[19th Hole]

Online Poker Sites Trying to Deal Out Poker Bots



A poker player sits hunched over his computer, frantically trying to read the behavior of his opponents, looking for all-too-human habits and weaknesses that will give him the edge in betting. Unfortunately, the opponent he's trying to read could well not be human. Welcome to the world of poker robots, commonly known as poker bots.

Even since the supercomputer Deep Blue defeated chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov and Watson won Jeopardy, the ability of a robot to dominate a human in a game has been increasingly obvious. Now, poker "bots" are for sale over the Internet. They allow anyone with a PC and the ability to follow directions to set up a bot to play one of the panoply of on-line poker sites such as PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and PartyPoker.

The sites are fighting back, though. According to The New York Times, PokerStars and other sites will refuse playing privileges to those they determine are bots. Happily, many if not all of the publicly available poker bots are unable to adequately mimic human behavior, and so can be recognized for what they are.

Many are also unable to play well enough to make money against shrewd human opponents, so caveat emptor. An industry consultant told the Times that over 90% of the programs are losing money.

But with the rapid advancements being made in artificial intelligence, how much longer can this be the case? The field is being advanced by hard science, as teams from various colleges attempt to win an annual bot-poker tournament held as part of a yearly conference on artificial intelligence. Last year, the winner reigned victorious after 89.4 million hands of Texas Hold'em.

Many a fortune has been lost by our human inability to calculate odds on the fly, something computers excel at. Once they master the art of the bluff, on-line gaming could become a sucker bet. This would be great news for brick and mortar casinos

[nosniboR11]

get em get em, but hell most of em are run by the online poker site

[l7ustin]

hmmm interesting to think that they could be run by the site. i dont see the real advantage in a game like poker. surprised they would ban them....

[ROGUE63]

about time they decided to do something about the bots

[hockeyman30304]

I have always thought about if the sites put bots in the games...as if they dont always make money with the rake and buy ins for tournies...kinda pisses me off

[MadTiger]

Gotta keep your head on a swivel.

(Seriously, though, with the Ultimate Bet/Absolute Poker scandal coming to light some time ago, you can't put ANYTHING past these mofos.)

[downsouth]

If your losing to bots then you are losing to every mediocre/below average player so your probably drawing dead anyway.

[benjy]

Is this even news? Sites have been accusing some "players" of being bots for years.

It would've been much more interesting if the article had found out the methods used for spotting bots.

[Fed_42420]

Yeah, this has been going on for many years. Not trying to be a dick, just saying

[hugh4310]

Thats just so wrong!

[sonyman]

------------------It would've been much more interesting if the article had found out the methods used for spotting bots.

that is what i was thinking--show us how to spot the computer ''players''

[nosniboR11]

the sites love to say they are working on something they are behind in the first place

[beermankirk]

these bots make the poker sites alot of rake

[mikejamm]

Fuk'in poker bots!

[Tomahawk]

I also used to program AI-s and I think that online poker will be doomed in a decade. The bots will be so effective that human players will leave the sites.

Then the winning bots will start losing money couse they always pay the house a % of the stake and they are equally the best programs so they will lose money and leave the sites so the sites will close.

Of course the sites don't like bots but with a perfect human behaviour they won't notice bots.

[milwaukee mike]

I also used to program AI-s and I think that online poker will be doomed in a decade. The bots will be so effective that human players will leave the sites.

Then the winning bots will start losing money couse they always pay the house a % of the stake and they are equally the best programs so they will lose money and leave the sites so the sites will close.

Of course the sites don't like bots but with a perfect human behaviour they won't notice bots.

i think the problem with online poker is more the fact that starting in 2013 international money transfers will have a 30% us withholding tax EACH WAY.
not sure who would send $1000 if they are going to get taxed 300 going out and another 300 coming back