Well in the future the human brain will be eventually modeled 100%, and from then on only improved. So in the future the human/robot won't calculate the lips pressure, but the optimal strategy to get her to bed after the kiss.

Also, I believe in 100 years max every human will have something like a USB port or a wireless chip on his head connected to his brain, so he would be able to plug-in a computer device directly to his brain and make use of its powers. How would that be for online poker?

Are you implying that in the future...
Your consorts will no longer have to fake orgasm?

Actually, this is quite a bad example. I mean, I'm not saying computers can actually compose good music, but you're seriously underestimating just exactly how mathematicized musical theory is. After learning a bit of that, I was quite surprised at how much abstract stuff like the song's general "feel" are a function of some pretty basic theoretical concepts (such as adding in some special chords from outside the scale or by changing the scale to a different one than the typical major/minor scales).

Yampolskiy is basically proposing putting CAPTCHA-like tests on the cards that would foil screen readers (a card could suddenly occur as text like "King of hearts" or whatever). The CAPTCHA test can occur on both hole cards and board cards, and they can occur at random.

So, if you cannot solve the CAPTCHA, you don't know which cards are in play, and this should put the bot at a serious disadvantage.

If you are afraid of bots, here is a simple solution:

Stop playing holdem, play PLO. At the moment (as of my knowledge) there is not a single winning PLO bot. Most likely, due to the extra complexity of the game, there will never be one either. Developing a winning PLO bot would require more resources invested than there is to gain in online poker.

Anyway, i sure agree that bots are annoying, but i dont know if i can say banning them is a (morally) good decision. After all, like someone pointed out, pokertracker is also a form of cheating. Basiacally everyone should be playing on equal terms, like in live games. This is clearly not true and most likely over 99% of all 2+2 use some kind of tracking/HUD software to analyse and help in gameplay.

Johan

TY
Captcha does not sound like a good idea to me. How bad would that be for (us) Multitablers if the decks are changed by random.

Hmmm, internet sites populated with players using unfair advantages!? Wow, say it ain't so Joe, say it ain't so.

Insider cheating, bots, friends sitting at same table but not playing against each other, dumping chips to friends (partners) in tourneys, massive software usage to gain info on other players. All rumors and inuendo I say.

The next online TV ad should have Bill Clinton looking into the camera and saying "There is not cheating on internet poker sites!". Believe it.

Is there cheating at tables in B&M and home games, sure. At least at the B&M sites it's not nearly as rampant and anonymous as on the internet. I know a lot of you make a very good living on the net sites and more power to you. But any "regular joe" who looks at internet poker as anything but entertainment is foolish. By regular joe I mean ther person playing 2 hours or so one or two nights a week.

Play at your own risk.

Don't bots help you make money? I mean, if you know how to beat the bot you can beat it at it's own game..

What are "Shill Bots" plz.

Thx

i don't know but ub is loaded with them

err your a tool, i could link to one right now but i dont want to get banned. its highly advanced and you can create your own custom coding for its actions so you can basically get it to play to whatever strategy you want so if your a winning PLO player you can make the bot a winner.

that being said if you suck ass at PLO and set it up to play like you do then it will be a loser so.... maybe bots are a good thing if more fish get them and try and set them up to there own "winning" strategys.

NVM

I'm gonna kill 2 birds with one stone here...
First shoot down this ludicrous idea:

"~2 Yrs ago I red something in a german scientific journal about some guy from NYU who did some research for a pokersite. He came up with a solution to identify players with 90% accurance just by comparing betting patterns."

The implicit idea here...
Is that you can identify elite Bots...
By studying their betting or playing style.

NOT a well designed one...
Because there are simple AI approaches...
That allow you to EXACTLY clone the playing style...
Of a SPECIFIC player...
Assuming you have a database with enough hands.

And to extend this idea...
Since Elite human players have quite different styles...
Your Bot can be a composite of 4-5 Elite playing styles...
Playing each hand by randomly mimicking...
One of several Elite players in your database.

Identifying Bots by playing style doesn't pass the LAUGH TEST... one has to use classic computer security techniques that are more in the domain of virus and malware detection... and scan the target PC thoroughly plus examine how keystrokes and mouseclicks are generated, etc, etc... a very sophisticated cat and mouse game like ALL malware control.

That's why the idea...
That poker sites are hiring university poker AI experts...
To screen out Bots...
Does not pass the Laugh Test.

There are 100s of experienced Internet Security Experts in Silicon Valley... that are infinitely more qualified to detect ANY security threat including Bots... than young academics narrowly focused on Poker AI algorithms.

The poker AI guys are being hired to build Bots...
And there are 1000 reasons...
A poker site might want to have various Bots...
Filling up the tables with "shills"...
Controlling games or harassing specific players...
Launching massive Poker Bot Herd DOS type attacks...
Against competing poker sites...
Use your imagination...
You are operating in lawless Offshore Cyberspace.

Poker sites lie to you all the time...
You nothing more than a mook to be skinned.
As a rule... I would ignore ANYTHING...
A poker site says about Bots.

Feedback from a newly born botter:

This is hard to believe. -- People change

This would eliminate the need for a "style", and also require that there is a perfect strategy for poker.

Wouldn't it also require that a person would have access to a random number generator of their own? --Algorithm is faulty so action over x^x hands leads to theoretical style 1 or 4 being unevenly distributed.


This would actually be very limited. ie custom built bots might not be detectable, custom OS use (such as Ubuntu + wine) would leave the detection not working on a number of systems [systems bot creates that might actually be good at bot creation might be more likely to implement and use -- possibility of highly funded criminal organization];; also these are possibilities; hacked versions of the poker client software, hacked OS (XP, Vista), 2+ computer set-ups that completely hide the ~bot~ software, Robot set-ups that mimic the last.

^ Of course you must have your bot and it must work so you can afford everything

This may be correct for what is currently available or that we know of, but if this is true it looks like pokersites are thinking of the future and what could become available.

You must be joking right?



If we were really worried as a poker community we would offer solutions and seek to have them implemented rather than sit here and just talk about it all of the time.


Solution 1:

Pokersite offers to limited or all customers a limited use of test webcam poker. If popular and workable, or in demand from customers, pokersite would implement.

email you fav pokersite.

Solution 2:

If you are worried about it don't play online.

No amount of time and discussion could ever convince me that this thread shouldn't be closed immediately and forever.

That's how online poker was made illegal in US. Someone was really convinced that it's bad.

No AI can be developed which exploits different types of bad players as well as an expert poker player. Poker can't be "solved" unless you mean creating a bot that can play with no exploitable tendencies. An AI which plays optimally against every possible type of opponent is practically impossible however.

Botting certainly can be cheating, depending on how you define playing poker. If poker is only a game of betting, folding, and calling as you seem to believe then bots are perfectly acceptable. Yet most people consider poker a game played against other humans, where a single human mind is making all the decisions and processing the information.

Why isn't a pitching machine with a 200 mile per hour fastball allowed to play Major League Baseball? All it is doing is throwing a ball, no different than any pitcher.

Your problem is you view poker entirely as a theoretical game, whereas most people view it as a form of human competition. Do you think any casino would allow an AI to be used at a live poker table? Would it be welcome at your buddy's home game?

And botting absolutely presents a danger to poker. No fish will sign up for online poker if it becomes infested with bots, or even if they simply believe it to be infested with bots. Unless of course each fish has a talk with you personally about why botting really doesn't change the poker climate and is swayed by your rational argument.

Imagine a bot is developed by an expert poker player and programmer that is capable of earning 100,000$/year. The creator of this bot sells this bot to 1,000 people in 6 months. In 6 months time, 1,000 100k/year poker players have been added to the poker economy. This will skew the game as players are not progressing to that level of skill at nearly that rate.

Although truth be told I'm not nearly as concerned about these expert bots being created as I am of the perception being created that online poker is a lawless wasteland filled with cheaters, hackers, superusers and bots.

Item would not be sold until creator/user feels that they are about to be caught or shut down. Why let your 100K item out and risk someone using it against [even in the sense of poker site getting hold of a copy].

@jesuslizard

Can one play optimal blackjack strategy now? Yes. If certain game variant is solved, this will allow easily producing simple (or not SO simple, but well systemized) rules and advices, that human can execute.

You can't put "human" in the definition of poker. Well, you can put anything you like there, like the ToS now, but this doesn't make sense from my point of view. E.g. some pokersites does not allow proffesional play, hence it's cheating to play there to win money in the long term. That doesn't make sence from my point of view (it might make sense from business/legal point of view, however). Hence I'm much more in favor of theoretical and consistently drawn lines.

If NO software was allowed, then I would most probably agree to your philosophical humanity arguments. As long as software is allowed, there is no difference if it is a bot, HUD, or something else. In all of these human mind is involved, all of these are computational aid, etc.

the problem is not that poker is bad, but the fact that politics don't get a % from poker rooms like it is in horse bets

Surely you can see the difference between blackjack and poker? Every variable can be known during a game of blackjack and each decision becomes a mathematical one. In poker there are an unlimited number of ways your opponent can play a hand and respond to your raises, bet sizes, plays in relation to board texture etc. In no limit and pot limit variants it becomes especially difficult to reduce each decision to a mathematical one.

While a series of rules could be developed to exploit most players(TAG is an example of this) none could be developed to exploit all players optimally during each play, which is what I would consider "solved", perfectly played poker. If you can't do this you can't solve poker in the same way blackjack or chess can be solved. I even doubt an AI could be developed to exploit people as well as a professional poker player as that would require an expert player be able to translate every aspect of his thought process and strategy into code.

I agree that it is inconsistent to allow huds while banning bots however the majority of players(myself included) are not approaching poker from your angle. I don't want theoretically consistent guidelines I want fish who are happy to sit down and play. Ask some fish who they would rather play against against, a table full of bots or a table full of people using huds and the majority would be in favor of the table of humans using huds.

I don't want to go into the technicalities of this, but I can ensure you that in poker every decision is mathematical as well.

As of the fishes - they have no clue of bots, and they have no clue of HUDs. Normally, bot are unpleasant enough when they find out about them, but when the myths and legends get dismissed, they don't look that much different.

I don't think we have to worry about bots in all honesty, there may be a few out there that beat the games well but these winning bots are not mainstream.

If one is created that beats the games for a good clip, No one would sell it.

In gambling, if someone is onto something, they do not sell that info or give away their edge. Poker is exactly the same.

Cue: Doyle Brunson, author