that “In order to protect the integrity of future bot investigations we will not be releasing the details of the investigation.” is not good enough to confiscate a player’s money.
Finally I wish to offer the following challenge to Mr. Gatorade. I will play you live 200/400 fixed limit heads-up at the Bike until one of us loses 200k, or any other reasonable format you may suggest.
Or alternatively, since you seem intent on destroying my name on 2+2, we can do the following. I will play you and 1 other player you choose online, simultaneously. That way 2+2ers can watch the action. I will pay to fly a representative from each of you to my location to watch me play so you can be assured I am human. Put your money where your mouth is.
To quote Mr Gatorade (my response in parenthesis): “bots wont even play me anymore because every time they do sit in I take max amount of time and chat about how they are a bot.” (gee, hard to understand why anyone wouldn’t be thrilled to play a jerk doing that)
agree 100% with both points.
If what the poster says is true then I wouldn't blame some idiot player for accusing you. I would be blaming the FT team for making a bad decision.
The subject-line reads that it was Mr. Gatorade's lies that cost you the money.
Huh? Well, I guess it wouldn't have happened if he hadn't accused you. But it was FT's decision.
They are the ones to blame.
Dumb players make bot or collusion-accusations ALL the time.
The site is supposed to be able to sort out the legit claims from the riff-raff.
I had one player stalk me from table to table because he thought I 'cheated' him heads-up by winning with 65s.
I had raised it preflop and then hit my draw which he thought meant I was cheating.
I was semi-bluff raising with the draw so perhaps he thought that my raising before i had an actual hand meant that I knew I was going to hit my draw or something.
He went from table to table telling people what I had done.
He also said he reported me to support because I was an obvious cheat which I do believe he probably did.
The site never got back to me about it. Hopefully because they were smart enough to see that his accusations were idiotic.
Here are the emails between Full Tilt and myself. They are in reverse order and I have substituted my nickname on Full Tilt for my real name:
And a quote from a post he made on May 9th "I HATE BOTS. If you want to watch a good limit bot.. Watch beatme1 that will only play 50-100 or 100-200. I am updating my site as we speak and it is getting an major upgrade about the bots on all 4 big sites. " You can find it under the heading: NL Bots on Fult Tilt
You can also find this quote under the heading Attention Bothunters!: "I hate bots... But the bots on FTP have officially been destroyed on my list and were found to be botting and subsequently banned from the site. FTP = Good effort and so forth. OP, go to my site and read a little bit about which the bots are on UB and AP. The sites absolutely don’t care that the bots are there and you can even sit and play with the bot and see for yourself. Bots = Rake + starting games in the 30/60 6max bots case = Ub and AP don’t care because there traffic and game selection is almost nil at that level anyhow. Media has been contacted and story is being done about the bots and the sites take on it and what they do about the problem. Ub and AP official response is they don’t have bots, which is ludicrous. FTP when asked said they would investigate and they did and for months and magically right before the FTP interview with "media" all bots on list and some other suspected bots not on list were subsequently found to be using bots and were destroyed. More to come on this on my site in a couple weeks as there are still ends that need to be tied up. FTP actually did well in getting rid of these guys for the fairness of the games and to not allow the negative attention that the NL bots got on here. 2+2 is one thing but the national media is another. Great things are about to happen with the bots and I am excited... You will be too unless your using a bot.
-Crazy Mike (MrGatorade)
He thinks I'm a bot because his definition of a bot is anyone he can't beat.
Wasn't there a huge thread about 4-6 months back about another player who's funds were taken due to "supposed illegal software?"
The funds were taken, the player banned and then after the rep from the site came on here and explained they had "undisbutable proof from their security experts after reviewing the hands etc etc" and it turned out that it was a mistake on the Poker sites fault which they publicly admitted.
I cant remember if it was Full Tilt or Wpex it was one of those two.
There was another case of (Poker Stars I believe) banning a well known posters mother (teddyFBI) becasue she wes a "bot" and it was proven she wasn't. The threads in the archive somewhere
She made a $100 deposit or something like that and 2 days later they banned her and closed her account.
Again the poker site was proven to be wrong.
An then theres the case of Stars banning (I can't remember his name but you can find the video on Utube or in a post in the tourny section on 2 + 2) a player because he was 28 tabling Sit N Go's on 1 monitor. He went as far as making a video of himself doing it and again PokerStars was wrong.
Dont leave that much cash on a site since any Poker Site can confiscate it at any time without having to provide evidence because it will "comprimise their security or some BS like that"
Hello BeatMe1,
Once again, the evidence we have against you is substantial and our decision is final. Your account will not be reopened, nor will your balance be refunded.
This case is closed and is not up for debate. If you wish to further pursue this matter you can contact the Kahnawake Gaming Commission.
So explain yourself. How does the burden of proof lie on the OP? Would you like the bank to take your house then tell you that the burden of proof lies on you to prove that you paid your mortgage?
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