Bots in PartyPoker's 6-max Limit games?

[MicroBob]

wow, i suck and am kind of tired I guess.

1,000 bots across the various sites??
Wow. Never really put my mind to it so a number that high caught me kind of off-guard. But stopping to think about it I actually don't think this estimate is too unrealistic.

[Newtown]

I found this statement on the front page of the bot site pretty funny:

"These sites will steal your winnings and deposits if they believe you are a bot user even if you have not violated their license agreement."

[disjunction]

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My guess is that the problem is relatively localized. Perhaps a small group of college kids at a technical school in Germany or Australia. It could even be just one or two people. I don't think that there's some widely distributed bot program available on some Internet backchannel somewhere, and of course, this is one business where advertising carries some real risks.

That doesn't necessarily make things any better, but it does likely mean that the problem would be a bit easier to resolve, if Party were determined to do so.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree. Too many people can't keep a secret. If it's possible for one person to write a bot that performs reasonably, though, one should expect more people to do it shortly.

Even if there were bots, I'm not convinced of the danger. They shouldn't be hard for a good player to beat, and it would especially help to be able to identify a bot. We do too many things against humans which are the opposite of what you should do to a bot. Everybody knows how to beat AIs from playing video games, you figure out what it's dumb about, and beat it to death.

[PoorTom]

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Tom,

What if a bot's toughest decisions take a lot of CPU cycles?

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i don't think this was the point - the tell was regarding the unusually long time taken to make an extremely easy decision, which was why it was a tell. real people also take longer to make difficult decisions.

[disjunction]

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i don't think this was the point - the tell was regarding the unusually long time taken to make an extremely easy decision, which was why it was a tell. real people also take longer to make difficult decisions.

[/ QUOTE ]

Most humans try not to, otherwise they are pretty easy to play against. I think I mentioned in this thread, maybe, I played against a demo bot at an AI conference and slammed it with a raise whenever it had a tough decision. It was easy. (the bot was merely an academic work, I'm not claiming any great ability)

The bot wasn't designed to disguise its thinking tell. The only way to accomplish this is to take this long for most of your decisions. Since the bot was supposed to demonstrate their cool algorithm, whatever it was, by definition it crunched a lot of numbers. It's possible you're right, that a "real-world" bot is quick enough to avoid timing tells.

[PoorTom]

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[ QUOTE ]
i don't think this was the point - the tell was regarding the unusually long time taken to make an extremely easy decision, which was why it was a tell. real people also take longer to make difficult decisions.

[/ QUOTE ]

Most humans try not to, otherwise they are pretty easy to play against. I think I mentioned in this thread, maybe, I played against a demo bot at an AI conference and slammed it with a raise whenever it had a tough decision. It was easy. (the bot was merely an academic work, I'm not claiming any great ability)

The bot wasn't designed to disguise its thinking tell. The only way to accomplish this is to take this long for most of your decisions. Since the bot was supposed to demonstrate their cool algorithm, whatever it was, by definition it crunched a lot of numbers. It's possible you're right, that a "real-world" bot is quick enough to avoid timing tells.

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i think so. in any case you have to be careful with timing tells on the web, people multi-table, watch tv etc.

[RayBornert]

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[ QUOTE ]
So where is your problem?

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The problem is:

a) They are taking up seats, that could be inhabited by players, who are worse.

b) They are winning, which means, that they are helping the real fish bust sooner.

Also if it becomes a wellknown fact, that this happens, it will scare away the real customers in the long run.

[/ QUOTE ]

the real customer for the house is anybody that pays rake.
(bots are the perfect house customer)

you do not have a divine right to a steady supply of losers.
hunting for and finding the losers is your burden to bear.
nobody ever agreed to deliver losers to your doorstep.

ray bornert

[HavanaBanana]

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I'd make an even money wager that these are Party house bots.

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Absolutely, positively impossible. Party is a public company, the scandal would be huge, and it's just not worth it for them.

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I do not think it is impossible, lot's of jobs and Millions of $ in the balance, and who would ever know?

It is more likely Party Employee's doing it though.

And for Party being trustworthy because they are a public company, look at this thread where they stolemillionsfrom the players.

Party Fraud

ToT

[waffle]

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They shouldn't be hard for a good player to beat,

[/ QUOTE ]

this is a naive view.

[PoorTom]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
So where is your problem?

[/ QUOTE ]

The problem is:

a) They are taking up seats, that could be inhabited by players, who are worse.

b) They are winning, which means, that they are helping the real fish bust sooner.

Also if it becomes a wellknown fact, that this happens, it will scare away the real customers in the long run.

[/ QUOTE ]

the real customer for the house is anybody that pays rake.
(bots are the perfect house customer)

you do not have a divine right to a steady supply of losers.
hunting for and finding the losers is your burden to bear.
nobody ever agreed to deliver losers to your doorstep.

ray bornert

[/ QUOTE ]

very poetic ray, if blindingly obvious.

but surely this is ignoring the point, which is that if too many bots get too good, and proliferate too widely, there is a real danger of destroying the player pool, ruining the games and killing everyone's margins (including the bots themselves).

as others have said, the crucial thing is that the casual player, on whom the better players depend for their profits, is never going to play online if it becomes the case and widely reported that many/most players are software. no one wants to feel like they are being scammed, whether or not that's the case; people will happily watch kasparov play deep blue, but no one would play it themselves for money. i know it's different in poker, but not in the casual player's head.

when it's just people they're against, they can at least convince themselves it's basicially legit (regardless of the truth of this), but few casual players will knowlingly enter robot wars. talk about pr disaster, it could destroy the credibility of the online game, hence why in my view the sites are reluctant to even acknowledge this issue.

you may be right that there's ultimately nothing that can prevent bots from taking over the game. but i hope you're wrong, and that the sites get serious and find a way to stop you.