Time for me to chime in a bit on this one. I think I may be able to clear some things up.
First off, I know who sillysal is. She's approximately 40 years old, white, and lives in the greater Los Angeles area (I think Toluca Lake). I have never seen her at Commerce or any of the other area poker rooms. She seems to play exclusively heads-up Limit Hold 'Em, and has done so for several years. She represented "Team Poker Room" at the WSOP by winning a seat on pokerroom.com in 2006. You can see a picture of her by going to the following URL:
http://www.pokerroom.com/newsroom/ph...es/photos.html
Click on WSOP 2006 Part I, and then go to pictures 51-53. I think there are a few others in there of her, as well.
She played on Pokerroom as "Jonesen" and "pokergirl z". She may have had a few other names, but those are the two I remember. There were no suspicions of her being a bot at the time.
However, one interesting (and perhaps suspicious) coincidence is that redgar3 was also a player on Pokerroom. redgar3 was the same person as BeatMe1 on Full Tilt (this has been verified). The similarities don't end there. When BeatMe1 got shut down for botting, the owner of that account showed up on 2+2 and claimed to be a woman named "Lisa". That makes two female heads up specialists, both of whom played at Pokerroom, both of whom got shut down on Full Tilt for allegedly using bots.
I have been around the Limit Hold 'Em high limit scene for over 5 years now. There are
very few female heads-up specialists. I'm not saying that there aren't any, because that would be inaccurate. However, they are few and far between. Yet both of these suspected botters are female and originated from Pokerroom. In addition, neither has ever been seen playing Limit Hold 'Em in live card rooms.
Now, it might seem from the above that I am leaning towards the belief that sillysal was guilty of botting. However, while I am still undecided on the issue, I must also point out the following in her favor:
1) I have played with her before on several sites, as have a number of my friends. All of us have observed her to be an emotional player who is tilt-prone. That is not consistent with the play of a bot.
2) While her play on Full Tilt was better (and less tilty) than her play on Pokerroom and elsewhere, we observed a similar style of play in all cases. This would speak against a switch to botting at some point, as her style would noticeably change.
3) She would almost always chat if you attempted to talk to her. Again, this speaks against a bot, unless she happened to be at the keyboard every time it played.
Now, I suppose it's very possible she was using some sort of helper software -- or what I like to call a semi-bot. That is, she may have had a tool telling her what to do, but leaving the ultimate decisions and control up to her. I find it unlikely that she had a fully automated bot running the show, though I suppose anything is possible. It is also quite possible that she was not using ANY helper software, and that Full Tilt is completely full of crap.
One other factor that could possibly point to sillysal's usage of a bot/semi-bot involves her playstyle itself. I noticed that her biggest leak was her inability to make laydowns. For example, it was just about impossible to bet her off ace high or any low pair, no matter how terrible the board was for such a hand. It was also rather difficult to bet her off king high. This did make her frustrating to play against to some degree, as it was quite difficult to bluff her, and you would essentially have to check/call or check/fold when failing to make a pair. However, it would allow you to get good value out of your mediocre hands. This is a characteristic I have observed in bot opponents (such as the Poki Poker software) I have played against. They tend to stubbornly refuse to fold when most humans would.
sillysal would also tend to quit if running bad. This is good practice if you're human (i.e. avoiding tilt), but pointless if you're a bot. This is yet another reason why I believe that -- at the very least -- a human was at the physical controls the entire time.
My conclusions:
1) Sillysal is a real female who has been playing heads-up Limit Hold 'Em online for at least a few years.
2) I find it unlikely that a bot was playing on the pokergirl z account unattended.
3) I find it possible, but not conclusive or even likely, that BeatMe1 and Sillysal/pokergirl are associated. However, I don't believe them to be the same person. If they are indeed associated in some way, the chance of Sillysal's guilt is extremely high.
4) From what I know of Sillysal, she is not highly technically competent and is unlikely to be datamining. I do not believe her and Tetrahedron to be the same person. Furthermore, if she did use bots/semi-bots, I do not believe she has the ability to program them herself.
5) The fact that someone from the Los Angeles area has never (to my knowledge) been seen at the live Commerce games makes the likelihood of botting higher. In addition, she will not play any other game than heads up -- a form of poker proven to be favored by bots. However, I know several longtime online pros from L.A. and Vegas who have also never played live.
6) There are two possibilities on how Full Tilt judged her to be guilty. The first involves taking user complaints about her and compiling circumstantial evidence against her that would appear to incriminate her, but in reality produces highly erroneous false positives. The second involves using means that would potentially be considered privacy violations, but can give a much more accurate picture as to what was really going on. For example, Full Tilt's software could monitor other processes running or take occasional screen shots. Either of these could provide the smoking-gun proof of botting, but they would be hesitant to cite such specific evidence, as a separate scandal involving privacy violation would arise. In either case, it is to Full Tilt's advantage to simply shut down the account and refuse to release details. This, unfortunately, gives us little insight as to how guilty Sillysal and other alleged bots actually were. Barring further information, we will never know the truth.
Bottom line: I am leaning toward her innocence, but I still believe it could go either way on this one.