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Originally Posted by DougL
Should every Wall Street trading company be required by law or morality to share their trading algorithms? What is this "fair" world you're even talking about? Poker for profit assumes by its very nature that some people will have less information/skill than others. You don't have good enough off-line playing software, then go develop it yourself. Buy it from people who have. Whatever. Of course some people have an advantage.
Do you think that every chess grand-master has access to the study tools available to every other, or is it possible that some have access to or have developed better ones? If some people have better, are they unethical. I work in robotics. If someone has better algorithms than I do for developing motion code, do I get to complain to someone "hey, that's not fair" or I have to realize that they're a better company until I do better?
Because our definition of fair is "doesn't violate the ToS of the sites we play on". There is no limit to studying on your own or running sims. No limit to GTO solvers away from the table. There is exactly a limit against using software in real time to make plays for you. Thus, one is OK and the other isn't.
The whole idea in poker that the game is unfair because someone has access to developing information that other don't have seems nutty. Now if someone at Stars let out a few billion hands to allow AI development, I could see an argument that this private information was an unfair advantage. However, I think there is some ToS thing about using hands you didn't personally observe. Your GTO solver doesn't care about this stuff -- it is looking at theoretical distances from perfect play.
I think your perspective is a fine one and justifiable. But:
I emphatically disagree that what is FAIR is what is in the ToS. Again, legal != fair.
For example, it took some time for the ToS to catch up and be adjusted to handle in-game decision making tools. Were those fair exactly up to the point where they were banned? No. They were LEGAL up until they were banned, not necessarily fair.
Again, what is legal is not necessarily what is fair.
I'm still not convinced that it's FAIR that some people have access to software for study that others do not. Basically, what you have then is some people with a monopoly over information. I'm not saying those aids should necessarily be banned, but that their existence in only the hands of a few --
some of whom did nothing to develop them except fall into the right social circles -- is unfair.
Maybe this is taking it too far, but consider John Rawls' concept of the Veil of Ignorance:
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"Imagine that you have set for yourself the task of developing a totally new social contract for today's society. How could you do so fairly? Although you could never actually eliminate all of your personal biases and prejudices, you would need to take steps at least to minimize them. Rawls suggests that you imagine yourself in an original position behind a veil of ignorance. Behind this veil, you know nothing of yourself and your natural abilities, or your position in society. You know nothing of your sex, race, nationality, or individual tastes. Behind such a veil of ignorance all individuals are simply specified as rational, free, and morally equal beings. You do know that in the "real world", however, there will be a wide variety in the natural distribution of natural assets and abilities, and that there will be differences of sex, race, and culture that will distinguish groups of people from each other."
When information is available to certain groups, but not others, and merit or hard work is unrelated to whether or not that information is available, that is unjust under the Rawlsian conception above.
Would you, for example, choose to enter a poker economy in which information is selectively available based upon non-meritocratic means? Or where only the-already-rich can pay for it? I would not. In that way, it is unjust.
Maybe the only just thing in poker is winning at all costs within the rules. But I'm not sure I believe that. Maybe turning to Rawls takes it too far, but maybe there is important insights there too.
Moreover, and Adam made this point on the show, we should not want such a poker economy. This moves us beyond discussions of fairness to discussion of the poker world we WANT and which is best for everyone.
You mentioned finance. High-speed trading is something that gave, and gives, certain traders an edge. Perhaps you can argue that there is nothing wrong with high-speed trading per se, even if it's only available to the most well-resourced traders. But even if high speed trading is morally justifiable, that doesn't mean that it is in fact good for the financial system. In fact, it's basically just caused an arms race where no wealth has been created, just redistributed, with extra risk (consider the crashes it has caused).
So, analogous to poker, the training tools may be justifiable/fair, especially if you did the work to develop them, but they may still in fact be bad for the poker economy overall. I fully acknowledge there's nothing that probably can be done to stop that.
It still may have implications for who we think the the best player is, though. Is Ben86 the best because he got Alix to write software for him which he exploited? Again, things to consider.
All that said, I would never want to ban the development of training tools, even if it WERE bad for the poker economy overall. Sharks are gonna shark and that's part of the dream.
But that doesn't mean the arms race is a good thing. Perhaps just inevitable.
The game theorists will point out that we'd all have been better off without nuclear weapons, if we just sat around and fought with sticks and stones. But we're incentivized to develop the better tools, so now we just settle for mutually assured destruction and hope Trump doesn't nuke the world. Online poker, and especially high stakes, is now at a point where it's in something like a post nuclear world.