Serious Discussion about Poker Bots, PokerTracker, HUDs, etc.

[fraac]

PT has all the data a bot would use.

No, it really doesn't. See my post further up.

[Artsemis]

There is software out there that does this. A friend of mine tried it and it lost him a bunch of money. It's suggestions were horrible.

Then it wasn't software that does this, it was software that attempted to do this.

I think the point is, NLHE is a game that requires more than crunching math and odds analysis.[...] Odds/Math are important, but they are not the only skills required.

I agree if we're talking about crushing the game and playing with the best players in the world, but a well programmed bot can definitely beat the "regular" games. I'm not talking about just math, they would factor in all previous hands with that player and how that player acted in every situation.

If you're curious, Google "University of Alberta Poker".

If you could really write a program complex enough to offer such suggestions that would allow a player to be more profitable than that same player would be with a reasonable amount of study and experience, you'd probably have more important pursuits than creating such an application- at least for consumer use that is.

As a programmer, I find coming up with something useful that isn't already done to be the hard part.

Your post seems more about the possibilities, which UofA have already proven to be possible, even on a pretty fairly high level.

[Artsemis]

No, it really doesn't. See my post further up.

I did. And just did again -- what information would be needed that PT doesn't store? ...since it stores everything. It's just handling the data and parsing it for your own information, patterns, and probabilities.

[fraac]

Do you use pokertracker? You're against it, so...

[fraac]

Actually, maybe it does. I'm not sure. Okay, no I've thought of one thing it doesn't store.

[Artsemis]

Do you use pokertracker? You're against it, so...

Yes. That doesn't mean I don't think it would be better if nobody had it. Would I use it if I was the only one? No.

[fraac]

Ah, a man of principle.

[Hoi Polloi]

I think the point is, NLHE is a game that requires more than crunching math and odds analysis. It is not blackjack, where there are only ever a few options and the answer is almost always completely, perfectly solvable. NLHE requires a ton of strategy and analysis, and even seemingly similar situations can be dramatically different...

If you could really write a program complex enough to offer such suggestions that would allow a player to be more profitable than that same player would be with a reasonable amount of study and experience, you'd probably have more important pursuits than creating such an application- at least for consumer use that is.

This is a good one: poker (NLHE) is too complicated to be reduced to an algorithm; or, if not, it would be prohibitively resource-intensive to do so. Where's IBM when you need them?

So, most broadly, there's the "bot's are impossible or practically so" line of argument and there's the "would it be ethical/bad for the game" line of discussion.

[Dima2000123]

How about limit bots then? You have to start with baby steps. Wasn't there a case of winning bots spotted in mid-limit games on Party not too long ago?

[Paul Levy]

The biggest danger with bots lies in the collusion opportunities (on the bot forums they call this "teaming", go figure).

Collusion aside, I can understand how demeaning some might find it to play against pieces of software, but why worry about it? A bot will never play any better than its programmer, and people like Aba or Durr have better things to do than write algorithms. Any 2+2er who wouldn't play any bot heads-up for rolls serously underestimates his skills imho.

[jogsxyz]

I did. And just did again -- what information would be needed that PT doesn't store? ...since it stores everything. It's just handling the data and parsing it for your own information, patterns, and probabilities.

PT makes it really hard for you to analysis the data. To export the data PT puts it into a huge EXCEL file. There's millions of bytes of memory used on your computer and very little actual data. Each 0 and 1 requires an entire cell in the Excel file. Just impossible to study the info.
Mostly PT is only good for recognizing who's tight and who's loose. Not worth much for in depth analysis of style.

[Dima2000123]

Collusion aside, I can understand how demeaning some might find it to play against pieces of software, but why worry about it? A bot will never play any better than its programmer, and people like Aba or Durr have better things to do than write algorithms. Any 2+2er who wouldn't play any bot heads-up for rolls serously underestimates his skills imho.

I disagree on two key points. Bots don't have to be able to beat the best players to kill online poker, they just have to be able to take the money from the fish. Bots would take money from the fish more efficiently than any 20-tabling Internet pro. You can't have poker without fish.

I also disagree about the bots being as good as their creators. Good bots may have learning algorithms which automatically adjust to the profitable situations. Even if you can't make a learning bot, the bot would have such a huge hand history that even a poor player can look at its PT database and figure out the leaks and adjust it accordingly.

[ShakeZula06]

I'm still not hearing the difference between them that makes them on different moral levels.

Poker sites T&C's allow one, but doesn't allow the other. That simple.

[ShakeZula06]

If I used my poker and programming skills to make a bot and then used my bot to make money for me, is this really wrong?

Yes. You explicitly agreed to the site's rules when you sat down at the table. You are deliberately breaking those rules.

Technically you programmed the bot, so you have given it the process to decide how to play the hand... you could view the bot as an extension of you playing poker.

You don't play tiltless poker 24/7. A bot does.

[ShakeZula06]

This is an argument from authority which is at best weak.

No it's not, an argument from authority would be like "<guy that knows a lot about morality> says X, so X". When you sign up for a site you explicitly agree to their terms and conditions. Using PT or a HUD doesn't violate those terms, using a bot does.