Isn't it a huge issue though? ultimately the solution to poker is a nash equilibrium which is going to be a predefined strategy. If you had a program that looked up any given spot you are in on the fly and told you what to do based on your "predefined strategy" (NE) you would be unbeatable. This is ultimately what bots strive to be. Don't see how this can't be a problem. The predefined strategies may not be robust enough yet for you to fear but by definition they will be eventually.

Wonder if this is the first piece of software that's been deemed acceptable by Stars, that isn't available to the general public - the lack of access is something all by itself, in addition to the questions about the actual software and what it does ...

It is very different, huds maybe unfair but this type of bot is a huge quantum leap from what a hud does.

When you use a hud you have to hundreds of potential stats to choose from. So the first thing you have to do learn what these stats even mean then to choose what stats to use and how to build the hud so that you can easyly acess the information when needed.

Building a good hud can take years as the process of understanding all the stats and their impact takes time and work.

When using a hud in a specific situation you have to take time to and attention to assess the situation at hand and decide what and if any stat(s) are meaningfull , you have to know what these stats mean and how to use them to ur advantage. I know all my good opponents use huds and their skill very alot because of their human limitation on effectively using a hud.

This is a very difficult skill to master. Its a learning process and a thinking process , it takes skill and there are various kinds of levels of skills on how to use a hud.

Huds are probably unfair to a degree that they display information impossible to keep in a human brain.

BUT they are a far cry away from a software telling you what do to. You have to decide on your own and those decisions arent easy at all. There are many numbers and statistics and to understand them all in the right context and use them correctly or even perfectly to your advantage while multitabling is impossible.

A software telling you what to do is essentially an automated script that analyzes all the stats and situational circumstance for you. This may take a script a fraction of the time that it would a human take to a far more accurate degree and it could make the same level of decisions on all tables at the same time without the trade off a human would have to make. And obviously it has the well known advantage of a bot of never beeing tired and tilted which is a huge factor when it comes to human play.

To me such a thing is obvioulsy bot controlled by a human proxy following the bots actions.

I dont understand how a bot can be allowed just because a human is doing the mouseclicks.

Ive done some reading on bots and their evolvement and the fight of (a few ) pokersites especially pokerstars against them. Some times would monitor mousemovements so botters started to simulate mousemevents. In this understanding a human doing the the action of a bot is nothing more then simulating mousemovements.

How pokerstars can accept this is beyond me and I dont think in the past such a thing would have been even remotely considered to be allowed.

There is a lot of other stuff thats not available to the public..

Ban all software that produces any outputs in real time, including HUDs. Not doing so just leads to the boundaries getting pushed further month by month.

Disclaimer: I play up to 1k hyper husng on Stars and have played skier a couple times in the past for a few games.

As someone mentioned in the thread previously, it's extremely unlikely that the software is limited to pre-flop play as you need to have postflop approximations to actually come up with the balanced preflop play and at that point, why stop just at preflop play right?

In my opinion and from what we know/can guess, this software clearly crosses the line as to what should be permitted as in-game assistance. It seems to actually tell you what action to do instead of having the player interpret it. Like 147_star mentioned, it is still possible for the player to deviate but as is shown by evidence in practice, the player doesn't have much incentive to do so and in the end it's basically a software telling you what to do which is exactly like a bot except you have to manually press the button.

I don't think skier is to blame for this; I think he was clever and put the work to improve his results so props to him. However, when Stars did the investigation they definitely should've put a stop to it.

Since it's out in the open now, there's only one way this is going to go moving forward if Stars doesn't do anything, which is that high stakes will basically be a competition to who has the best script/software for in-game help (hope the guys defending it can see that, do you think the other high stakes players are gonna sit by and not do anything themselves?). The line is pretty thin between what should be permitted or not so I understand that Stars is in a pretty tough spot. I'm the first guy to admit that I rely on poker softwares a lot with my play but I think at this point the best solution to salvage what is left of online poker might be to actually ban all in-game softwares.

If I were to write bot now and instead of letting it be run by computers alone but instead would hire workers to sit down and just do what the bot tells them then by pokerstars logic its not a bot.

Well for one thing its great for botmakers because they have them and can now legally use them.

If I had the time and resources id quit poker quit right now and start building a bot and do exactly that.

If this isnt stopped then pokerstars fight against bots is officially over and online poker truly lost.

care to read the thread?

is the # of people who posted ITT that are actually familiar with the software > 1?

Guess Nash charts' advice is based on one assumed range for a villain, which may or may not be accurate. So if there were a program that could calculate the EV of a hand, versus a villain's actual range ... that would clearly be superior to a Nash chart. And it isn't a calculation that can be done at the tables, so ... that'd be interesting if PokerStars approved a piece of software like that.

Can only speculate about what the software actually does, since we don't have access to the specifics

Sure the player can deviate. Facing two options -"take that money" and "take less or no money", I can see it's a really tough decision. I bet they take a lot of time to decide what to do. This is not directed towards you, Torg0th.

This crap is a lot worse than HUDs. It actually completely eliminates the need for HUDs or knowing anything about your opponents at all. If you can randomize etc. play GTO that is that game over

FYP

This is the natural and inevitable progression that leads to the end of online poker. I always despised all these programs people use to have an unfair advantage over others, but Stars never cared and now it's too late.

The most effective blue print for an undectable bot/ai is to use a separate machine "brains box" that has nothing to do with the client. You can screen grab everything from the client or as long as stars is allowing screen sharing progs could even screen grab from brains box or a third machine. So far, Stars anti-botting people do nothing for screen scrapes and I don't know anyone that bots off of text but that's the real easy way to bot with full dealer text enables. So many legal progs like time mojo require it to pull the info, that I guess if anything its just a bit of a red flag. Kernal coding into hardware devices is the method to operate the bot independently on the client machine without detection, although I think all the really profitable high stakes bots/ais you guys are talking about will continue to be inputted manually since it's safer and the hourly is still so high. In the end, it's way to expensive/impossible for Stars or anyone to keep up with the most advanced botters and ai's. They are doing some interesting stuff in that world...

im ignorant on the bot's subject. but how can it work in a laptop next to your computer where u playing on pokerstars. it needs to grab the HHs , stacks, and holecards information automatically to do any calc, otherwise its imposible to manually enter that data and keep playing (at least multitabling) online. is the laptop on the side even a possible path ?

This is an absolutely terrible decision by Pokerstars, not only for the future of the game, but also for their future profits. Software like this will be extremely useful for multitabling mtts and really easy to program. As soon as this kind of software is publicly available (it will be soon), recreational players will start to find out about it (and tell all their friends). Does Pokerstars seriously believe that most recreational/depositing players will be happy to keep on playing mtts/sngs when they find out that almost all the regulars are using bots to calculate their decision in game?

Btw I can see stars being happy with that very short term - bots (excuse me, humans slightly assisted) generating rake while warring, with both sides losing. What happens in the long run, Stars?

I don't care about HUSNGs(yes i realize it can spread to other games as well), but what really bothers me is that Stars allow a private program to be used. So what, everyone should hire a private programmer in order to be able to play poker? What if I want to buy this software and the guy tells me "I don't like you, go **** yoursef." ?!

I believe the absolute minimum requirement for 3rd party software to be legal is that it should be publically available for purchase/download!!!

Obv best case scenario is all software is banned and everyone plays on vanilla Stars, but its close to impossible anyway. Its going to get very very scary if major poker networks start giving up on the war against botting. :x

Very interesting. Thank you.

And fwiw I'm not singling her out due to being female. I know about her and don't know anything about freechdogg.

Actually thinking about it, it really isnt any of the players or creators faults .. Which player wouldnt use it, and which developer wouldnt write such a program if its allowed. The only one to blame here - once more - is Stars.

Thus we should make it very clear to the public that Stars seem to allow this, and show the public that if thats the way they go, then their fish in the future will not play against humans anymore but vs. bots instead.

THIS

For the love of everything thats good, bring down Amaya for their utter ineptitude

Willing to let go my HUD if they ban this ASAP

In the thread below I had a brief exchange with one of the developers of the Tartanian7 poker bot where he describes their bot playing against another bot maker who's software does virtually exactly what you describe. I thought it was huge news but the thread died almost directly after. our exchange starts at post 223.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29...5/index15.html

Oh, the irony. Online players now agreeing with B&M players... poker is a people game.

We look forward to seeing you across the felt.

I fully agree. I stated earlier that accusing skier_5 (or certainly anyone else using it) of cheating is way out of line. The fuzzy explanations of what the software does and the fact that players seems to improve rapidly make me believe it could be very potent though and hopefully stars will chime in on this.

This, Stars should set one hard boundary. Otherwise we'll keep talking about programs that might or might not be a step over a moving line.
So the software is now available from theverybesthusngsoftwareintheworldperiod.com for $10.000.000.
payment methods: paypal, credit card, bank wire, a truck full of cash.

What does that change exactly? People digging very deep into their trust fund to get it?

If you're saying that amount is unreasonable, should Stars now put a miximum price tag on external software?