These poker bot things sound cool, where can i get one?

If you are comparing IV8 to OBL, your have now achieved Epic Failure status.

The two major online poker service providers specifically prohibit bots. They are also major sponsors of this website, the WSOP, etc.

Most of us agree that if the sites become heavily infested by bots the game will be less profitable to us, and less appealing to new players. Stars and Tilt certainly know this.

The 2+2 forum T&Cs state that the 2+2 website is subject to the laws of Nevada. The laws of Nevada prohibit bots unless specifically authorized by the commission.

You have a highly visible proponent of botting who regularly posts in these forums. He admits that bots are against the T&Cs of Stars and Tilt. He claims that some other sites don't mind bots at all. I believe that he has admitted that botting is cheating. He believes that it is justified because some other players have multiple accounts to get rakeback, or use HUDs (which are allowed by the sites), or AHK scripts. He claims that Stars has broken more T&Cs than he has. His profile links to his pro-bot site, his 2+2 user name allows anyone to find his site using a search engine, and he posts in most threads that discuss bots. He calls botting an interesting and fun activity. Players who read these threads on 2+2 are sometimes persuaded that botting is OK or at least tolerated here.

One path quickly leads to the strangulation of 2+2 publishing, the 2+2 forum, and the premature end of profitable and enjoyable online poker. The other path is pragmatic, and recognizes that a cheat is piggy-backing off the reputation of 2+2.

Bot related posting has been "tolerated" on 2+2 for a long time, it has not led to the strangulation of 2+2.

Stars and Tilt are doing a good job of keeping them under control. The battle here is for the hearts and minds of 2+2 readers.

Should 2+2 provide free advertising for cheating?

Would 2+2 allow someone to openly advocate copying and distributing copyright protected intellectual property?

Even if they claim that 2+2 has violated their rights even more? Even if they claim that 90% of the players are doing it? Even if they claim that it is a fun and enjoyable hobby?

Do you tolerate the fun and enjoyable hobby of trading torrents?

I am not and never advocated that, neither I have advocated that someone should break someone else ToS. I argued here that bot should be allowed in a way acceptable for humans.

It is a parallel example, that illustrates the principle of protecting one's own interests.

What did you mean by the claim that Stars has violated their T&Cs against you more times than you have violated them against them?

I'm afraid that elaborating on that would lead to "spam".

No, it doesn't.

I find this highly unlikely. Thousands? No way in hell you could name 2,000 2+2ers who fit this criteria. 200? Maybe, but I'm doubtful. And what if you could? There are well over 100,000 members here.

Where are they providing free advertising? Again, if he's spamming, report it!

As you are aware, no. I'm not seeing the parallel, however. You're talking about theft, which is against the law. Breaking a site's T&C's is not quite the same thing.

Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of IV8. But I think a few of you have let your dislike of him cloud your judgement. Are we now to ban everyone who ever discusses underage gambling, starting a second account at a site, or datamining at sites where it isn't allowed?

It would be different if he was starting threads encouraging people to bot, giving them tips on how to do it, etc. There was a guy who was doing things similar to this in the Zoo a couple of years ago. I won't give him the publicity of his full name, so I'll call him Ray X. Ray had some threads deleted, and when he persisted, he was banned.

No it wouldn't.

What T&Cs has Stars violated against you?
What T&Cs have you violated against Stars?

VP, not sure exactly why IV8 isn't giving a straightforward answer, but based SOLELY on my reading of related posts on 2+2, my interpretation of his comment is:

On his site, the TOS specifically prohibits pokersite employees from reading his forums, and since they have, they are therefore violating his TOS.

Just my .02 fwiw.

Thank you. You are correct.

He is attempting to engage me in MSN messaging now. I will not. I prefer not to engage in private messaging with cheaters.

Um, no it doesn't. Um, no it doesn't.
I asked him twice why he has this policy, and he still has not answered.

Signing off for now.

I appreciate the opportunity to break the 1000 post mark while fighting the "cheating is a fun and interesting hobby" propaganda that now openly plagues 2+2.

Keep up the good work.

It was intended as humorious experiment. If any poker site ask me to drop it for them, I would most probably do it.

Yeah, he justifies his actions by lame accusations that others are cheating to, for example, if there is a site somewhere that says being rude to other players is against TOS, obviously 2+2ers violate that, therefore, he should be able to violate TOS as well.

@Poker Clif: To my best knowledge, I don't recall doing that. I have stated often as a fact that most people are breaking the ToS-es (and this is indeed a fact expressed by many people), but I never used this as an argument to justify that breaking ToS, in particular by using bots, should be done.

omg here I thought 2plus2 hated bots otherwise my "solution for dealer mishaps" thread about hypothetically allowing bots wouldnt have been closed! allowing known botters ...

I am pretty positive that you cant find many ways to make a poll much more complicated and unclear.

The comments in this thread thus far have been mostly braindead.

Let's all run and hide from the big, bad poker botters, forcing that information underground where it will never see the light of day, because prohibition always works!!

Poker botting is the application of poker AI (legitimate topic which no forum in the world prohibits) to poker client command & control (semi-legitimate topic which no forum in the world really prohibits).

Most people have no problem with discussion of poker AI. And most people have no problem with discussion about how to programatically interact with (or even data-mine) a particular poker client. Only when the two are mentioned in combination is this seen as crossing the line.

Those who argue that poker bots are capable of "ruining poker" quite simply have no clue what they're talking about. Most of you commenting here have never even seen a bot...let alone used one. Be honest with yourself: you wouldn't know a poker bot if it sat down at your table and slapped you across the face.

PokerTracker/Hold'emManager and the deluge of APPROVED poker software have done more to ruin the game of online poker than any poker bot ever will. The rise of search-and-destroy, software-assisted poker can be directly traced to tools like that, popularized on forums like this.

This is EXACTLY why the games have gotten tougher, this is EXACTLY why certain games are no longer beatable without rakeback, and this is EXACTLY why some newbies are hesitant to try out the game...because it doesn't take more than a couple Google searches to determine, holy ****, you practically need a computer science degree to compete in online poker these days...thanks largely to sites like 2+2.

Next to that, poker bots are a minor annoyance. I'm not saying people should necessarily be allowed to spam the forums with bot-related information, but this palsied argument about ZOMG!! POKER BOTS = POKER RUINED is exactly as stupid as the ZOMG!! POKER = RIGGED argument.

And to the extent that you keep this information underground, you rob the poker site security teams of a valuable conduit for staying in touch with the sorts of techniques that poker botters use.

In fact, if you really want to solve the botting problem once and for all, just mandate that all bot-related information (AI, stealth, multi-accounting, logistics of setup & preparation) has to appear on a public forum like 2+2. Some of these techniques take YEARS to develop, but the countermeasures for these techniques are often very simple.

A great example of this are some of the recent changes to the FT/PS clients; simple tweaks (like no longer emitting full game text into the chat window while observing, or changing the way text is drawn to the screen so it's not as easy to hook) that have made life a lot harder not only for botters, but for pretty much every tool out there.

Banning poker botting discussions from 2+2 will have ZERO effect on the popularity or efficacy of botting. Whereas if you allow these discussions to take place, if you allow people to openly discuss the issues, it levels the playing field, and the site security teams don't have to operate in the dark. By pushing this information underground you just allow it to fester.

this, very clever though lol

I think the poll is reasonably clear, although I think "cheating" could've been defined better.

I'm curious why some people voted for both "Discussion about bot-making should not be permitted in the forums" and "Free discussion without spam should be permitted in the forums", as they are contradictory to each other.

I did that, and here's my crazy reasoning. I'm not in favour of "bot-making" discussion being permitted, as in how to do it, how to avoid sites' counter-measures, etc. At the same time, I don't have an issue with a conversation like the one we're having in this thread.

I made a distinction between the two choices that may not have been intended by the pollster.