I read a lot of these comments where people say RTA has killed poker etc etc. It’s actually quite the opposite in my opinion. There is a massive difference in a pure gto strategy and a mixed GTO strategy. These RTAs that are out there show you how to play a pure GTO strategy. You give this software to your average 50nl/100nl reg and he will start defending third pair on the river vs a nit.

I would say there are 0 winning pure GTO bots in any network pre rb.

Bots that are run by a poker site sharing whole card information is a completely different story. Or bot operators sharing hole cards with other operators.

An RTA helps an advanced player become better vs other regs, most regs even when given an RTA still won’t be able to think about which of the 4 sizings on the flop and turn would be feasible vs most opponents.

If anything HUD stats and tendencies have become much more prominent.

Having worked with solvers and dived into software engineering myself around this stuff. It’s really quite eye opening to actually see people’s mindset around them And little.

Honestly, you should probably learn to shut up when you know so little about something. This post is staggeringly bad and misinformed.

It's good to see that this dinosaur board is finally waking up to this issue.

I think that unregulated sites are the most ****ed. Playing on WPN or ignition or any other unregulated site is asking to be ****ed in every way possible. These sites have literally no way to stop even basic collusion, much less bot rings or RTA on a second device. Yes some very studied and talented players can win peanuts on them, still.

I think there are a couple things that have to happen for online poker to survive:

- real ID+utility bill and device geolocation

- mandatory webcams to play above certain stakes (probably 50nl and over)

And ideally

- legal consequences for cheating, tied to the owner of the account


Poker would go through a contraction, and then a healthy, regulated market would grow from there. I don't see a majority of recs having a problem with webcams. It's 2023, even 90 year olds know how to FaceTime and click a Zoom link.

Recs are terrified of online cheating. That's the most common reason I hear from recs on why they don't play online. Recs also like to see the man and make live reads, and talk to others at the table. I honestly don't see a future for beatable online poker without webcams or VR.

The future is here, gentlemen.

It seems pretty absurd to make recs use a webcam. They are easily distinguished from good regs via automated statistical analysis and you only need to enforce the webcam thing upon people who a) play within a certain distance of GTO in terms of EV-error and b) consistently take money out of the games in general.

This thread has gone up and down with some quite cocaine is a hell of a drug level takes at times, but to go to ideas, but in terms of the fundamental "how to prevent RTA" question the simple answer seems to me to make any games above micros dealer's choice only, rotating every hand, and players are not permitted to choose NLHE (where 99% of the exploits take place) in consecutive rounds. Good luck being able to configure your software to keep up with continual game changes. Actual poker players wouldn't care about this change, casuals just popping in playing the micros would be unaffected, if you're a pure NLHE specialist who doesn't want to diversify and learn interesting games, then too bad and if you pick a game that's been solved to death 50% of the time then caveat emptor

That's the most cocaine answer of them all bro

All sites could get their hands on an RTA and have the RTA play against itself in a 6max setting for a couple million hands. Anyone who’s winning and gets close to those stats should be forced to play on a webcam and investigated.

The sites are about them making money not you making money. Outing cheaters means admitting that they allowed cheaters and cared more about their bottom line than providing a honest game which everyone should know but likes to pretend they don't.

Simple solution. Before each hand, one card in the deck is designated as "the wild card." There will be no GTO strategy because the optimal strategy will differ depending on which card is designated as wild.

Um, solvers would crack this in less than a day.

So a bot that plays a perfect GTO strategy can't win? Boy games sure are tough these days

Telling fish they have to jump through hoops like setting up a webcam just to play poker seems like a right fast way to greatly decrease the number of fish playing poker

Yes lets make people play games they dont want to play. Besides what happens when all the mixed games are solved? Cheater can just fire up whatever solver on their 2nd computer as needed.

The point is that solvers wouldn't crack something, they can find "solutions" to anything, given enough time. The point is that the human that is playing in the hand would have to react to one of thirteen different game states rather than one, which inhibits their ability to react correctly in time.

The only thing I've found that solves this problem is when people get arrested "Regulated US poker". Two people in Vegas have gone down for running hud's, not even RTA. Even then if done correctly you will or may never know immediately, but the consequence is there.

RTA is going to kill poker. There's no way around it. As soon as the solver & the game are perfectly linked up, RIP.

This narrative needs to STOP. It is complete bullshit.

I am a full-fishy recreational losing online player these days. I still enjoy playing and would love to hop in and play some even knowing I am a big dog in the games these days, The reasons I don't it that I don't think the games are clean or fair and I would feel like a sucker playing against people using RTA when I am out in the streets trying to compete fairly with people who already have a big skill edge over me.

If on the on the other hand sites gave me the option to play in games that were demonstrably clean like webcam games I would play.

Agree with you. Although you have to admit that you and I are probably in the minority among recs who would be willing to do this. For every one of us, there are probably five people who are the types who put duct tape over the laptop cameras for fear that the NSA will record them jerking off to granny porn.

The real question is how much a webcam would accomplish when it comes to RTA. Could a person still use RTA and go undetected even if we see his/her face? (Note: I'll admit that I don't know how they work – maybe the amount of clicking and typing that follows each opponent action would give it away.)

Webcam policy should be only for regs that are playing close to gto,that would not affect recs at all.
Is quite simple,every reg that is playing to close to gto is required to have webcam surrounding his playing area.

It is going to turn some people off for sure but the game is going to die completely online unless you do something. You either have a choice of playing in games where there is a high likelihood you are getting cheated or you give up some privacy.


This is bang on the money and I agree completely. I used webcam games to represent something that is demonstrably clean but I am not sure that webcams are the solution that makes this a reality. It would though raise the barrier for people to cheat massively though.

I posted this a few pages back ITT

That probably sounds extremely far-fetched but at the rate technology is currently advancing with AI, etc I think you could see a company do something like this in the future. I feel like it is too big of a pivot for existing sites and will need a new player to come along with a fundamentally different approach to online poker.

I think the market is there for people to try as if someone could solve the issues related to the security of online games it could be used in chess, poker, computer games, and a whole host of other areas.

Let's face it, online Poker is gonna die, perhaps in a year or less. There's so much financial motivation pushing the RTA & bots...

Not just to address the solvers issue but to improve the game generally: preflop should start at the button and go counter-clockwise. This will generate more multi-way pots and compact the opening range difference between button and left-of-BB. Also works well with straddles in live games, where it now starts at the button. As currently played, straddles are too -EV.

Want a bet?

Yea i'll bet lol. There's not a single other solved game out there that hasn't been completely destroyed by cheating scandals once the assistance becomes real time.

Scandals doesn't equal being destroyed. Chess is atm fairly safe from engine abuse as cheaters are caught quite quickly. It's mostly the same old pros winning the online tournaments. But the problem is poker doesn't have a good way of evaluating the players skill levels. Now that in itself might be a good thing as it also makes cheating harder.
I still think this discussion is kind of silly. AI is going to change a lot more than just poker. The world will be completely different so concentrating on this little part is just boring.