Poker Bots Invade Online Gambling

[Tsotne]

An extract from random software bot:

We have by far the most sophisticated, undetectable and accurate poker bot for online Texas Hold'em that's available on the Internet.

Our software works with up to 22 poker sites. Support No Limit , Pot Limit, Fixed Limit , tournaments, cash games and sit and gos.

Why is our bot so great?

To begin with, you can use it at 21 online poker rooms online, giving you a huge advantage and enabling you to play almost anywhere. Our program also supports a number of features, including (but not limited to) tournaments, cash poker games, sit and gos, fixed limit, pot limit and no limit games. You can even play up to 4 games at once! Can you imagine playing and winning that many hands at the same time by yourself?.

What it does?

Online poker bot automatically reads the recommended action from OHI and performs the suggested action for you without any interaction of your part required.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

This poker bots versus human game is now starting to look like how algo traders versus retail on Wall Street.
Next stop: experience in programming poker bots is required for algo trading.

 

[Tsotne]

This poker bots versus human game is now starting to look like how algo traders versus retail on Wall Street.
Next stop: experience in programming poker bots is required for algo trading.

BTW, where do people get such experience? Self studding or some courses which takes you through the details of poker bots programming and preparing you for specifically algo trading?

 

[iHateVariance]

http://www.codingthewheel.com/archives/how-i-built-a-working-poker-bot

 

[Tsotne]

Woow! Really liked it. I don't know poker rules but Ill begin studding it along my MBA and Ill definitely start constructing a bot by the following summer. Let's see what happens how it will be. Thanks @iHateVariance

 

[Andy Nguyen]

If anything, doing something like this will only help with your programming skills and strategy that can have real application in finance.

 

[iHateVariance]

next thing you know Tsotne you gonna try to beat GS VWAP algo

 

[Tsotne]

I only need to get involved in it first. Once I gain a theoretical knowledge I don't usually have trouble constructing and implementing them in programming languages. So I'll try my best. I hope that will be ready by the end of summer when I'll have more time free for that.

 

[Tsotne]

BTW, I have quite a big programming toolbox and I'll have even more at the time I begin developing it. Which programming language would you suggest??? I am considering C++ or C#. Any idea? Since C# will decrease my development time significantly compared to C++ I have an odds as 2:3 for C#.

 

[guittarrzan]

First off, let me say that I really have enjoyed lurking on this forum for the past few weeks reading some of the threads and a lot of the articles. This is really a great resource for someone like me who is an online poker pro hoping to some day transition out of poker and into quant trading.

Having gotten that out of the way, I just have to say that there's a lot of confusion and misinformation in this thread regarding bots and online poker in general. I would be happy to field any specific questions on either topic since I probably have played more hands of poker than this entire forum combined (believe me, that's not a brag... I would much rather be in your shoes).

 

[Tsotne]

First off, let me say that I really have enjoyed lurking on this forum for the past few weeks reading some of the threads and a lot of the articles. This is really a great resource for someone like me who is an online poker pro hoping to some day transition out of poker and into quant trading.

Having gotten that out of the way, I just have to say that there's a lot of confusion and misinformation in this thread regarding bots and online poker in general. I would be happy to field any specific questions on either topic since I probably have played more hands of poker than this entire forum combined (believe me, that's not a brag... I would much rather be in your shoes).

Great. We are talking about bots. Would be really interesting to hear your opinions.

 

[guittarrzan]

It does not specify in the article what happens if you are detected to run a bot. Do they confiscate all your balance with no chance to clear it up?
I don't play poker online but I would imagine you open an account, connect it with a bank/credit card and for some reason, the host mistakenly identify you as a bot and all your deposit/winning/balance is gone?

I have never known anyone personally who has ran a bot, but I have seen several people get their accounts shut down.

Unfortunately one of these situations occurred when I, along with 20 or so other people, were backing/staking a player (or "horse" as they are generally called). The horse in question had apparently been banned for colluding in cash games with his brother on a different screen name and was on a new account when his funds were confiscated. Us backers had zero knowledge of this collusion beforehand obviously, and were fairly shocked when Full Tilt confiscated the funds which were very clearly ours (all of the money was transferred to his account 2 days before confiscation) and refused to distribute it to us, ie the innocent party.

Pokerstars is a much more legitimate business in general than Full Tilt in my opinion. Basically if you are suspected of cheating and they have a decent amount of proof, they just confiscate the funds, shut down the account and ignore all correspondence. If you somehow know one of the higher up's in the company --- ie Howard Lederer, Phil Ivey or one of their big sponsored pros, then you can probably get them to re-open your account or at least investigate the issue. This is part of the pains of being involved in an unregulated industry.

 

[Tsotne]

@guittarrzan

Could you please give point any book where to learn the rules? Thanks in advance

 

[guittarrzan]

Great. We are talking about bots. Would be really interesting to hear your opinions.

Bots are definitely not new to the online poker industry and I would say that they are probably much less prevalent now than they were when I first started playing online (summer of 2006). Saying that "Poker Bots Invade Online Gambling" is pretty misleading in 2011 because I would say that they are a very minor problem if they are even a problem at all.

As many people have stated, almost all poker bots lose money but yet they generate money, in the form of rake, for the sites. I would say that there are a lot of people that turn the other way instead of truly investigating these accounts and I really don't have much of a problem with that. For the most part, these bots cannot even beat the micro stakes games, which are ridiculously soft... so the idea of one of these bots beating the midstakes games that I play or highstakes games is really inconceivable in the near future.

I do think that bot technology is in its infancy, however, and that most likely, a lot of the people who are programming them are novice poker players at best. If a world class player were to team up with a top-notch programmer and iron out all of the special cases and such, I do think it is possible to make a bot that could beat up on a lot of midstakes games.

 

[guittarrzan]

@guittarrzan

Could you please give point any book where to learn the rules? Thanks in advance

http://www.fulltiltpoker.com/holdemComp.php

I assume you are talking about NLHE. The other games are listed on the left hand side as well, if you are interested in those.

 

[guittarrzan]

It seems to me that if you're smart enough to build a seriously good Poker bot, you really ought to be doing algorithmic trading, which is both more legal and more profitable.

Spot on.

 

[euroazn]

Ttsone, I've been playing poker recreationally for a while, and if you want to make this Bot just as a side project for fun, I'd be willing to do it.

 

[Tsotne]

As many people have stated, almost all poker bots lose money but yet they generate money, in the form of rake, for the sites.

Loosing 90% of time doesn't mean loosing money and having negative sum in total. That's what I stated in previous posts that point of making such a bot is to loose 90% of the time to remove doubts but that 10% win must be controlled in terms of money won.

 

[Tsotne]

Ttsone, I've been playing poker recreationally for a while, and if you want to make this Bot just as a side project for fun, I'd be willing to do it.

Yes for fun , but serious fun. To excel programming and algo thinking.

 

[guittarrzan]

One way to detect the presence of a bot is by sending a message to the player. All these poker sites have a way for the players to communicate with each other by means of IM of some sort. Posing as an administrator of the site and asking a question regarding the state of the game might lead to detect a bot. This is just an idea but it's trivial and relatively easy to implement.

I know the bot writer will come up with ways to go around it but this could be a good starting point.

PokerStars actually does this now. I think they have done this to me 2 or 3 times in the past few months.

In the chat box a message will come up that says: You have 60 secs to type the following word and press enter --- [random word]. I have always caught it in time and submitted, but I'm not sure what happens to the people who miss it. It's important to remember that there are a lot of people who can legitimately play 20-40 tables at a time profitably without bot assistance. I have no idea how they would have time to be bothered with a message like this with so much going on. Not sure if the site freezes their account after missing it or not. But its these people, the mass-multi-tabler's, that the sites are most suspicious of.