Pokerstars and Party do scan the player's computer for 3rd party software. Full Tilt believes this is an invasion of privacy, and so they do not.

They don't care if it's bot-rake or player/fish-rake... so they need to see a dropping off in the total # of rake taken from playing LHE, and the only way that happens is if ALL LHE players become aware of the bot situation.

Close to all, at least, because even 1/10th fish 9/10th bots could exist (right?) & there's plenty of rake for Tilt.

What, no mention of sngs?

I think even though bots at the moment are not that great, its still important to stop their spread early, as they will only get better. I guess they may provide a greater drain on the economy because the ability to increase the number of games they play is potentially a lot more. Tho from an AI point of view its interesting to see if they can create a poker playing bot that could match the best humans. Surely razz being the simplest game, would be the best to design a bot for.

so where do people get bots from to begin with then?

Surely you can't just buy them off the net? Do people make them or what?

I'm new to all this talk of bots so pardon my ignorance....

You know guys what I really think.

All the time I hear from many players (here in these forums for example) how bots are going to kill poker and draw the economy and how pokerbots should not be allowed.

At the same time, all the time I hear from botters how pokerbots should not be allowed, as if they were allowed, too many people will start to build them or humans will start to recognize them, or whatever kind of thing - which will take off from the bottomline of the botters, you see.

The thing however is, that you are either too greedy to acknowledge the fact that there might exist other winning players, or, most often, bots (or alternatively humans) are just your excuse for sucking at poker, or pokerbotting. If it's the latter, then calm down, it's all fine, and you have to understand it, that out of all players out there, and out of all botters out there, most of them are losers, like you. And few of them are winners. That's what poker is about. There are few winners, and many losers. It's in the FAQ.

I was making 10bb/100 as a player, and I'm making 10bb/100 as a botter and that's how life is.

Good night, and good luck.

(1) You're view of online casinos as 100% benign is likely inaccurate. A large poker site will dream up many applications for Poker AI... the least of which is spotting bots.

(2) The popular idea of Bots as standalone units that run while the developer sleeps... is wrong. It's more like a Bot War Room where expert players each run several Bots on different sites. The line between Expert Player and Bot is completely blurred.

(3) One way to contain Bots is the REQUIRE every large or very active account to have USB Security Tokens (I have several for my brokerage accounts). If (a) fingerprint ID was required at random intervals and (b) exact GPS of the PC could be tracked... large scale botting becomes very difficult. Only 1% of accounts would require a Security Token.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_token

The naivete of this thread about SNG's is amazing

The naivete of anyone...
That would buy your silly canned bot is incredible.

This thing is so primitive...
That the "Poker Bot Security" manual section...
Consists of "renaming the program".

I doubt that any poker site would even bother banning this thing...
Except on principle...
Because only a total degen would run something this silly...
And lose money + pay rake for their stupidity.

Whoa there genius! It's not my bot and it (and others)are making money hand over fist on FTin the super turbo 3.50 sng's when you count in rakeback. There is a whole thread about account locking on the forum... Maybe you should check up on something before you run your head?

Why insult the playing of people you don't know just because those people don't want to play against bots?

Most players sign up with the expectation that they will be playing against other people, not against bots.

It's a fair assumption, as sites supposedly try to ban bots.

Do I suck at poker?

Yes I do.

Am I losing more than I'm winning?

No, actually, I'm not.

I still suck.

I'll learn.

Even if I were losing and were never going to learn how to play properly, ever, no one has the right to suggest that because I suck, I have no right to complain that bots are in a game that is supposed to be human only.

The one has nothing to do with the other, so far as I can see, except to shut people up about the subject, and of course, that won't work on a big mouth, lousy poker playing born loser like myself.

Lol, rocky, I haven't insulted anyone, I made an observation that was covering both winning and losing players. I simply elaborated more on the losing one.

I don't understand why it is supposed that the games are human only. You also should not take that as the norm, many players that I know don't mind bots at all.

You must be kidding?

I can imagine poker sites offering expert bots instead of clients so everyone can click a button, go away and let bots play poker

Advantage that computers have over human in most aspects of information processing is incredible. First computers were inferior to chess players, now they can beat grandmasters. It's all matter of algorithm, and you have opponent that doesn't get tired, don't do mistakes or goes to tilt.

That's not only unfair but is plain cheating, and can't be compared to information gathering or processing, tho I would say huds and calculators are pretty much cheating in my book too

Cuba

If you try to make the point that usage of any software must be forbidden, then it is a valid point (to which I will not agree, however. I think certain software that give unfair advantage, like HUDs, or collusion supporting software, etc. should be forbidden, but that's all).

Otherwise, just stating that bots are unfair to human due to their computational capabilities in otherwise fair game play is not a valid point in the current online poker state of affairs, as other tools (like poker tracker, as the simplest example) also contains computational capabilities that no human has, and hence one that uses it has unfair (according to how you want to put the game rules) advantage.

I live in Michigan, and I am more than 100 miles from the nearest casino.

OK, I will write this down. Not sure if it will survive the mods crew, but looking at some of the above posts - I hope yes, and this is going to be the best advice you're going to get on this topic.

Coding the Wheel
The best source of how to start with pokerbots for complete newbies is codingthewheel.com. This is a series of many articles, writen by James Devlin, software developer from North Caroline. You need to know programming (C++) so that this is of use to you.

PokerAI
PokerAI.org (portal, wiki - pokerai.org/wiki, and forums - pokerai.org/pf3) is the number one in academic discussions (you will find research discussions that go beyond Alberta's reasearch); it's the #1 organized community for pokerbotting for real money, and it's the number one in pokerbotting with style. The site is not associated with any particular bot or framework.

OpenHoldem
openholdem.org, or maxinmontreal.com - This is opensource (thus free) pokerbotting framework, compatible (and a derivate, and today - already better) of winholdem. The openholdem forum is the largest in terms of traffic (while the winholdem forum is nowadays pretty much dead).

University of Alberta research
poker.cs.ualberta.ca - This is university of alberta computer poker research group. They organize annual pokerbotting contest, and publish a lot of papers on the topic, more than any other university out there. Alberta's papers are purely academical, but they can be very inspirational. These (I would recomend Michael Johanson Master thesis) can also be great introductions to the game theory of poker and poker botting. The people of UofA also produced the software PokerAcademy, and PokerAcademy Prospector. This is really great software, but unfortunately their business isn't doing so well, so the development of these tools currently stale.

Personal Websites
There are many personal websites where you can find some goodies. E.g. the one of Ian Fellows (INOTbot), Teppo Salonen (BluffBot), Alex Selby (Optimal preflop heads up solution), Aaron Davidson (Poki), and many more, check out this page (http://pokerai.org/wiki/index.php/Ca...r_Poker_People)

Others
Pretty much every site, and every bot (with very few exceptions, which are too inferior to mention them), except the ones above, is either dead, or a scam. Everyone that sells you a bot is 99% scamming you. Keep this in mind, people discover the hot water daily by buying bots and then busting good amount of money.

Learn C#, C++ or Java
Is what you will need to get started. Period. There are pokerbotters that manage it without that - but it's pretty much pain in the ass. If you don't know programming, you need to do it full time, and you have some chance to succeed but not big. If you are age 14-27 then learning programming can worth it anyway, it can be a lifechanging experience for you. And if you're older (but not very old) it may still worth it, independant of pokerbotting. If you are completely new to programming, be prepared for at least a year time learning curve (learnign "by the way" I mean, not full time) and that is if you're not stupid.

Can I make money while I sleep?
If you're are stupid and suck - you will not succeed with pokerbotting, similarly to how you are failing to succeed with anything else in your life. It is definetely not the silver bullet that will make you money while you sleep. It can be a great hobby, a lot of fun, and for some poeple - even make you money along that, but don't start it for (or relying) on the money part. Keep in mind that 80+, or even I can say 90+% of all people running pokerbots are losing money. And this is excluding all people using prepackaged bots (or bots for sale) - which all of them lose money, cause these are EV-.

Is developing pokerbots legal?
Yes, without doubt. Large universities does it.

Is using pokerbots for real money OK?
It is not cheating from game theory point of view, and from that standpoint other things (like using hug or exchanging hand histories) hold unfair advantage, while pokebotting does not.
It is also justified and even encouraged in other environments, e.g. in stocks trading.
Using pokerbots in conjuction with specific poker site depends on their specific end user license agreements (EULA) that you agree to. Unfortunately, most poker EULAs forbids using bots. The EULAs, however, are writen in such a way, that almost every player breaks them, in one way or another. There is no common legal basis or consequences defined of what happens if you violate the casinos EULA. Most poker sites will either first warn you, or directly close your account and eventually seize all of your account money.

so are you saying that anyone who is good at poker and can learn to program a bot properly can make money in their sleep?

No, where have I said that. You will need more than being good at poker, and being able to program. But that would be a good starting point.

about 30 secs, worth of research/googling will reveal too you easily downloaded and set up bot programs that can run on FTP/UB/crypto sites. The micro limits at UB are FULL of bots atm. Once you recognize the obvious and repetitive play of these bots, it can become pretty profitable playing against them correctly.

While playing NL10 at UB(free money from a freeroll), and chatting with another player, we figured that there were at least 4 bots running at our table. Needless to say we crushed em.

With my curiosity piqued, I got up this morning and did a little research and found a bot program that offered a free 100 hand trial. So i downloaded it, made the appropriate settings on my computer and in the table lobby(took about 10mins), and let it play the free one hundred hands on a micro stakes limit table on default settings while i went to work.

When i got home i had made about $2 at .05/.10 limit holdem and 5 UB points.
In order to continue using the program i would have to pay $129, which i am not going to do. I simply did it in order to educate myself. I feel that i now have a bit of an edge in playing against the obvious bots now that i know how they operate. I would suggest everyone playing online cash games do the same. Especially if you are playing on FT or UB.

Are Bots "cheating" in any "objective" sense?

(1) Poker sites have drawn ENTIRELY ARBITRARY rules...
In terms of what constitutes online poker "cheating"...
And these ARBITRARY rules vary from site to site.

(2) Example of entirely ARBITRARY rules:

(a) NOT CHEATING - Running a sophisticated HUD that scans a large enterprise class database to evaluate opponents... while running a half dozen other utilities to "find" weak players and facilitate multi-tabling.

(b) CHEATING - Running a simple program that auto-folds trash.

(3) People from a live game background will universally vilify Bots... while 99% of these people COLLUDE by soft-playing their friends in order to extract maximum money from drunken tourists and little old ladies pension checks.

People from a financial trading background or software engineering background... will view Bots as OK... because it takes just as much talent and skill to run a +EV Bot... as it takes to play +EV poker. But these people will always view COLLUSION as wrong.

(4) The TOS argument is nonsensical... since any US player that transfers funds to an offshore casino... is breaking US Federal law... and has CHOSEN to commit a crime.

So you can see that the Poker Police...try to selectively apply "moral absolutism"... in the midst of a Poker Culture that is strongly based on "moral relativism".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_relativism

I have an observation for you. You are going to have to find a job pretty soon. The idea that people are ok with playing with bots seems absurd. Given the fact that chess computers increasingly annihilate humans it wouldnt be long before humans were out of the game if fools like you were the norm. If you really are a "botter" you are a scum bag pure and simple and I think you realize this, your thread to convince yourself to the contrary notwithstanding.

Singularity is a myth, but a cool one for MoonBats...

And Indiana has a professional web site with 500 to 1000 visitors/day... though I DO NOT believe he is a +EV poker player or botter.

And you have completely missed a Major Point...
Which renders all your thinking on Poker Bots wrong.

Poker and Poker Botting are BOTH Zero Sum Games...
That are roughly ** equally difficult to play **.
Both require a genius level talent, discipline and skills...
And each have < 5% long term winners.

Bots are no more a "threat" to the Poker Economy...
Than the thousands of people trying to play professionally...
Of which only a TINY minority succeed.

In fact...
Poker Pros and Pro Botters overlap...
And the ONLY Bots that matter are run by Expert Players...
So the only way to take out the Top Bots...
Is to LIMIT the play of ALL winning players...
To XX hours/week or one table or whatever.

If Bots ever become an actual problem for Online Casinos... ALL winning, hi-volume players will have various limitations imposed on their play.

@DMACM
Of course chess computers anihilate humans, and in some variants of poker game computers will start to anihilate humans. But this has nothing to do with bots. When a game theory advisor (that can possibly be a part of a bot, as one of its applications) become available, this is another thing. And there is nothing to stop usage of advisors, so once a game variant is sufficiently solved, and this solution is sufficiently popular - of course the respective game is dead, completely irrespective of bots.

Why people don't play lots of blackjack? Is it because of bots, or because the game is sufficiently solved, and the edges are small?

As on the scum thing,

In fact, all people exchanging hands and using HUDs are much bigger scum bags than any botter (if you take that classificaiton line), as exchanging hands is unfair advantage, while botting is completely respecting the rules of the game of poker.

In the long run, I think a mediocre players like you will be the one that will be out of the game, and need to look for a job, as they will not be able to sustain the increasing competition from better and better players, as well as better and better bots. The fish is going to stay for a while, that's for sure.

I don't convience myself in anything, I most often state scientific facts, or elementary logical conclusions.

As for a job (and to your comment Redman that I'm not EV+), I do have a job, a very good one, don't worry here. Poker, and pokerbotting are just a hobby for me, although hugely money generating one. In fact, it's the competitive envorment that I like the most - the fact that I can be and am so much better than anyone else trying to do the same. The money won, is a mere side effect of that.

OK...
I retract my comment about -EV...
You are very likely profitable at micro-stakes...
But it's all penny ante stuff...
Unless your Bots can beat at least $1-2 for 3-4 BB/100...
And you can push it well into 6 figures annually...
And get your money out.

There was a post in the NLHE "Pokers Stars Regulars" thread about 2 months ago... with PT stats... proving that NO ONE is beating small to mid-stakes at > 6.5 BB/100. Based on my own 7,000,000 hands for Party $1-2 to $5-10, which are softer than Stars... NO ONE with > 50,000 hands is > 10BB/100 (except maybe several outliers out of 30,000 players).

6.0-7.0BB/100 is the ceiling for low mid-stakes.

And here's a way for non-engineers to view Bots...
Elegant simplification often give great perspective.

Just pretend that people are playing ONLY against people... and Bots are playing ONLY against Bots... so you have 2 separate Zero Sum Games. In each one you will have < 5% long-term winners... and if you then merge everything... not much changes.