Bots in PartyPoker's 6-max Limit games?

[flowerizzle]

he should be banned,his site should be closed and all funds he has on sites should be taken away.

this is/will be a huge problem for online poker. 1 big report in tv or a big site about this and many people will stop playing. cheating(which it is.sharing cards,mutliaccount,etc,etc) should NEVER EVER be tolerated.

i cant express what i feel about all that without flaming like hell. so all i say is: I really hate u for what u do to the game we all love u selfish moron

[edfurlong]

[ QUOTE ]
Phil is right.This jackass has been on a PR campaign here for a couple days now,hoping to promote his retarded site.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've haven't paid much attention to the dude, but is there actually a site? I just assumed it was his "clever" way of getting a point a across.

Edit: You're talking about the bot site. I'll be quiet and let the adults talk. Carry on.

[El Diablo]

All,

I'm pretty sure that all the major poker rooms are aware of bots running on their sites. People have been running casino-bonus-whoring bot networks for a long time. They are able to churn through thousands of accounts and evade anti-fraud measures. Of course these people can also create winning poker bots. It's not hard to create a bot that is slightly profitable. Whether that's a worthwhile pursuit is simply a question of scale.

[ctj]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
As far as the can't rely on trust issue and the insecurity stuff, let's take live casino blackjack.

Live casino blackjack has a shuffling machine. I cannot know for certain that it is not being manipulated in some way. Just like I cannot know for certain that online the muck is forgotten or the other 3 points.

Yet casino auto shuffler blackjack exists and is licensed in L.V.

What am I missing?

[/ QUOTE ]

you're failing to see the seriousness of the police work
that went into securing that shuffler. nevada has the best
gaming police in the world.

if you want to understand why it's secure then you can
get access to the information. contact the nevada
gaming control board.

ray bornert

[/ QUOTE ]

Does the Nevada GCB inspect every single shuffling machine every day? How do I know they inspected this one? How do I know it hasn't been modified since? Do I just have to trust the casino? If I don't trust them, does this entitle me to cheat?

[Phil153]

[ QUOTE ]
It's not hard to create a bot that is slightly profitable. Whether that's a worthwhile pursuit is simply a question of scale.

[/ QUOTE ]
I agree. Which is why aggressive bot detection by the sites and a strong anti-bot stance by the community is so important. Mr. Bornart is right that they will never be eliminated, but they can be managed. ID verification, play analysis, popup Turing tests, and most importantly, funds confiscation for offenders (which Mr. Bornart seems extremely aggravated about in other threads) are the way to keep this threat under control. Very resourceful cheaters will find a away around it, but if they're harassed sufficiently the ratio of legitimate to bot players will always be very good.

And being vigilant like the OP is an important part. Mr. Bornart wants people to believe that bots are inevitable, and there's nothing we can do. And he's wrong.

[Jake (The Snake)]

Masked Man,

Do you share Peter_rus's opinion that it is just a matter of time until bots effectively ruin online poker like they did in chess/backgammon? If not, why not?

[Arnfinn Madsen]

You Ray and the other apologists lose out on the aspect that online poker is meant to be a competition between human brains without the use of bots. Motorbike is a progress from the regular bicycle, but still it would not be fair if I entered Tour de France on a motorbike, and if everybody were allowed to use motorbikes the human competition aspect would diminish and the sport would become less popular. I know a very rich man who plays nl200, he does it beause the mental competition is fun for him, trying to figure out other people etc., he is by no means interested in playing against bots.

P.S. As you move up you will steal money from more and more resourcefull people. Hopefully some of them will not sit silently by and watch the backmen of the bot-making business continue their activity in peace. I hope somebody will step up and organize something (I personally will donate at least 1k to that).

[Phil153]

[ QUOTE ]
my understanding is the the nevada gaming control board
has never certified a game that had a "good faith" security
requirement and thus they would never certify an online
holdem server because of item 4 already mentioned.

obviously costa rica and the kgc in canada will certify
an internet holdem server. but that does not mean the
game is secure.

ray bornert

[/ QUOTE ]
Your position on this point is absurd. Everything has some element of good faith requirements. For example, the Las Vegas card shuffler discussed could be swapped before and after each inspection. Which is completely equivalent to the server software issue that you mention.

If a certifying body has spot inspections, or even systems in place to prevent/track server tampering, then they can guarantee the online's sites integrity to the same degree that they can guarantee a B&M casino's integrity. End of discussion.

As to your other points about site integrity, they miss the most important point. And that is that with good policing, and the sheer volume of rake involved, it's greatly in a site's interest to provide a fair game. The empirical proof of this, as opposed to your hand waving nonsense, is that EVEN IN THE ABSENCE OF REGULATORY BODIES, all the major poker sites have created a fair game, to the best of the analytical abilities of everyone involved in the industry**. Which means that a properly regulated game would be even more watertight.

So in short, your points are a [censored] joke, and clearly based on your fruitcake agenda.

**You can easily analyze PokerTracker datasets to prove it, and the skill based results of winning players, and indeed many have. If the game is unfair in some way, the unfairness is so small as to be undetectable by the best math minds of this forum, and thus is of no practical consequence. For a man who advocates collusion as an acceptable and moral practice ("divine right", I think you said), your stance on the site's fairness is as amusing as it is incorrect.

[stigmata]

This is a key point:

[ QUOTE ]
they can be managed. ID verification, play analysis, popup Turing tests, and most importantly, funds confiscation for offenders [...] are the way to keep this threat under control..... if they're harassed sufficiently the ratio of legitimate to bot players will always be very good.


[/ QUOTE ]

I think we need to put foward ideas about what we can do to manage this problem as an organised player body. Two things spring to mind:

A) Lobbying/Harrasing sites to take stronger anti-bot measures, and be more open about how they are tackling the problem. Does someone want to have an attempt at writing a standard letter that we could all foward to our respective sites? Does someone want to try and get Lee Jones' opinion?

B) Organised bot-detection and reporting from our side.

[Mathemagician]

Stigmata, Peter_rus, StellarWind, Excellent points all!

[ QUOTE ]
Stigmata:
Whilst the analogies you highlight are interesting, the trading market is much more complex than any devised game. As such, it is inherently more difficult to program. There are also other factors at play such as the "reputation" of online poker which could destroy the economy altogether.

[/ QUOTE ]The markets ARE a devised game. Think about it.

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Unfortunately, I do agree that the only realistic long term outcome is going to be a 3-way balance between winners/losers/winning-bots.

[/ QUOTE ]This will happen only if the poker economy is sufficiently robust. I do not know whether it is or not, but I believe it will prove to not be.

[ QUOTE ]
The problem with winning bots is that they can be infinitely proliferated at no extra cost (unlike a professional!), and are thus liable to unbalance the economy to the point at which it is essentially destroyed (e.g. profit is reduced so much that only bots can afford to play).

[/ QUOTE ]This argument is identical, almost word for word, to the one given against computerized trading systems since the 1980s.

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Peter_rus:
Pure mathematical strategies already cannot win in trading markets. So will be with poker industry probably. It will either die or bot-full (and real concur will be between bots not humans) or there'll we be invented more games, more complex, than Texas Holdem thus not computerized easy for current level of AI.

[/ QUOTE ]Purely mathematical models can and do trade quite successfully over long periods of time.

[ QUOTE ]
StellarWind:
There are some problems with this analogy.

1. Rake levels are much higher than commodity trading costs. Entry into the market by large numbers of high-quality bots will result in an equilibrium in which no one except the house makes an appreciable amount of money. All current winning and breakeven human players will have to exit from the game.

[/ QUOTE ]This is simply not true. Costs overwhelm many models and strategies that would otherwise be profitable. One of my programs makes more for my broker as it does for me, and my costs are about as low as they go! Further, it is pretty clear that the “house” in the markets makes the majority of the money.

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2. Online bots don't just play poker, they cheat. No one can hold his own against a strong bot that is also colluding with other bots. Winning human players and "honest" bot makers alike will have no chance and be forced out.

[/ QUOTE ]To me, cheating is an issue separate from bots. Collusion should not be tolerated in any form, human or otherwise.

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3. Commodities trading serves an important economic purpose and computerized trading programs don't interfere with that purpose. They may create a problem for human traders such as yourself but farmers don't care and will continue to use the market to hedge their risks.

Poker does not serve an economic purpose. Poker is recreation and most recreational poker players don't want to play against bots or cheats, much less both at once.

[/ QUOTE ]Poker serves a different economic/social purpose that should not be trivialized. Hedgers are constantly whining about computerized trading doing things like causing too much volatility, too little volatility, crowding the markets, and in general making it more difficult for them to operate.

[ QUOTE ]
Widespread public realization that sites are infested with colluding bots would destroy the games.

[/ QUOTE ]Again, this argument is used about the markets, which I can assure you are significantly more crooked and “infested” with computer activity than poker.

M