Hello friends. This is my first post here. I was inspired to create an account after my recent experience about 15 minutes ago. I apologize if this has been posted before and I'm just beating a dead horse, to be honest, I didn't really search previous posts about the topic.

I recently started playing online poker again about a month ago, and decided to go with Global Poker (I used to play frequently on Full Tilt & Poker Stars back in the good old days). For the first few weeks, things had seemed pretty good; obviously the volume of players isn't ideal, but it works... and the interface isn't amazing, but you get used to it.

Anyway, tonight I played two SnG's and ended up getting heads up in both of them. Both opponents were different people, but they were playing very similarly; they'd make their decision preflop instantaneously. There's no way that a human could process their cards and fold/call/raise that quickly... I'm talking about a tenth of a second.

Has the website been infiltrated by bots or some kind of software to give players an edge? I had to adjust my play after noticing trends, and that worked pretty well for a while... I still got 2nd place to both of them, but held my own the entire time.

Thanks for taking the time to read this!

bots are on every single network and the operators for the most part could care less.

the real question is when will a poker site care enough to develop and implement software to stop them? Seems like it should be a piece of cake given the resources available to most of them.

I'm fine with a bot infestation if it means 200% ROI sessions. You're gonna need more info than that my man. Sharkscope games together frequencies etc. "Acting fast" is a BS reason to make a post like this.

I don't have definitive evidence, only circumstantial. Based on my own experiences of playing hundreds of thousands of hands over the years, I have a decent gauge on what normal online play looks like; these people tonight were both playing identically, not at all like a normal person.

When I say that their play was instantaneous, I'm not exaggerating.... but it only occurred pre-flop which was also suspicious. Once I called/raised to their instant preflop play, then their play became normal.

Unless a person is spamming their mouse in the perfect spot before the hand goes into play, then I suppose it's possible; but that gives the person zero time to determine if they should call/fold/raise, so I don't think that's the case, as their play was instant yet varied hand to hand.

Regardless, I'm not here to debate whether they're humans or bots or whatever, I'm just telling you my experience and am also curious if anyone knows what's going on.

Some people play fast man. Bots are probably out there on most sites but probably not spamming low stakes of a low volume site.

This bot fear mongering with literally useless circumstantial evidence is insane. I've played online poker for a long time and have been accused of being a bot on dozens of occasions. Have had to fill out captcha's while 20 tabling PokerStars because that was beyond what dozens of folks thought was within reality.

A few months ago a Global player was streaming on Twitch and losing his **** over the fact he was playing against a bot. This presumed bot was acting quickly and folding every hand. Every single hand. Imagine creating a bot and the strategy is fold every hand. Anyways of course this presumed bot was simply sitting out but it caused a guy to flip his lid and spread his paranoia to others.

Hopefully you sharkscoped these players and that provided you with some clarity one way or the other.

They dont program bots to act instantly. That would make them way to easy to catch. The bots nowadays you can actually set to randomize how long they act. Google "pokerbot forums" you can read info about bots on those.

I guess what was most interesting is that after years of playing, I've never seen anything like this, then all of a sudden I am seeing nearly identical play on two different tables from two different players. It's possible that it's a pure coincidence that I just happened to be in different games with different people who are both playing every pre-flop hand instantaneously, but that seems highly unlikely.

I know that some people like to play fast, but this is impossibly fast. Like I said, they're acting within a tenth of a second every single hand PRE-FLOP. I could understand it if they checked the "auto check" or "auto fold" buttons so that it's instant, but this is pre-flop. No human can process their hands that quickly unless they're just smashing the mouse on the screen... but why would they do that and risk folding aces or a monster hand? And why would they do that and risk raising or calling with a weak hand?

Anyway, I see that the consensus here is getting oddly defensive for some reason. I'm not here to fear monger. Honestly I don't care a whole lot, because as the above poster stated, it'll likely just raise their ROI. And like I said, I quickly learned how to adjust to their patterns. I understand that it might be hard to relate to unless you experience it yourself.

Treb, the issue I have with your post is the logic. Do I think bots exist on Global? Probably a handful? I certainly don't doubt the existence.

In my experience the guys who are the best at spotting bots have spend hundreds of hours in piosolver and realizes that a player is beginning to take extremely unusual human lines that are normal for GTO play that a typical decent human reg would not take. Another example I can think of is a bot ring where several players exhibit identical frequencies in every spot over large samples. These have existed and will continue to exist in online poker and it's good that we have guys like you looking for them and alerting poker sites so they can be removed and punished.

In 2020 anyone who is making a bot should likely have the sense not to program it to make repetitive snap decisions. Something that comes to mind is sometimes the Global software behaves in a way that it appears the opponent is making snap behaviors which would explain your situation.

Pardon my defensive tone, it's simply fatigue for years of folks accusing bots and collusion every flimsy chance they get. It's good to have guys like you being eyes and ears for the site and noticing when something seems shady.

I also don't claim to be some kind of bot expert but I have played somewhere around 500,000 SNG's in my life so I have an idea of what's going on around me.

Those are great points, and I didn't sense a defensive tone at all, if anything it was respectful and empathetic. You could definitely be right about it being a software issue that made them appear like bots. That ran through my mind, but I didn't really fully consider it until you mentioned it. The odds of never encountering anyone like this before, then encountering two of them at the same time does seem very unlikely, so I bet you're right about that. The software probably made it look instant on my end, but they probably had a normal response time on their end. Or maybe they were some kind of bot, who knows for sure... I'll definitely keep an eye out though and try to track their usernames next time. Thanks!

you seem like a crusher, that paired up with your 2 sng sample you brought to us, i personally love this thread. thanks for sharing!

Hey TakeNotesPlease, thanks for the comment. Do you mind elaborating on what you mean by "crusher"? I'm glad to hear that you're enjoying the thread.

The reason why people are defensive is because every single time a rec/beginner player encounters the slightest big of negative variance, their default response is "I'M BEING CHEATED! THE SITE IS RIGGED! THERE ARE BOTS EVERYWHERE!"

It's illogical, unnecessarily reactive, and counter productive because it takes efforts away from actual malfeasance (including people who are actually using software that's against the rules) that's occurring.

It's a boy-who-cried-wolf scenario. Everyone is screaming about bots, so the actual bots are getting away with murder.

Your example is no different. Two people are playing similar ranges HU in a SNG? Why is that surprising. SNGs, especially hypers, especially HU, are effectively solved. Not really, but you can study enough and take enough notes on specific players and the population to be able to have pretty easy +ev decisions in most spots. Especially HU where the decision is folding or shoving. Not shocking that multiple players would play a similar way.

As for acting quickly, have you considered the fact that your computer might be a little slower? Especially since this is a browser-based site, it's super vulnerable to lag. In addition to that, there are boxes to pre-check your decisions, and if it's just checking/calling/folding, it's super easy to click the button as soon as it pops up. It's in the same spot every time.

Thanks for the response, that makes sense. I don't think that it's a computer issue on my end, as this only happened with these particular players, no one else at the tables were acting that quickly. I have very fast internet and a gaming computer as well, so I don't think that's it, but definitely a good thought!

As for your second paragraph about over-reacting and being dramatic, excessive, irrational, etc. I feel like that's hyperbolic if it was directed toward me, but maybe you meant it in more of a general sense. I think that my behavior and interaction here has been open-minded and I haven't stated that there are bots, I've just raised the question given my experience and have been curious if others have encountered it as well.

Also to be clear, it wasn't a HU SnG, it was a 6 or 9 person SnG, but I made it to the end when it became HU. So these two individuals on different tables were the only two players acting instantly, when everyone else at the tables was playing at a normal speed.

Try this: open up global right now, open up 6 running SNG tables (you don't have to be playing on them, just observe 6 that are currently running) and then try to watch a video on youtube. Can you do it? Is it a smooth viewing experience? Or does it pause, lag, and essentially refuse to play?



Right, HU is HU. If we're HU in a 6 max or 9 max game, we're playing HU. It's very easy to make very quick decisions HU, especially if the stacks are 15bb and less, because anyone with even basic knowledge of strategy is pretty much just going to be playing the same way. The buttons are in the same place, it's pretty easy to just fold trash and shove decent hands until it's over.

Yep, very smooth. I opened up 6 running tables like you said then watched a video on Youtube, there weren't any issues at all.



I probably didn't make this clear in my original post, but these two particular players were playing instantaneously pre-flop throughout the entire SnG, not just when it became HU.

Not going to read through entire thread. BUT...
Different internet speeds can give the illusion of a person acting fast or slow.

If they have a faster internet connection then you do it would seem that they are acting instantly compared to you, when you have a slight lag or delay. It works both ways and has to do with how the internet works and connections speeds/lag/ping.

Hey Seat, thanks for the input. Great points! I addressed this in one of the recent posts, but I'll recap again - no one else at the tables were playing instantaneously, it was only these two particular players. I'm not knowledgeable enough about internet speeds, latency, etc. but perhaps those two players happened to be in close geographic proximity of me, so it seemed lightning fast? It's just odd that it was only them and no one else.

It's possible they were bots but who knows. You would think a good bot would use a timing randomizer to disguise themselves. It's possible they were just playing fast. At times I spam the button I know I'm going to push before it even appears so it probably seems to other players that I'm playing really fast. A lot of times I'll know if I'm going to check or bet before the flop comes out and I'll spam that spot on the screen before the button even appears.

I'm not taking sides. bots exist so it's hard to say one way or another.

I appreciate your feedback. I'm new to these forums, and so far you've been one of the very few people who have been respectful and open-minded.

One of the odd things from my experience is that they only acted instantaneously pre-flop. Once we got to the flop, their play speed became normal. I can't make any sense of why someone would spam their mouse on the fold/call/raise button without even seeing their cards first (like I said, they acted within a tenth of a second or so, and only pre-flop).

Ignoring the fact that they could be acting in turn and you are lagging on seeing their actions, which has been covered in depth already, there's a ton of context that you are omitting. Are you limping every button? Then checking every BB is standard unless they get a huge hand, and they are obviously seeing their cards before you are acting. Are you playing too tight from the BB? Then it's standard to just min open 100% of hands from the button, it doesn't really matter what cards they get.

I'm curious what two players you were playing against to see if they are known regs or whatever. Feel free to PM me with their names if you don't feel like posting them publicly.

Great points. I'll try to look up my history from last night to track their names down.

But to clarify a few things - I'm sure a professional or just very perceptive person could find patterns in my play, but I feel like I mix it up quite a bit as to where it's somewhat unpredictable. Also, their instant action applied when we were multi-handed as well, not just heads up. I think that would void the argument about my play being predictable, because other people are variables as well. Again, it was only pre-flop when this happened, so I don't see the logic of spamming an action without seeing the cards first. It is possible that there was some kind of lag; but again, no one else was lagging, and it was only these two people that played this way.

So I can't figure out how to search back to find their usernames. I went into transaction history, but that only shows deposits/cashouts/winnings. I went into hand history, but that has people's names as "player#####" so it's anonymous. In hindsight I should have written their names down, I definitely will going forward if I ever encounter this again.

Right, I'm saying the lag is on your end, not their end, so they act in a more reasonable way and you are perceiving it as instantaneous.

But yes, their actions are odd, the way that you are describing. I would chalk it up to a mix of lag, preflop actions being checked before the action is on them, and you misremembering (for example, they auto limped 30% of the hands and you are remembering it as every hand). But I guess there's a non zero chance that something untoward is going on, and if you were going to automate something, preflop would be the easiest to automate for.

I went ahead and did some looking, it looks like the two players you are talking about are "Cinnamon Longbow" and "Gsharkys".

One of them is a fish tag which means it's almost definite that he's a losing SNG player. The other is a decent sized winner at SNGs but over a very small (<200 game) sample. They have abis of 5.5 and 7.25, both have $3.30 turbos (the game you guys were playing) in their top 5 of most played SNGs, so playing it isn't out of the ordinary for them. Both have very small games/day (4.5 and 2.3) and max games/day (15 and 7). For one, playing yesterday was the first time they had played in 11 months, the other seems to play a few times a month. It appears that one of them one tables and the other 1-2 tables.

So, it's almost definite that they aren't the same person. And I would say that logically, it's unlikely they are using any sort of software, because why would you play one table at a time, once a month, at micro stakes if you have software that's able to crush the games? Not to mention, one of them is losing big in the games.

Gotcha. I could see that, but I don't understand why it was only happening with these two players and no one else at the table. You'd think it'd be consistent across the board if it was on my end.

I think that's a reasonable conclusion, but I have to disagree on one point - I know for a fact that it wasn't just 30% of the time; after I observed this behavior, I made a conscious effort to watch every single hand going forward. It wasn't 30% of the time, it was 100% of the time... for both players, but only pre-flop.

That's awesome that you were able to look that up, you'd be a good detective! Did you find that data through Sharkscope or what? I agree with all of that, and it does seem unlikely that players like that would be cheating. I remember on Pokerstars there was a feature to find players and watch them play live, is there any option on Global to do that? If so, I'd be interested to observe their play.