Thank you for your email. I will do my best to address your concerns.
Please rest assured that we do not tolerate automated players (bots) on PokerStars. We have an extensive arsenal of detection tools in order to ensure that each player is a human being.
While I cannot detail each of the tools we use to make this determination (we don't want our methods to fall into the hands of bot programmers who will then use that information to avoid detection), at your request, we have conducted a review of this player’s profile, and it is PokerStars’ view that this player does not show any indication of being a bot based upon all the information we have available.
There are many dozens of PokerStars customers who regularly play the maximum number of tables at a time, which is 24 by default for cash games (this limit may be increased for players who are capable of handling more tables without slowing the games down). In addition, there is no table limit for sit and go tournaments, and regulars can be found playing on 30 to 50 tables at a time. Please note that we're well aware of exactly who these customers are (we have reports that show us this), and we examine all such players with the bot hunting tools I mentioned earlier, on a repeated and ongoing basis.
Massively parallel play is not by itself a reliable harbinger of a bot. There are reasonable explanations as to how players can play such a large number of games at once. Here's a video of Team PokerStars Online Pro Randy Lew ('nanonoko') that explains how he plays 24 tables at once:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QzhQIOFNhU
A high profile case was that of 'Boku87', a human player that in March 2009 took a $10,000 bet that he could turn $100 into $10,000 in 15 days, playing games no larger than $15 Sit and Goes. He hooked up a webcam to satisfy those who bet against him, and also posted videos of him playing 51 tournaments at once on YouTube. You can find those videos on YouTube.com under search key "Boku87". (He won the wager with 24 hours to spare).
In addition, a Russian player set an official Guinness World Record in November 2009 by playing 40,000 hands on PokerStars in 24 hours, all while being recorded by two web cams and Guinness observers.
Finally, in the most extreme case of multi-tabling we've witnessed, a German player by the screen name of 'rs03rs03' regularly plays over 120 tables, and was observed doing so in person for over 3 hours in order to ensure that no artificial intelligence was in use.
Many of these players have given up the mouse in favor of hotkeys or macros, so that they don't have to move the mouse and click. They just press F1 for fold, F5 for raise, F9 for call, etc... or whatever keyboard combination they've configured. There are quite advanced scripts out there that assign hotkeys to actions like "bet the pot" or "bet 2/3 of the pot", calculating what the pot is and adjusting the bet size for them based upon the key they pressed. Such hotkeys are not prohibited. You can find out more about which tools are prohibited and which are permitted (including a list of permitted software) at:
http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/room/prohibited/
Hotkeys were also introduced as a feature in the PokerStars client in October 2011:
http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/room...-news/#hotkeys
Multi-tablers like this tend to overlap (or "cascade") their tables, rather than spread them out across the screen with no overlap. They rely on the PokerStars software to "pop up" or bring to the front the next table that needs their attention. With that many tables, though, these multi-tablers cannot respond to chat, even if they want to. As soon as they input an action on your table, the next table will be popping up, covering up the table you're at with another one requiring their attention.
Please note that there is no inherent disadvantage to playing against such players versus an equally skilled opponent playing only at one table. In fact, many believe that these multi-tablers give up a fair bit in expectation per table, but that it is worth it to them because:
4 tables at 3 BB/100 hands = 12 BB total
24 tables at 1 BB/100 hands = 24 BB total
Thus, they have made the decision to play six times as many tables, to win only twice as much. That they are distracted and cannot ponder close decisions means it is probably to your ADVANTAGE to play against such a player, as he's not giving you his "best game".
Again we thank you for your report. We will of course continue to monitor our games and should evidence of any prohibited program use surface in the future, we will be sure to take the appropriate action in order to protect the integrity of our games. Please do not hesitate to let us know any time you need anything.
