Quote:
Originally Posted by vixticator
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.
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.