whos knows... possibly nonexistent

love this

Facebook buys Pokerstars

this would mean banning people as bots for going on good runs of strategy or not tilting enough. at that point you are better off just banning people whose winrate is too high.

This post is spot on unfortunately and I've seen it coming for several years now. The bots were big winners in the UB mid/high stakes limit games three years ago. I can only imagine what they've progressed to, fortunately Poker Stars has done a great job in deterring them so far.

Something that's interesting is that the bots are easily identifiable in limit hold-em. They play a style that is very unorthodox, very few players have a similar style to them. I think this is important because if a site like Poker Stars was notified as to who they might be, they could monitor them and likely find a way to detect them. That assumes Poker Stars trusts the person notifying them.

Ultimately, there needs to be a harsh enough penalty to deter them. To use an extreme example, let's say the owners were executed. How many would there be? Likely none. I don't think confiscating an account balance is enough of a deterrent unfortunately. We need regulators and someone willing to prosecute botters with at least the threat of jail time.

Public beheadings would be quite appropriate I feel. Right now, they probably just have their chat blocked for a week if caught.

9-bet bluffs on the regular

Im not sure why everyone is so concered about bots being so powerfull that they will be unbeatable in No limit. I dont doubt that computing will become more and more powerfull but poker is a much different then a game like chess where the calculations are much more difficult. What real calculations can a computer do in poker that a human cant?

Wait, there was congestion in 1925????

having a very good strategy and being a bot is completely different, the best chess players don't get banned just because they're strategy is great.

No money in poker in 10 years, everyone is solid.

Pokerstars will celebrate its 20th birthday
It will be normal that approx half million people will be playing on stars.
There will be a SM with a guaranteed 20 Million USD$ and 4 Million to the winner.
The new world record will be set at 400.000 entries in a 1$ tourney.
The road to the 200 Billionth hand will be huuuge...

just my 2 cents

It doesn't even matter if in the end (let's say 10 years) they can beat even the best of players... What matters is, is that they beat most of the poker players, meaning that they have SOLID winrates. That means that they take money out from your pocket (if you beat the game) by bustoing the fish before you.

Of course it sounds hypocritical.-- I win at poker and i don't want anyone else to take the money i will take eventually.

But the fact that you can buy bots online(not winning ones yet, as i understood) means that an average Joe, who has no idea how to build something so sophisticated as a winning poker bot, has gotten the possibilty of making money in poker. It will unbalance the poker economy, if a player that is loosing suddenly can become a solid winner in poker.

Another thing is .. If botting becomes more and more of a problem, it will reveal itself to more and more people. It means that people just won't deposit their money, b/c they know some kind of robot will take it away.
If a reg wins the money from the recreational player, then that player thinks that reg was lucky or something trivial. He will still deposit, b/c he want's to play.


Bottom line is, that it's a problem b/c botting took/will take my job.

in chess for almost every position there is a best move most bots agree on and they catch you if you make the best move more % of the time than you should be expected to. it works because you can be great player and still not make the exact best move much of the time. also chess players arent interested in creating a bot that plays at or below their level and letting run 24/7 in multiple numbers, a bot like that would probably go undetected by any of their methods.

in the end why are you worried about detecting bots? because the average players are getting angry the games are dry/too much money is being pulled out of the site. why spend all the money on detection when you can just ban high winning players? from the average player's perspective the effect is just as good if not better. does it matter to them if its a poker genius or a computer that is killing the game? either way they wouldnt be invited back to the next home game (disregarding hustler skills)

Poker

• Ocean card (and 8th street)
• Super Blind
• 5 suits. I know that the spades are the swords of a soldier. I know that the clubs are weapons of war. I know that diamonds mean money for this art. But that's not the shape of my heart. And now there are kidneys too.
• 17 ranks: 2-9 (no 10s too many spots, no jacks can't play them anyway) Queens, Drag Queens, Kings, Pawns, Wizards, Aces, more Aces (that's right, suited aces baby), Fish, and Tworooks.

If or when poker comes back to the United States... I am sure there will be much stricter enforcement against bots. Cheating at poker would be considered a federal crime. I am not sure the average joe would be willing to go to jail over this. Not to mention have the ability to hide the bot. I am sure botting will still occur and there would be issues prosecuting foriegn players but i doubt it will be just a bunch of computers playing one another. I think the real question is how much effort the sites will put in to stop it. If they want to stop it they certainly have the funds. In chess it is pretty easy to tell if someone is using a computer program to cheat like Fritz.... In poker it would be alot less clear

and they would have a lot of info, and there's potential to develop better software to collect more pertinent data to find cheaters than is available right now. and the best-funded sites will be able to hire experienced security from pokerstars/tilt to spread knowledge to a team as big as they want.

and if a site is gonna be run by a casino, i expect beefy security to be the norm. if a site is going to even consider 'protecting rec players' by imposing table limits, they'll certainly be putting money and effort into security to curb cheating.

all huge deterrents working hard to send botters to jail and blacklist them from all online poker sites in the US. these kind of policies would give the sites much higher turnover and save the sites huge $$$ (cheating at regulated US online poker would be wire fraud, right, even if there weren't any new laws written? they prosecute cheaters in vegas to deter others, right?), and i'm hoping that's obvious enough incentive for them to invest highly.

i mean, i know people willingly break the law for money, i've seen breaking bad, but if you're gonna try to commit a federal crime where you defraud people across state lines for big money with a computer... putting in a verified SS#, bank accounts, etc etc when you want to deposit is gonna make you feel a little worried.

I am afraid that poker bots will be extremely sophisticated by then, and soaking up all the money which will make cash games unprofitable. Only the very best players will be able to withstand it; All the average winning players will get eradicated.

Everywhere there is money... there's people trying to **** with it; Look at Lederer and Ferguson.

Sites will still be combating bots, and If you play on a site that isn't vigilant about stopping bots, then it's your fault for playing there IMO. Shady sites won't last, they never do. They pop up, and dry out, remember pitbull poker.

The rate of which the site combats bots is usually at the same rate that these sicko hackers program a loop around the system. It's a vicious circle all for money.

Bots can be stopped almost instantly...
Using simple technology like Security Tokens...
Most trading accounts have used them for years.

This is Internet Security 101...
So if sites are not even doing this freaking minimum...
It's much, much worse than you einsteins think.

It means best Bots are not some rogue operation...
But designed and run by the Casinos...
To claw back some cash from the grinders...
Or just because they can...
Because that's what Bugsy Siegel would want.

How do you think they test complex software like essence...
They simulate entire Poker Ecosystems using bots...
And run a few billion hands.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_token

I guess I don't understand the security token. What's to prevent a person with the security token sitting next to their computer watching the bot (their program) play and then entering the code if need be? I understand if they were running 30 accounts, they might have a problem, or at least need to hire a lot of people.