Absolutely.

If it is common knowledge that it is common practice. I would think intuitively, it is obvious. Imagine if botting was a common practice and everyone knew that it was a common practice (it would be hard to concieve how online poker could continue in that case, but let's put that aside for now). I really don't think you could even fault anyone for doing it. In fact I would probably do it myself if that was the case and I had the opportunity. In comparison, for an example I would consider winning money from losing players in honest play a pretty terrible thing to do if it wasn't the case that the losing players would lose their money anyway.

As I said I feel it should be obvious. If almost all regs were refusing to use trackers and they were outlawed at every site, you would be a total douche to do it. In contrast to today's situation, even if it was the case that trackers were technically banned by sites.

Grunching from OP basically...

It is deceiving to your opponent who believes they are playing another person. Botting violates a basic rule of the game too. No difference between this and any other form of cheating. If Phil Ivey played against you and could see your cards but you didn't know it, that would be unacceptable regardless of if you would lose anyways. You believe he is following the rules and wouldn't accept the challenge otherwise. I mean this is just basic ****. How can you think it is acceptable? I'll read the other posts now.

Why does it matter that some players can beat it? That makes no sense. If it is ethical to exploit "bad" players, it is acceptable to exploit "good" players too. This is like saying it is less bad to punch Stephen Hawking than Mike Tyson when you want to punch somebody because you wouldn't normally punch Mike Tyson. I mean, ok? What's that have to do with whether you should be punching a person at all?

But there's a big difference between the cheating you described and the "cheating" that using a bot would be. In your example, Ivey has access to knowledge that is not allowable by the rules of the game. Not knowing someone else's cards is fundamental to poker. In the bot case, you use allowed inputs and make proper outputs, it's just the processing of information that is tampered with.

I've been pretty surprised by most of the responses here, especially for a SMP topic. Are we not mature enough to discuss this is in a rational way without resorting to threats to ban, release ip addresses, and such?

Yes, bots are against the rules of any poker site. If that's the extent to one's sense of morality, then sure, they're "immoral" in that sense. But I think we can do better.

Saying that they are unfair because they are deceiving the opponent, to me, seems like a bad argument. Poker is a game of deception. Poker players are constantly doing things to throw off their opponents, to trick them. I don't think this argument will bear fruit.

The only relevant arguments that I've seen are the ones concerning fatigue and human fallibility. In my opinion, this is the reason that poker bots are cheating the game and why you should not use your bot if you have any respect for poker or the other players. You could easily write an algorithm on a piece of paper that encompasses every possibility and follow it exactly. You could play as if you were a computer using logical if statements and such.

BUT, you're human, and there's always the possibility that you'll make a mistake or be tempted to deviate from your algorithm. You may say, "This time, but only this time, I'm going to 3 bet my AK, because I have a feeling..." or something along those lines. I'm not saying that you WILL, but that possibility, the minor chance, is what separates you from a computer, and why there's an inherent difference between playing algorithmically and actually using a computer.

+100000000000

edit: The topic might be worthy of discussion but the OP should be banned because he brought it up in order to find some justification for making one. He stated this very explicitly in his post ffs.

That analogy, along with the punching one, was for the argument that "they lose anyways" as if this has any relevance at all to the issue. If you do not believe it is unethical to use a bot to exploit "bad players" then it is also not unethical to use one on "good players."

Umm? You would be deceiving a person by being able to see their cards without them knowing but you already conceded this is not allowed by the rules... you can only deceive players within the established rules. People expect you to deceive them in certain ways and is part of the appeal. Bots are not accepted within the framework the same way SuperUsing is not (with regards to your "deception" argument).

I'm going to semi-grunch this one, and ramble at that since it's late.

First, taking all the "lost pennies" from any system of transactions does not hurt no one, it hurts everyone a tiny bit, assuming those pennies would really have been lost otherwise. Basically, you're adding to inflation by a miniscule amount.

Back on topic, one issue here is that you're really hurting the good players by removing one more fish from their tables and replacing it with a poor TAG (I assume). Yes, at least some will adjust, but you've effectively taken out a more profitable player. Also, you've made the game less enjoyable for the fish, as I can only assume a bot isn't a very interesting opponent for the typical fish compared to, say, another fish or a maniac. It's also less enjoyable for the good players of course, but that's not their primary reason for being at the table usually. Anyway, you make it less enjoyable for the fish, eventually they find something better to do with their time*

That wasn't an ethical argument, obviously, but it's something to keep in mind. Ethically, it's dubious; socially, it's clearly unacceptable by almost all. For those players who are in it purely for the thrill and interpersonal competition aspect, and who come to a site believing there won't be bots, it's clearly using their feelings and expectations against them for profit. But then, that's half the game. At higher stakes, I assume it's even more than half, but what do I know of HSNL?

I think it's the nature of poker specifically that makes this so dubious. A lot of fish come in thinking it's basically black jack against other people. Many (at least before 2000) might have fully assumed that they were near-equals to the best, and their only real distinction was they weren't as good at bluffing or opponent reading or not giving tells, not realizing the maths and systems behind the facade. Was/is it unethical for pros to use these facts against the fish for personal profit? Shouldn't the fish realize that they're entering a scene where lying and manipulation are the name of the game? Seems a bit shaky, but it's an interesting angle at least...

Is it unethical to use something someone else is not aware of against them for personal profit in general? What if you let them know about it in fine print? What if you do so misleadingly, for instance making the fine print easily misread by a cursory inspection, although technically correct if given enough concentration and time to read it?

*Coming back to this previous point: is the act of harming the game of poker ethical? Is the act of driving players away from poker ethical? I would say a tentative yes to both. There really are a lot of better uses of one's time, and the fish are just going to lose their money, many not ever realizing why or gaining anything resembling a net positive out of the experience. For many, quite the net negative.

Perhaps, ethically, the best thing that could happen overall is if poker gets overrun by bots that kill the action.

Also you block a potentially "good player" from sitting in your seat and winning money. You also make it less likely other "good players" at the table will win from the fish while your bot is playing. I don't think this or what DDNK said is relevant to if it is unethical or not but OP seems caught up in making the bot only take from the fish and doesn't want to otherwise harm the game (it seems)... yet it does no matter what.

Did you just argue that because it could take the spot of a good player or it could take the spot of a bad player, it's 50/50? It had the smell of that argument in it...

Otherwise, it seems we agree that the bot collectively takes from the good players, a sort of transaction cost for allowing them to take from the fish, yes? If the bot is profitable, it is reducing the money all players can expect to win at the game for the same effort, yes, but taking 0.2BB/100 away from a -5BB/100 player is a lot less problematic than taking it from a 1.5BB/100 grinder.

Make the transaction costs high enough and you'll kill the game...

Maybe we should discuss the ethics of 15BB shortstacking and VPP-whoring supernits while we're at it since they're nearly (if not literally in many cases) in the same category as simple bots.

you can make a bot play however you want. use a random number generator and he'd play 23o utg .05% of the time if you'd like. have him slowroll 2%, w/e.

I get the feeling a basic uNL bot isn't going to have that complicated a script as to make it interesting to a fish while remaining +EV overall. The slow rolling would work, but otherwise I suspect it would likely turn out as a fairly dull and tight TAG.

Grunch.

I think it would be a worthwhile exercise (for the programmers in question) to have games where only bots can play (i.e. have a gaming room where the sole purpose is for people to test their bots against each other). Whenever I program it forces me to explore the problem being solved in a logical, step by step way - this is a process which would be highly beneficial to the individual if the problem being considered was poker imo.

I'm actually going to create my own offline poker game in the summer, and try and set a few different styles of bot up against each other.

I may not create anything of any use by the end, but in this case that wouldn't be the point. It would be the act of exploring the problem that would be useful, not the resulting program.

Perhaps OP could try something like this, instead of breaking T&Cs and potentially getting banned from whatever gaming room he plays?

Hahaha, this is actually a fun point and I pretty much agree. If someone farmed money with bots and gave it to charity I would actually 100% cheer them.

This however, is bogus. Even the fish should realise that poker is a game where one player uses his capabilities as a human being to win money from the other. Everything you mention fits the category perfectly. If anything, you should be talking about various software. Even then, for the reasons I mentioned before and others, HUDs and trackers and tableninjas are widely considered a natural extension of the player's capabilities. They are publicly advertised and distributed resources accessible to anyone.

Botting is not considered a natural extension of the player's capabilities as a human and for a reason. It's not a human being playing the game! Nor is it a publicly available resource. Algorithms are a more complicated issue - one could develop algorithms simply for research purposes and there is a gradient of extent of assistance, and besides when the performance of algorithms becomes comparable to human players, the online game is going to collapse anyway. AFAIK, there have even been software around that tells the player what decision to make, but noone has a problem with it because thus far the advice is horrible. As it stands now, the use of decision-making AI generally allows you to make money only because you're not present. There is no gradient or difficulty understanding why it's cheating.

P.S. As I said before, IMO from a simple humane perspective playing poker is actually only justified indeed because the fish are going to lose their money anyway. If someone asked me for honest advice wether they should be playing poker, I would straight up tell them if I thought they were only going to lose money. That doesn't have relevance to reality though, does it. The fish are fish and they lose money without listening to anyone's advice. Realistically the only people that winning players take money from by playing are other winning players. So in this sense the opinion of the fish is kind of irrelevant. They are going to lose their money no matter what. Your choice is only slightly reducing the amount of money that a bunch of people would gain doing the exact same thing you do. If most people refused to play poker because they didn't want to take money from losing players, the only effect it would have would be a bunch of more selfish players getting much more rich while the losing players would lose the exact same amount. So cynically we might say that how you make money with poker is a matter between you and other winning players. Well, no winning player would be able to say that you don't have a right for the money you earned using programs accepted by the community. But botting is a huge douche move even from this cynical perspective.

Too tired (can't sleep) to get into it, but one minor point:
everyone loses more money with an above-average bot. The fish, the pros, everyone. If there's a table with 9 people on it, 3 fish, 3 nits/shorts/sosos, 2 decent grinders, 1 guy playing a lot lower than he could, and then a 10th, above-average bot walks in, everyone's EV drops. The fish goes from playing versus 2 other fish (neutral EV opponents) out of 8 opponents (25% of the table is his equal) to playing 2 fish out of 9 opponents (22% now). Perhaps it's not a direct loss of 3% since a disproportionate amount of his lost money would have gone to the better players, but it's still going to be some portion of that 3%, not 0%. The pros go from having 25% of their opponents being easy EV to only 22%; the average players likewise lose 3% of their easily beaten opponents.

In the aggregate, the %ages are next to nothing when the player base goes from an original 9 to 900K, of course, but the end result -people losing the expected daily amount- is the real measuring stick. It's basically stealing that $5 or $10 or $20 an hour, although from people willingly walking around in the figurative dark alley playing with a big wad of 100s.

This brings up an interesting question:
is it equally unethical to, say, lightly stab someone walking down a safe street who had no expectation or desire of violence as it is to do the same to someone walking down a dark alley who was doing it solely for the adrenaline rush of being in a dangerous situation? I think so, but won't unpack it right now.

Also, the more bots, the more bad players realize there are bots, the less thrill they find, the less likely they are to play. Won't outweigh the theft, but it ever-so-slightly rebalances the overall equation.

Fine, I'll get into it after all. Creating an algorithm is an extension of an individual's capabilities. It is, of course, one that creates a shell fully shielded from momentary lapses in reason or transient urges, which is a clearly unfair advantage given the psychological nature of the game, and one of the two primary issues I'm seeing with bots.

The algorithms aren't public resources, but neither was Akenman/Chen's internal algorithms until they cashed in with MoP. No one would claim they were using an unfair advantage before that publication, but in this sense there is no distinction. Anyone can create the algorithms with the right amount of effort and study, and this is a game where it is expected that the effort and study one puts in will pay out. In other words, lazy people shouldn't complain about not developing (pun?) at the rate of those who are dedicating themselves to it. Perhaps some people lack the necessary intellectual talents to make a good algo, but that's not an fairness issue in an intellectually competitive game, at least not ethically speaking.

You cannot have any idea that the guy in the dark alley is any more interested in getting stabbed. Otherwise technically there would be a difference. Also if it was common for people to seek dangerous situations in dark alleys.

Is it an unfair advantage to use tobacco or other substances if it makes you less likely to have momentary lapses in reason? Also where do you draw a line? Is it okay to use an algorithm which only analyses player stats and positions and stack sizes and merely tells you wether you should fold or play a starting hand in order to save concentration for inane decisions while multitabling? How about one which extends it to flop play and tells you wether you should cbet or not based on flop texture? Etc...

Good point. I shouldn't assume all actors have full information in an ethical scenario.

Well in that case you're basically giving him what he wants so how can you compare it to stabbing someone at random?

After a bit of googling on the subject it seems that botting is a far more prevalent than I thought. I'm surprised that sites aren't doing more to prevent it. I guess that's because they don't want to admit that it's a big problem because it would scare away the fish? Otherwise GUI fix would be pretty effective temporary solution.

For me (and many others, I think), a subtext of the argument that's hard to ignore though not logically relevant to the immediate question is that eventually — and imo not too long from now — bots are going to kill online poker. Beating humans is a solvable computational problem, and with this much money on the line it's a solvable problem that will be solved.

Whereas Checkers and Chess have been solved to some extent (completely in the first instance and to a very high degree in the second), surely a poker solution can't come anywhere near as close? This is an intrinsic result of a game that is heavily influenced by luck and also by the personalities involved playing the game.

Saying a bot is +EV is one thing, but to say there is no way to exploit it is another.

Just been reminded of this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEwE4kEeBPM

Lederer weighs in with his I'll admit, possibly hideously biased and uneducated opinion.

As an interesting and off topic side note, has anyone heard of the up and coming poker documentary coming out called Post Oak Bluff (of which this interview clip with Lederer will be a part)? If you follow the link to the video poster's channel on YouTube there's a whole bunch of other interview clips available. Looks like it could be decent.

Considering the exponential growth of IT as explained Kurzweil, beating any humans at any type of poker will probably be solved in a couple of decades. Transformation of online games starting from nanostakes into a botwar will begin much sooner, in fact you could claim that it's going on already.

That and it increases their income. 100 bots playing 12 hours a day makes them more money than 100 humans playing 4 per day. More hands = more profit for them. So long as the bots don't start to drive away the fish (I'm out of the loop, but this doesn't seem to be the case), the sites have an incentive to not crack down on them just as they have an incentive to not crack down on shorties and nit supernovas (the ones that aren't bots). Put another way, the bots grind 1BB/100 out of the total amount of incoming money from the fish, and the sites take their extra transaction costs out as well from the bots. Everyone but the good, cued in, still human players are happy, although the fish are probably less interested.

PS, I would think software that told you exactly what to do was "cheating" if you believe the game should be taken as a serious competition and not simply as a system for dedicated/smart people to take money from degenerates/fools. Tobacco and other supplements wouldn't be an issue for me at this point.

At this point, I suppose I could argue that most players know they're going up against bots, and it's effectively part of the landscape, so it's fair game. If you don't want to play against bots and are in it for a ~fair pyschological competition, there's always the casino... but then, just like some people don't realize all the math in poker, some don't realize all the bots that are likely at their tables

Once again, where do you draw the line? Is already a program that summarises the players' stats and stack sizes for preflop decisions too much? IMO you have a smooth gradient from pocket calculator to full independent algorithm and I can't see a nonarbitrary point to stop.

Also you are not taking money from degenerates/fools. You are taking money from other dedicated/smart people. The fools will lose their money no matter what.

I think it's hugely relevant. As I said earlier in the thread, this is almost certainly the reason why bots are seen as pretty much the apex of scummy tactics in online poker. Community norms are obviously massively against bots, but only recently and still pretty mildly against things like ghosting (having a better player watch your sessions and give you advice.) Why is that?

It is pretty difficult to reconcile these two things (why does it matter who gives you your advice?) unless you consider that the real danger of a bot is how easy it is to scale a bot up to an absurd number of table hours, especially if you decide to start opening multiple accounts using the bot. All of the thought experiments about "what if we replace a really good player with a bot, does it make a difference?" neglect this side of things, and that's also the part that has the potential to lead to widespread gamekilling.

As an aside, there was a thread in SE following Thierry Henry's handball in World Cup qualifying asking whether or not he was a cheater for pretending he didn't handle the ball. There was a very interesting split. American sports fans who were indifferent to soccer thought that the claim that Henry cheated was ludicrous, as it is the job of the referees to spot it. Soccer fans generally felt that while that is true of some violations, that it is wildly out of character with the culture of the sport to try to sneak that particular type of foul by. I thought it was an interesting example of how important the norms of the community surrounding some contest are in determining what the real rules of competition are, something I'd noticed from the various moral debates about poker over the years.