Bots in PartyPoker's 6-max Limit games?

[Sniper]

[ QUOTE ]
I agree with your last sentence sniper.I might expand that there is no dilemma unless you cheat and are trying to find a moral middle ground to satisfy yourself.If a game has rules,follow them or dont play.Its not hard.If a site doesnt allow PT for example,you are cheating if you use it.If you continue to use it to now gain an "illegal" advantage,know that you are a cheater.There is no justification or moral middle ground i do not believe.Thus as i stated,i believe its only a dilemma if you choose to cheat.

[/ QUOTE ]

5th, fwiw, I probably feel as strongly about this stuff as you do...

But, I also read enough posts to know that there is not complete agreement on what is OK...

some simple examples...

1. Party says Rakeback not OK... Are you a cheater, if you have Party rakeback?

2. UB says HH limited to 5... Are you a cheater, if you backed out their upgrade to continue getting unlimited HH? or Are you a cheater if you install a piece of software that clicks the HH window closed and open for you every 5 hands?

And one that's a little more difficult (maybe)...

3. Sites say AI tools ARE OK... Are you a cheater for using them (despite the fact that they are site approved), even if they make all the decisions and all you are doing is clicking the button?

[5thStreetHog]

I understand your points for sure and i feel where your coming from.But just to play along here with your examples:
1)This one is easy.Although its a site rule,it does not effect the game.This might be wrong or right but its not cheating.There are many other site rules that dont apply to the actual competition.For example,bad language in chat is a violation of rules but its not cheating.

3)This is also an easy one.It makes no difference how easy a tool makes the game,if it is a "legal" tool you are not cheating.You can disagree with the choice of these rules and or which tools are deemed legal for sure.But the bottom line is that a player is free to gain any "legal" advantage he can.A good analogy of this situation appears in golf.Many old timers will tell you Tiger Woods is cheating using titanium and graphite clubs to gain an advantage.They are wrong.The rules of the game permit it.

2)You might have noticed i saved this one for last lol. This is by far the most interesting and debatable of the three examples you gave.The bottom line here is UB.If they permit you to use the older version then its fine.But honestly if they specifically stated that this was a violation of rules(i dont know if they have or not im not playing UB now)then yes its cheating no matter how silly it might seem.This def applies to gameplay and creates an illegal(if they have said it violates the rules)advantage.

Anyways,thats my opinion.Your points and opinions are well taken though for sure.Btw,great job on your thread in legislation.Its a must click for me everytime i visit here.Just wanted to let you know that your time and effort there is really appreciated by some of us.I gotta get some sleep though was playing Limit all night lol Peace bro

[trader01]

Just thought I would add my $0.02 on this topic.

The first thing I have to say about bots is this: like them or hate them, they are NOT going to ever go away in online poker, for a few reasons:

1) Poker rooms have absolutely no incentive to get rid of these bot players. They most certainly have an incentive to ACT like they are getting rid of them successfully in order to convince most people (i.e. the fish) that their games are bot-free, but to say that a poker room TRULY wants to axe its most frequent and best customers (computer programs) is patently ridiculous. Even saying that they would want to do it to ensure that the supply of fish doesn't dry up is a flawed argument, for a couple of reasons:

(a) There is no concrete proof that an influx of bots would significantly dry up the market for new fish, or cause the industry to collapse as a result. This is just a supposition that some people have, but it has not actually happened yet. If you think about it, the bot population will tend to be self-regulating in a given room, much as the expert player population is self-regulating. If a room has too many expert players or bots, any one person's (or program's) consistent profits are going to dry up, and that person or program will leave (or be switched off) to search for greener pastures. This means that there is an upper limit to how many bots can truly be successful in the market, and that is limited to the number of fish out there. The fish won't go away if there are too many bots, the bots will go away if there are too many bots because they will stop making consistent money. I doubt the fish will even notice, they are too busy giving their money away to everyone under the sun. Besides that, there are more than enough compulsive gamblers out there who are content to sit in front of a one-armed bandit machine and literally throw money down a hole to make this industry ever go away. Online rooms might not make as much money in the future as they do now, but they WILL always make money. Many fish have no problem giving their hard-earned cash to a machine where the odds are 100% against them and impossible to change, so why would they have a problem playing against a few bots online? As long as online gaming rooms can convince people that MOST of the players online are real people, the fish won't mind too much in my opinion. Many of them are not even aware of this issue, and unless a major expose is done on it on TV they never will be... even then I wonder how much it would affect them.

(b) Even if the supply of fish was to dry up somewhat because of bots, I have yet to see a businessperson who would gladly sacrifice significant IMMEDIATE revenue for the possibility of POTENTIALLY lengthening their cash flow out into the future. 99.9% of business owners are going to choose to make a lot of money now, not put it off until later for the hope of making it last longer. (Especially in a marketplace that is so crowded and competitive.) Only at the point where it becomes painfully obvious that bots are significantly hurting online poker revenues (if that ever happens, which I highly doubt, since bots are making these guys a killing) are these people going to do anything about it. Right now the reverse is true, and that may never change.

2) Even if poker rooms WERE truly committed to getting rid of these programs, it is very difficult to do. There are infinitely many ways to get around whatever these rooms try to do to stop bots, and as with all other technological competition, it would become nothing more than an arms race if they ever got serious about it. See the music industry vs. online file sharers, virus writers vs. anti-virus companies, and software companies vs. pirates for examples of the above mentioned dynamic.

These points lead us to the inevitable conclusion that any serious attempts to get rid of bots are a complete waste of time, particularly since the people whose help you need (i.e. the online poker rooms) are really not at all interested in helping you.

So, where does that leave us as players? As the only ones who are really getting hurt in this situation from the influx of more experienced players (bots), it makes sense to try to adapt your play to go where the bots are not. Change your strategy. Adapt. That is what separates you from a stupid machine, and until true AI exists, always will.

Let me draw an analogy from the stock market as an example of what to do:

7-10 years ago in the internet boom, the stock market was exploding. Stocks were jumping on high volume all the time, in highly predictable patterns (to those who knew what they were doing), and for daytraders making money was as easy as shooting fish in a barrel (no pun intended :-)). Any idiot could log on and pick a random stock, and make cash out of it. Many idiots did. Then the market crashed, and daytrading volume over a period of 3-4 years afterwards dried up like the Sahara desert. All of a sudden there was no more volume, which meant that stocks were trading much more choppy because it took much less money to move them. Into this environment we can add things like the narrowing of spreads and the advent of many automated trading programs, and daytrading on a short time frame became almost impossible for a human (especially because trades happen in real-time, unlike poker hands!). Many people who were able to scalp stocks and make thousands of dollars a day started losing money, because all the sheep (the stock market equivalent of fish) were gone. Now the wolves only had each other to eat, and only the strongest ones survived the daytrading/scalping scene. Even then, many had to adapt and change their tactics somewhat (reading NASDAQ level II was no longer as useful as it used to be, for example).

Some daytraders realized that the intraday noise was just too high to scalp stocks now, so they changed their strategies, lengthening the time frame of their holds, and started position trading (holding for hours/days) instead of daytrading (holding for seconds/minutes). Those that adapted can still make money (although it's not as good as it was). Those that didn't died.

This same thing is happening in poker rooms. As a human trader, you have to realize what is going on, and instead of fighting the inevitable tide, shift and go with it. That means playing where the bots are not playing, and playing during times where there are likely to be more fish.

Here are some suggestions:

(1) I was logged on to a poker room this afternoon, and noticed that the play during the middle of the day was extremely tight, but got progressively looser between 5 and 7 PM across the 3 tables I was playing (low-limit hold-em). That probably corresponds to normal people somewhere getting off of work and logging on to their machines to play a couple of hours. Expert players and bots are going to be more prevalent during off-peak hours, right? So there's one thing you can do - try to maximize your playing time for when the fish are swimming more.

(2) Try different sites. The larger sites are going to be infested with bots, if you think about it... there are more people playing there, therefore if you write a successful program you can run more copies of it and make more money. Also, who wants to waste time and effort writing a custom program that only works on a small site with fewer players? So as an individual, try to find those smaller sites that are less bot-infested.

(3) Play only no-limit games. Those are infinitely harder to program appropriately, and a bot is 10 times easier to spot on there. This is analogous to realizing that limit games may be the poker equivalent of scalping stocks - it's a game/technique that used to make you money, but may not any more. Adapt.

(4) Once you detect a bot on a no-limit game, mark it down and instead of reporting it to the authorities (a waste of time, IMHO), try to figure out its strategy. It's just a computer program following a set of rules. Once you know that and analyze it, you should be able to either beat it or at least avoid getting hurt by it yourself. If there are too many of them, leave the room. (Just like if there are too many good players, leave.)

As a final note, I would like to add my opinion on the morality of using bots:

From the perspective of a single bot playing online and not colluding secretly with other bot programs, I have no problem with it in principle. A bot program is essentially going to be nothing more than a set of rules devised by a good player, minus that player's ability to adapt and bluff based the subtle analysis of other players (which is a serious weakness). In other words, you don't need to worry about them any more than any other good player, perhaps less so. They may proliferate and make limit games harder to win at (in fact I would contend that has already happened on some sites), but then fish don't win anywhere so it's not really hurting them, and as a wolf who hunts sheep you really shouldn't start complaining about how other wolves are hurting you. I see nothing morally wrong with a bot that plays on its own, and in fact many poker rooms even have deals with companies that produce software which can give you simple call/raise/fold suggestions. There is no difference between a human player playing with that software and following it's advice and a bot doing the same thing, and those are most certainly legal at a number of rooms.

From the perspective of a bot secretly collaborating with other bots on the same table, this is HIGHLY immoral, in my opinion. That is circumventing the rules and spirit of the game, and is flat-out cheating. It is no different than co-ordinating secret hand signals with another player at the same physical table. The gentleman who stated that you can't tell for sure that other people aren't doing this, and that therefore you should be allowed to do it, is using flawed logic at best. I can't prove that my neighbour isn't stealing from me, but that doesn't give me the moral right to steal from him. I can't prove that the player across from me at the table isn't giving secret signals to some partner of his at the same table, but that doesn't give me the moral right to engage in the activity myself. If not having a 100% guarantee that someone else isn't cheating bothers you, then don't play the game. Walk away and do something else - but don't think that cheating is justified just because you can't prove that others aren't doing it.

Anyways, that's my opinion, for the $0.02 blind that it's worth. :-)

[RoundGuy]

Wow. 1917 words in your first post. That has to be a record.

Kudos to you, sir. [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[Phil153]

Cliff notes, with comments.

1. Sites don't care/will do the least possible about/want bots. Therefore you shouldn't report them.

wrong

2. Attempts to get rid of bots by the sites are a waste of time

wrong

3. The best way to deal with bots is either to exploit them or not play at their tables. DO NOT report them.

wrong

4. There is nothing ethically wrong with a bot that doesn't collude

wrong

Do you own a bot by any chance?

[trader01]

[ QUOTE ]
Cliff notes, with comments.

1. Sites don't care/will do the least possible about/want bots. Therefore you shouldn't report them.

wrong

2. Attempts to get rid of bots by the sites are a waste of time

wrong

3. The best way to deal with bots is either to exploit them or not play at their tables. DO NOT report them.

wrong

4. There is nothing ethically wrong with a bot that doesn't collude

wrong

Do you own a bot by any chance?

[/ QUOTE ]

Indeed, your logic is impeccable. One could hardly argue with such a well-thought out and well-supported position. I must bow to your greater wisdom.

And for the record no, I don't own a bot, which I think should be obvious from the tone and context of my post.

[suzzer99]

[ QUOTE ]
Cliff notes, with comments.

1. Sites don't care/will do the least possible about/want bots. Therefore you shouldn't report them.

wrong

2. Attempts to get rid of bots by the sites are a waste of time

wrong

3. The best way to deal with bots is either to exploit them or not play at their tables. DO NOT report them.

wrong

4. There is nothing ethically wrong with a bot that doesn't collude

wrong

Do you own a bot by any chance?

[/ QUOTE ]

vnh

I think by far the bot-makers biggest hassle right now is communities like us - uncovering the bots and pestering the sites until they do something about the problem. For us to let down our guard or think we can't do anything about bots would be BY FAR the worst thing we could do.

[trader01]

Just for the record, I never said that you SHOULDN'T harrass the sites about bots... if you want to go right ahead! As a player, if you want to help me out even the slightest by helping to get rid of some bots (if you can), then why would I complain? I'm just saying that it won't work in the long run, and as an individual player I am more concerned about adapting to my environment and making the most money I can in the shortest time possible. I have no illusions about my altruism on this topic, and neither should you, given that everyone on this site makes money by taking it from other people. As for the long term future of the online poker industry, who cares? Are you really that concerned about a bunch of rich companies making money off of rakes, or expert players making money off of losers? Because those are the only people that are going to be hurt if things go down... the fish would probably be better off! If things go down or change, a good player will adapt or find a different game.... but like I said, if you want to work towards getting rid of a few bots in the short-term I fully support it! Good luck!

[Phil153]

[ QUOTE ]
Indeed, your logic is impeccable. One could hardly argue with such a well-thought out and well-supported position. I must bow to your greater wisdom.

[/ QUOTE ]
Look, it's all been said before. But if it needs to be said again:

1. Sites don't care/will do the least possible about/want bots. Therefore you shouldn't report them.

Party and Stars take bots very seriously. Management of both consider bots a serious threat to their business, and they have devoted significant resources and personnel to finding and catching them. Ask anyone who is in the business. The other, smaller sites appear to care less.

2. Attempts to get rid of bots by the sites are a waste of time

Bots get caught all the time. Furthermore, hassling the owners of bots helps stop their proliferation. As others have posted this is a manageable problem with hard work. Will you stop every one? No. But you can make it damn difficult and keep bot numbers under control.

3. The best way to deal with bots is either to exploit them or not play at their tables. DO NOT report them.

This has some merit, but the simple fact is that many bots just aren't that exploitable in a full table environment. Most of them are also tight and don't create action. Plus, they should be reported for the reasons above.

4. There is nothing ethically wrong with a bot that doesn't collude

This is just laughable. It's equivalent to saying "there's nothing wrong with paying a smart friend to take an exam for me, provided I give him some tutoring on the subject" BTW, who's to say the user of the bot was the programmer? Your already shaky argument falls flat on that point.

The other point is that people have a right to play against other humans, if they sign up for a site that only permit non bot players to play. It's like steroids in sports. If everyone agrees to steroids, no problem. But if the rules are that you must be steroid free, and someone agrees to this in a contract but takes steroids anyway, then he is a cheating scum. I think most people would agree with this.

[Victor]

"1. Sites don't care/will do the least possible about/want bots. Therefore you shouldn't report them.

Party and Stars take bots very seriously. Management of both consider bots a serious threat to their business, and they have devoted significant resources and personnel to finding and catching them. Ask anyone who is in the business. The other, smaller sites appear to care less."

i have very strong evidence that ftp and a few others encourage bot use. what do you think of this phil? do you not believe me?