I'm both a software engineer and Pro Trader...
And am successfully running Automated Tradings Systems on the NYSE.

The spread of Poker Bots...
Is somewhat analogous to explosion in "algorithmic" or "black box" trading on stock exchanges...
Where Trading Bots now account for > 50% of all volume.

So what has been the effect?

Not much...
Algorithmic trading infrastructure is VERY expensive...
And, imo, the "black boxes" are just playing a Zero Sum Game among themselves...
Where 10% of the "black boxes" win and 90% of the "black boxes" lose...
But the ULTRA HIGH COST has created a sort of benign equilibrium.

A key problem is the state of leading edge AI.

Current AI cannot come anywhere close to replicating the high level, multi-faceted decision making of a Pro Trader. So the most successful "black boxes" are actually manned and "overidden" by Pro Traders that cost, say, 100K/year. And the guys coding the software make > 100K/year on Wall Street.

Poker is different...

But it's KEY to understand...
That Bots can be severely limited by applying simple "prove you are human" techiques we are all familiar with. This inconveniences customers and scares them... so Poker Sites have chosen the correct financial strategy: ignore Bots and enjoy the rake they produce.

But once things evolve and there is an actual clamp down on Bots... Good-bye to simple, amateur Bots. Only the Top Bots designed to be manned by a Poker Pro will be viable... and will be coded by guys that would be making > 100K/year on Wall Street.

Is there really a big difference between:

(a) 4 Pros versus 6 Donks at a table

OR

(b) 2 Very Expensive Pro-manned Bots + 2 Pros vesus 6 Donks at a table ???

Not really. Everybody relax. Nothing really changes.

This analysis is incorrect, of course things change, or no one would be spending the time to develop complex bots.

Same with the Stock Market example...

One other difference is that the simple interface that poker clients have to their user will make bots extremely hard to detect.

I'm with Sniper, its extremely stupid to assume they're not going to improve. People use to say the same thing about chess software. While poker is a lot harder to develop AI for, its still not impossible. To repeat a line I use a lot when talking about bots: to say they'll never improve to the point of being a danger to online 'pros' is ignoring the complete history of computer science.

I think my post was misunderstood...
"Nothing really changes" was just a general point about the world.

Cliff Notes version:

(1) The very high cost of Top Bots will moderate their impact.

(2) Top Bots MUST be manned by Poker Pros... because today's AI cannot handle the 5-10% most subtle poker decisions.

(3) Poker sites have exactly 2 choices:

(a) scare the sh*t out of customers by admitting heavy Bot penetration and instituting intrusive tests to "prove humanity"

OR

(b) The obvious choice: lie and count the rake

(4) Poker Bots are here to stay. The Poker World is like the stock market in 1965... when I'm sure computer trading was viewed as akin to "cheating". Today 50-70% computer trading.


And in reply to jjshabado...
As a Computer Science grad I have been following AI trends since the late 1970s. No field have ever overrated their potential advancement more than the AI field. Ever.

Virtually none of the great things promised have become part of everyday life. In 2007, AI cannot even replace a telephone operator.

Like that Full Tilt Bot operation that was discussed here in May. What a ridiculously primitive setup. Lay people actually think this is sophisticated. My trading operation is more sophisticated... and I'm nowhere near leading edge where < 1 ms latency is the standard.

In truth, for the truly talented software engineers that chose fraud and their sponsors... beating poker sites is penny ante stuff... and way down the list of lucrative targets.

As a Computer Science grad I know that this "No field have ever overrated their potential advancement more than the AI field. Ever." is a stupid statement.

I'm not talking about the flying-car type promises made 30 years ago. I'm talking about the fact that there has been steady and significant progress in the field of AI game playing for the past 2 or 3 decades. There is a lot of very promising and interesting research being done in AI now. To think that this progress is just going to stop is naive. I'm not talking about the next 2 or 3 years. I'm talking about the next 5-20 years. Maybe it'll be on the near end, maybe the far, but either way Poker AI will be advanced enough to beat the vast majority of online players.

Actually, its pretty close. And the fact that you think this is a relevant example shows that you really haven't thought too much about bots. Why is replacing a telephone operator with a machine hard? Because of the interface. The actual job being performed is trivial for a computer. Its making machines process/decode/replicate the human voice and language that is hard. A Poker bot needs a very narrow interface. It just needs to be able to get its cards, the board cards, and the action. All of this needs to be presented to the human users in a reasonable way ( who's going to play poker at a site that uses squiggles everywhere to obscure suit values? ) and that means its not that hard for a bot to get that information for processing.

Oh and...

1. Whats high cost today, is mass market cheap tomorrow.

2. Once a bot of a high enough quality is produced its only a matter of time before the code/program is out there. Hell, its even likely that some of hte best bots will be programmed by universities/open-source people and so it'll be freely available.

Maybe not today, but its just a matter of time. Sure poker may have enough human nature type situations that top pros will always beat top poker bots, but to kill online poker you just need to have an environment where average people quickly go broke.

Thinking about this statement more, I'm going to go with Alchemy.

These are very interesting, complex issues.

Here is another perspective:

From the Casino's point of view...
There is NO DIFFERENCE between a human Pro and a Bot.

Both scare the average player...
And both impose an additional "rake" on the average player...
Both hurt the casino.

In the long run... there is no reason to try and make distinctions between a human Pro and a Bot. It's only a matter of time before BOTH are "discouraged" from playing... not unlike the way Vegas banned blackjack card counters.

That's why the Bot issue is ultimately moot. From the perspective of the a casino Chief Financial Officer... human Pro = Bot.

Its not quite the same though. The ratio of good humans to bad humans form a pretty stable ecology. Good humans don't just materialize. Once a good bot exists, there is an infinite number of them. Thats what kills the online game. The fish/shark analogy exists for a reason.

Live, there is also the human element. There are lots of people that know they're losers (even if they convince themselves they're just 'small' losers) who don't care because they enjoy it, and they have fun. That fun atmosphere is harder to generate online.

I played 1/2 NL yesterday at a horrible (skillwise) table. I was definitely outclassed (4 or 5 guys regularly played 2/5NL), but it was a blast. It was fun, it was sociable, and they didn't yell at the 2 complete fishes.

yes, 2*X was an example. Maybe I should have said Y*X. My point was greed will always motivate some (not all) to seek out that edge, that extra measure of profit.

And I am not talking about just Stars. Stars has a lot more to lose by getting out of line than a smaller site. I agree that stars is much less likely to engage in anything unscrupulous. The newer no name sites are the ones you should watch out for.

You make another mistake in your reasoning. you don't think it would be worth the risk. you are not the one running a poker site. You have to step back and ask yourself if they would have motive and opportunity. time and again I see posters on this site say that (it wouldn't be worth the risk) and time and again I point out how that thinking is fallacious. It may not be worth the risk if you were in their shoes. But you're not. and you're making the mistake of assuming that those that run poker sites have the same level of rationality and tolerance for risk that you do.

Yea, and you're still buying a Ford truck from the same company but with a different management team. The management team or a large part of it that was in place during the fraud or whatever is probably now in jail or awaiting trial.

There are many many laws and regulations in place for corporations now. If you think the Companies and more importantly, the people that run these companies just get a "slap on the wrist", then with all due respect, you aren't that well informed.

It would be simple - every X number of rounds require a CAPCHA check - if it fails, log them off and take note.

Where did you read about bots on FT?

[quote]
It would be simple - every X number of rounds require a CAPCHA check - if it fails, log them off and take note. /quote]

That would work now (although it would piss people off), but you can't count on that in the future. Around the time bots get good enough to cause a serious problem to online poker, will be the same time they're good enough at image processing to get past the stupid images.

Post deleted by Ryan Beal

Conventional AI is nothing like the human brain.

Chess is much easier to program because it is computable.

In poker, there is unknown information, therefore it is not computable. No one can truly say what is mathematically correct unless they know what is in everyone's hands...which of course would not be poker.

Put another way, a quantum computer with little memory could play grandmaster chess, but would be horrible at poker.

lol.....no

this thread is a lol