I've discovered five identical bots on iPoker FL FR. The story is very similar to what is discussed in the following thread:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28...ull-tilt-1259/

I contacted NoIQ support twice and I was assured that they forwarded my messages to iPoker and they are dealing with the problem. A week passed by and nothing happened. I think if they wanted to do something, they could do something already. If this time is not enough, the proof is still there. I don't care if they run away with the money. If they run away. But I don't trust iPoker, that's why I'm posting this now.
Here is a modified version of what I wrote to iPoker. I discovered a few mistakes in the original and a few new facts about the bots.

The 5 players are: yeongyang, zodd69, badge3, naicelea, elixio.
Their statistics are identical within the standard deviation. They played 40-70k hands against me, so variance is still in effect. Their average winrate is about 0.25 BB/100h (In the minus 0.5 - plus 1 range) on $1/$2. More than ideal for bonushunting bots.

STATISTICS:

As you may be aware poker players use many (100+) statistics to identify player tendencies. Three or four statistics can be similar, but not all of them. It's like fingerprints, everyone has his own style.
I used 26 statistics for my analysis. Here I will mention only a few of them. You can reproduce them as ALL data is identical on all of them. Here is an example list: (min-max for these robots, min-max for regular players)
VP$IP: 16.6 - 17.8, 9 - 28
PFR: 12 - 13.5, 3 - 16
Att to Steal: 38 - 43, 6 - 49
Fold BB to Steal: 50 - 54, 37 - 86
Agression Factor: 2.01 - 2.13, 0.71 - 4.9
CR Flop: 18 - 23, 0-23
Donk Turn: 27-29, 0-29
and so on...
As you can see, on some statistics they represent the very extreme of the players. No one has similar stats, but all of these bots are in these extreme ranges (especially Donk Turn).
They mix up their play the same way: they play the same trash occasionally in the same proportions in the same situations.

OTHER FACTS:

More than that, all of them has very similar properties:
- They started to play on 02/SEP/2008
- They all play on NoIQ Poker
- They play almost round the clock, 7 days a week
- They play very long sessions on many tables, but they never play all the tables. It seems they share out the tables using a rota system.
- On $1/$2 there are 2, 3 or 4 of them at all the tables at any time. You cannot sit at a table without them or with only one of them or all 5 of them.
- They play on fix limit full ring $0.25/$0.5, $0.50/$1, $1/$2. All of them on all these limits, but nowhere else!
- They never chat
- They never time out despite playing many tables
- They sit in only at full ring (10 players) tables with at least 5 players
- They sit out if there are less than 5 players (they actually play even HU rarely, I think that's when the real player takes charge)

WHY IS IT BAD?

These bots cost me a lot of money. And to the network too, but they don’t realise, I think.
These bots deposited only once, so they only withdraw money. Yes, they generate traffic in the short term, but they suck on our (yes, on theirs as well) income and cut down traffic in the long term. The weaker players loose their money quicker, that means less rake for the network, or they even leave earlier than otherwise, realising that the opposition is too tough. And it is less likely that they will come back.

These bots are not winning (too much), they living only on bonuses. But if they finance and encourage them by allowing them to play at the network, they will develop bots that will beat even better players. The consequences will be disastrous.
Pokerstars frowns upon robots and they are growing. Other networks don’t and they diminish (I know it’s not the only reason). IPoker keeps his number of players on level only because they advertise a lot and they attract a few rooms from even worse networks. But this will end soon.

I keep track of how many hands were played against me by bad and good players. Half a year ago this ratio was 0.25, but now it is 0.1. This means that for every hundred hands played by good players, there are only 10 hands played by bad players against me and falling. I think that was caused mainly by robots, most of them better hidden than these.

What are your thoughts? What can I do (apart from playing better - I know that)? Am I right in that it is bad for the networks in the long term?

How do you know they were created on NOIQ?

They are in the TOP60 in NoIQ Bonus Tour.

Good Call

Thank you for posting the information, but I think you should have given them more time to identify the bot wrangler, rather than just closing the bot accounts.

Given the amount of trouble people have to go to to identify themselves before removing any money from their accounts I would have thought that the site would already know who they are.

In any case they would need to come up with completely new identities to start up again so nailing the old ones wouldn't help much.

I was contacted by iPoker. They weren't interested in the bots. They asked how I know what I know.
I don't think I made any mistake by posting this. They are not interested in keeping us informed. At least I informed you about this. Not that it makes any difference.

Can you post the emails?

""
These bots cost me a lot of money. And to the network too, but they don’t realise, I think.
These bots deposited only once, so they only withdraw money. Yes, they generate traffic in the short term, but they suck on our (yes, on theirs as well) income and cut down traffic in the long term. The weaker players loose their money quicker, that means less rake for the network, or they even leave earlier than otherwise, realising that the opposition is too tough. And it is less likely that they will come back.

These bots are not winning (too much), they living only on bonuses. But if they finance and encourage them by allowing them to play at the network, they will develop bots that will beat even better players. The consequences will be disastrous.
Pokerstars frowns upon robots and they are growing. Other networks don’t and they diminish (I know it’s not the only reason). IPoker keeps his number of players on level only because they advertise a lot and they attract a few rooms from even worse networks. But this will end soon. ""


uhm..wat ?

Do you have any accounts on the network aside from NoIQ?

Assuming you are correct, it appears that NoIQ is pretty invested in the income generated by these bots and could even be in on it. You might be better off using some other skin as a conduit for your emails to network security.

For all we know your original emails could have been buried by NoIQ. At the very least another skin might be more proactive about pushing your case. Someone that is losing money because of the bots instead of making a large profit is bound to be a little more concerned.

Bots would be effective shills for them.

this

I don't have too much hope that noIQ or iPoker would do the right thing if they didn't have to but if you got one of the bigger fishier skins that has a lot of clout with iPoker, they could get done what you want.

ill email this thread to the betfred poker manager, he's away on business this weekend but should reply on Monday.

hope this turns out okay.

john

Thank you, John. I hope NoIQ is not involved in this. I think there is no high probability for that, but who knows?

Here are the aforementioned emails:

iPoker:

Please assure your player that we do take these complaints very seriously and are carrying out a thorough investigation. Can you ask him to clarify some points for us please?
1] Where has he got their deposit amount details from?
2] Where has he got their bonus details from?
3] Why does he maintain that these people play around the clock when clearly they do not?

Are the stats that he has quoted all of his own, or are some of them input from some other source?”

My answer:

1. They are winners, so I suppose they don’t have to deposit any more. I don’t know how much they deposited.
2. http://www1.noiqpoker.com/web/home/p..._race_november
3. Usually I sleep from 4 CET to 10 CET, so I don’t know what they do at this time, but otherwise they play without a pause.

These are my stats only. I played 40-70k hands with them so variance is still in effect.

Zodd69 and naicelea didn't play yesterday. I can't find Elixio today.
Yeongyang and badge3 are playing $2/$4 as well. I think that probably only the real player behind them plays this level.
If there's only one owner (I think that's the case) behind the bots, he plays $1/$2 and $2/$4 himself. If there is one owner behind each bot, the other owners are weaker players, so they play on smaller limits themselves.

Here is iPoker's position on the quesstion:

Dear Z*,

We have been in contact with iPoker and they have looked into this very thoroughly. We will quote what iPoker said regarding this matter below.

“We have investigated the allegation in some detail. We agree that all five accounts have very similar profiles, although we cannot substantiate some of your allegations or agree with your conclusion that they are definitely bots.

We will deal with your points one at a time:-
• They actually started playing between 31st August and 1st Sep/2008.
• They do not play almost round the clock. They play sessions lasting up to around 14.5 hours per day, but all take a continuous break of 9-10 hours. We would point out all the named players (like the complainant), are playing in the NOIQ rake race. There are at least 50 players in the race who rake more than them and therefore could be playing sessions of equal length or longer.
• We do not consider that the length of their sessions alone, identifies them as bots. We are not sure what you mean by 'they share out the tables using a rota system' but there are instances where up to 3 of them play at the same table as would be inevitable for players playing in this kind of promotion. Conversely, there are instances where only one of them plays on a particular table. From this we can conclude that they are neither seeking each other out to play together or avoiding each other.
• We find it neither surprising or evidence that they are bots, that the players only play 3 or 4 limits.
• We do not find it surprising or evidence that they are bots, that players playing 10 tables simultaneously, do not use the chat facility. The complainant, also a multi tabler, has only used the chat 84 times in 254,000+ hands.
• The players do time out occasionally.
• We do not consider the fact that they play at full ring tables with a least 5 players, represents evidence that the players are bots. Players generally either play full ring or short handed.
• As above, we feel that a real player is capable of making a decision not to play short handed. As heads up play is a specialist area with relatively few exponents compared to short handed and full ring, we consider the fact that the players rarely or never play heads up, only to be evidence that they prefer not to do so.

With regard to the various statistics you use in your analysis, presumably obtained from Poker tracker or similar software, we again cannot agree with your conclusion that this identifies them with certainty as bots. Firstly, limit holdem is a game with relatively little room for flair. Because of this, it is likely that good players will play in a fairly formulaic way resulting in very similar statistics, particularly for such stats. as VP$IP, PFR and Aggression Factor. In addition, many players discuss and devise tactics via forums such as 2+2 or coaching sites, this too can result in groups of players with very similar playing styles. You mention their aggressive style of play, we think it is widely accepted that online play has become more aggressive over the last couple of years. Obviously, there are players of varying standards online, we would expect the more successful ones to err on the aggressive side.

We have analyzed the game play in an attempt to see if the players appear to play optimally and also looking for any signs of possible collusion between them in the form of pot building, squeezing, etc. We found instances that we did not consider to be optimal. For reasons of player confidentiality, we cannot reveal actual hands but examples include hands capped pre flop which would not appear to be strong enough to warrant this, hands played in such a way that maximum value could not be extracted (crucial in limit play) and plays which definitely appear to be minus ev.

In view of the above, we do not feel that there is conclusive evidence that the players are bots or are obtaining any kind of unfair advantage over other players.

We will be taking no further action at this stage, but will continue to monitor the players.”

Please let us know if we may be of any further assistance.

Thank you.

My respose:

It’s a logical fallacy to believe that if some of my arguments are not proving that they are bots, then they are not bots.

ALL they do ALL what a horde of bots do. They all do a plethora of the SAME things at the SAME time. But this is not proof. All right.

You have the stats then. It’s not that they all aggressive and they make mistakes. They aggressive the SAME way and do the SAME mistakes. Nobody check raises the flop or donks the turn near that percentage like they do with exactly the same hands. And I could tell you more than a hundred stats that are the same, these are only the very extreme, proofs in themselves.
These stats are individual like fingerprints. There is a saying that out of the 6 billion people living on earth there may be one person who has the same fingerprints like you. But FIVE exact SAME fingerprints at the SAME place?

I wonder where these five players registered from. Can you tell me this?

This is really only mind play, but I think yeongyang is the owner of the bots. He is South Korean and named after his county. He plays yeongyang and badge3 frequently, maybe zodd69 also. That’s why these three play even $2/$4 and win more than the others. Apart from yeongyang, the other four’s (five in fact, but I have only a small sample from him) names are from a World of Warcraft background. So he plays (or played) also WoW. Not rare among poker players. And yes, he sleeps the same time I do.

I can be false, of course. I found some of these names on russian forums, so he can be russian. Or there can be more owners across the world. Nevertheless, THEY ARE BOTS. The question is, if you are aware of this or not.

But why I tell you this? I don’t trust you any more.

Regardless of if they are bots or not, that is a fairly comprehensive email from iPoker, at least seeming to give the impression they are taking this as a serious charge and investigating it. We might not agree with their conclusions but they do seem on top of survillence of their own games/software. Which, beyond this specific issue, is a good thing.

A reasonable response from iPoker, although they could still be wrong.

I think thats a fairly good response from iPoker...

I don't think we can conclude one way or the other with the current evidence that these players are bots. The stats you have provided aren't really proving anything other than these players all play roughly the same way. They could be playing using charts or they have all been taught to play by the same group of people, it could even be a farm somewhere in korea for all we know.

TBH OP, I could probably go through my database and find several players with stats almost identical to mine at shorthanded FL (within the margin of error which you allow in your own analysis).

I think what you have is evidence that they COULD be bots but you certainly don't have proof.

That would be inexcusable on their part.

Unreasonable requests and recriminations are not the way to be taken seriously. You are not doing anyone any favors when you talk to iPoker security this way.

I can't believe you guys can't see through this. They highlighted the weakest links in my reasoning and essentially didn't respond to the core proof. They do the same like politicians do: say nice things as the problem was addressed, but in reality they do nothing unless it is for staying in power.

I realised they get away better by giving this answer. Not only because the bots provide them income in the short term. If they admit they have bots on their network it could cause a turmoil and they could loose traffic. Thus they hush the things up. Seeing the reactions here they risk nothing.

Tweed Man and anybody else in doubt, just try the following:
Choose any 3 stat and filter it in the 3 percent range of yours. E. g. if your stat is 12.63, then filter it to 11-14. You will find that several players match these requisits. Add another stat to your filter: the number of the filtered players will drop to a third or quarter of the original. Add a fifth and you will be probably alone. Add ten and you find nobody on earth who matches you. I used 26 stats and I'm sure the other 100 would match as well at the robots. Because they are programmed, not trained!

What's the problem with training? Poker coaches could tell you that they can train anybody to do the same as them as far as VPIP, PFR and TAF are concerned. Or don't make -EV moves, be aggressive, etc. But the personality of their students stays there and they still do what they feel like in various situations. Some of them will check raise more, some of them will slowplay a lot, some of them will be more aggresive on the river, others on the flop, etc. No successful poker coach would teach the students to follow all of his stats. It would be ineffective and the personality is not a disadvantage in poker.

I think this is even impossible if a poker coach teached five identical twins from birth. Even these kids wouldn't have the same personality. See the Polgár sisters. They are chess masters. One of them became a woman world champion but gave up playing. One of them gave up playing and became a mother and chess teacher. Judit still plays against men.

Stellarwind,
You are right, I'm just very upset, but in the given situation it doesn't matter what they think about me. It's what they do matters.

if the stats are that damning, upload them somewhere and see if anyone agrees with you.

I'm impressed with such a comprehensive and convincing answer from iPoker.