I'm not sure if people are encouraged to suggest topics for potential magazine articles. But I would be very interested in reading an article on the prevalence of bots in online games. The recent discovery of probable winning bots playing 1-2NL at Full Tilt has me quite concerned for the future of online poker. Mainly because of the callous way that Full Tilt has treated this problem.

I would be primarily interested in reading suggestions for how sites and players could police and crackdown on bots. Maybe the poker sites would even be interested in reading the suggestions if someone did a good job of writing the article.

Anyways, I'm just throwing this idea out there in case someone has the desire and expertise to research and write about it. Of course I wouldn't want anything to be published which would primarily help bots escape detection, so there's a double edged sword with this topic.

Detection isn't really the issue, or at least not the interesting one. Bots will always exist and be undetectable. The question, for me, is whether their evolution will kill online poker or not. Put differently: as more bots appear, will their most profitable strategy converge to an Ankenman-ish unexploitable one, or will they be constantly cutting each other's throats (leaving their own throats exposed), or some function fluctuating between those?

Now that's interesting.

Or poker rooms could simply expose an API for anyone interested and have bot only tables. Herd them onto the same tables so to speak, and let others play against them if they wished.

This obviously could encourage more rapid evolution, but at least they'd be out in the open for us to observe and we'd have a list of users creating them.

The real risk is when someone commercializes a strong bot.

Yeah, you're right that there are probably more interesting articles to be written on the subject of bots than just detection. Anyways, I think that this subject would be of interest to readers of the magazine as evidenced by how many replies that thread on FT bots received.

I think that I will try to find some articles on bots on the internet either way. It would be nice to know what we're up against. I think this is the second biggest concern to the future of online gaming, with changing regulations being the first concern.

I'm not worried about someone writing a bot and running it in the attempts to make money. What does worry me is a poker site writing its own in-house bots and running them on their own server in cash games.

This makes no sense whatsoever to me. Why would a poker site do this? Maybe a small poker site. But there is no reason a major site like Stars, FTP, or Party would want to do this. It's simple risk reward. Right now major sites make millions of dollars. Millions! Think about how many hands are player per hour on a major site. Add up the rake and tournament buy-in fees. The major poker sites are making more money than they ever dreamed of. What would happen to that money if they got caught using a bot? No one would play there. They would lose all their business. And for what? A few more BBs/hour using a bot? LOL. There is absolutely no logical reason for a major poker site using a bot.

Good point.. similar to the poker sites fix cards to reward aggressive players and increase the rake rubbish.

I think this "what would they have to gain" argument is nonsense. I will make it very simple. Why make $X in a fair game when you can rig it and make 2*$X.

That's like saying, "why would anyone ever cheat at poker? If the games are always good, why cheat? Simple risk V reward. You have too much to lose by getting caught and kicked out of the game. Just play fair and play better."

But yet poker players cheat? Huge multinational corporations that make tons of legitimate profits still cook their books and choose to engage in unscrupulous business practices in order to make more money. Why?

Because two dollars are always better than one. Do not underestimate greed.

In summary, I'm not saying that sites are/aren't could/couldn't run house bots, w/e. But if you think they aren't because they have "too much to lose", then you're very naive.

Because rigging it to make 2*$X would be long term costly as I have already indicated. I assume the operators of poker sites think logically (this assumption could be completely wrong, but something about PokerStars management and support team tells me it isn't).

Anyhow, take your example to the extreme. Why do casinos payout money at gaming tables and slot machines? I mean, they could make more money according to your theory if they just "rigged" the games to win every hand/pull. So why don't they? Because it is long term -$EV.

Why would live casinos cheat customers any further? It would simply be too costly if they got caught. I don't doubt that some greedy and ignorant owners will/have attempted to do so. But when they get/got caught, the cost will be/is tremendous. So long as owners/managers have 1/2 a clue, poker websites will not run online bots. Anyone who thinks they will doesn't understand EV or doesn't believe online casino owner/managers do.

Any chance of a link to that thread? I can't find it.

You missed my point. I agree that most poker sites wouldn't rig/bot the sites because the risks outweigh the rewards.

My point was that if this is the only basis of comfort you have in the sites, then it is a naive way to looking at things. Sure, most sites won't do anything out of line for the reasons you mentioned above. But there are a lot of sites out there and not all of them are run by honest or intelligent (smart enough to perform the same basic EV/cost benefit analysis you outlined above) people. You seem to be assuming that all of them are.

Just assuming they wouldn't do it because it would be deterimental to the site's business long-term may be logical and make sense to you, but like I said, don't underestimate greed.

And I highlighted some comments above. First off, you said yourself, that you're assuming. that's a first mistake. Yea, pokerstars is probably the best of the bunch but there are a ton of other sites out there, many not run quite as well.

And the reason casinos pay out and provide fair games is because they are regulated by government agencies. You think casinos wouldn't cheat players if given the opportunity? Study some casino history for your answer.

Your thinking is logical but cheats and criminals don't think like you do. You make the mistake of assuming they do.

I made it clear in my original response that "small" sites might be more tempted to use bots than major sites. So it seems that we agree. Which is partially why I would be skeptical about playing on any new site. For example, Podunk Poker may think b/c they are smaller they a) are less likely to get caught using bots and b) actually can increase their profits by a significant amount using bots. FWIW, they are probably right on both accounts and it wouldn't shock me to see them using bots. But it really would shock me if Stars, FTP, or Party (with less confidence in Party) used bots.

It's clear that there are bots out there that make about $6 an hour which is increase via multitable play. However, as much as a good discussion this topic is, and could be, I personally don't beleive it's a serious problem. If someone has a working bot that makes as little as $1 per hour net, the maker would be crazy to commercialize it. There would be no sense in doing this unless he came up with a better bot he could use for himself. But even if this were to happen, beginners would still loose, pros' will still be arround and will also beat the bots. The only disadvantage will be the inermediate player... but bots are not the only one's that will be at his table. If he has a bot at his table that is making $1 per hour off this player (assuming the bot is making $6 total an hour), so be it... that will be his price to learn better poker since he still has a way to go in his learning curve.

This being said, I don't approve the use of bots, but it's part of the online game and it is here to stay. If you get passed the intermediate stage, and start making money, you will make far more money online than on Land casino's playing limit games. So bot is simply a minor set back that I'm willing to pay off (if I have too) so could make serious money (which I'm not yet) online.

Look at it this way... Pay the bot to learn better poker once in a while or pay the casino dealer a tip... I'm will to bet the bot is cheaper to play againsts.

"I mean, they could make more money according to your theory if they just "rigged" the games to win every hand/pull. So why don't they? Because it is long term -$EV.
"
its called government intervention. If you think unregulated casinos would have as "fair" games as those that are unregulated u r crazy.

"But even if this were to happen, beginners would still loose, pros' will still be arround and will also beat the bots. The only disadvantage will be the inermediate player... but bots are not the only one's that will be at his table. "

The main disadvantage of bots is that they can pick up a hell of a lot of the easy money. Playing a fr game against more than 1or2 bots is gonna drop your profitability significantly. I dont think they will ever really make the game unwinable, and i think we are still a ways away from seeing winning short-handed bots, but imho bots are just begining to be a real problem. We'll see in the coming months if ftp wants to do anything about it. (i doubt they will)

The largest problem with bots, as i see it, is card sharing.

Probably its the bot-programmers own bots who gets to share the cards of the bots ppl downloaded from his site. This will give his bot an unfair dissadvantage over both other players and other bots. The cardsharing ability is of cause why the bot-programmers wants their bots to be downloaded - the more bots that share cards with the programmers bots - the more he will make.

The main dissadvantage with bots are that they tend to be predictable. this will make the better players win in the long run (if not playing agains several cardsharing bots). And many of the low limit players are in it for the thrill. They dont care if they win or loose, and if they win or loose to a semi-pro or a bot.

This may even be of advantage for onlinepoker. Bots, ensuring that games are always available for recreational players on low limits.

Well two people have pointed this out so far and quite simply they are missing the point.

If a casino game was rigged to win every time would anyone play? NO! Period. End of Story.

Everything we know about conditioning and learning theory suggests that periodic rewards are necessary to keep people playing. You have to let the gambler win sometime. If you don't, he won't come back.

While gambling regulations might keep the casino's edges where they are in a legal sense, there is only so much optimal edge a casino can obtain and still expect to make the most long term profits. You have to reward people to keep them coming back. It's the same reason poker games are profitable for a gambler and chess games are not.

This would be an interesting article indeed.

http://www.spicejar.org/asiplease/archives/000572.html

Wow. 2*X? In order to rig their games to make 2*X, they would have to do such an incredible amount of rigging that, by now, a 2+2er would have ample evidence to turn them in just from the sheer number of hands that people have played to this point.

Maybe you mean, “Why make $X in a fair game when you can rig it and make .3*$X?” Something less noticeable at least? Then, the thought is, is it worth risking billions to make just a little extra? I’m not totally discounting your notion, I just don’t think that it would be worth the risk, or to put it more in your terms, the risk is not worth the reward.

Why? Because, when they’re caught, they pay fines, and penalties, get a little bad press, improve their public image with a few press releases that water down their crimes, and no one really cares. For example, I could care less that Ford would cook their books at all…if I like their trucks, I’m still buying them.

But, if a poker site is known to rig things…they’re done. Period. No one in their right mind would ever come back, there’s too many other sites that would offer rig free poker to have to go to one that has been caught.

Bots will get better. Its only a matter of time before they're good enough to beat the vast majority of players. I suspect its also only a matter of time before they're unbeatable by all players.

Anybody that assumes bots will stay simple and predictable is ignoring the past 5 decades of computer history. There was also a good thread in Computer Technical Help about bots:

Bot Thread

Can't say I know much about bots but how about taking any possible article a bit further for us less knowledgable players, for example.

1. What poker rooms are doing to protect us.
2. How can we detect them?
3. Is there a strategy to defeat them?

There are counter-measures for bots. Strategies to defeat them should be handled very carefully so that the bot makers can not anticipate them.

Bots are consistent, which is how they are exploited and is also how they make money. The standard play can be +EV long term with a bot and they can calculate those odds. Does that mean that they will never hit a downswing and go busto? Obviously, the closer that they play to +EV, the more risk of ruin, unless they adjust for that, somehow.

I'd be happy to write one if anyone is interested.

I can go into details on:

The underground subculture of botters
How bots are programmed
Detection vs anti-detection
Limit vs No Limit
Creating Multiple accounts
Toughest sites to bot on
Commercial vs non-Commercial bot software

proud botter,

I'm assuming by your name and post you have either built a bot or have the know how to do so, and from a detecting and strategy against point of view I would love to read anything your willing to share.

There clearly is a lot of useful information within these few pages and it seems a shame to waste it debating whether to have an article or not, so I have my fingers crossed the Magazine decides not only to do the article but to have the common sense to consult posters in this thread and make use of their knowledge.