Serious Discussion about Poker Bots, PokerTracker, HUDs, etc.

[Artsemis]

I'm posting in this forum as it tends to have a higher level of intelligence and discussion over many of the others.


First off, I'm a programmer so naturally this interests me and I'd like to have a good discussion on this.

I've been talking to a friend alot about bots and PT (we are both poker players and programmers). We're both against bots but he brought up a valid point, why it PT and HUDs considered ok by the community while bots are not?

Let me start with this...
PT and a HUD displays information to you about thousands of players in real time based on thousands of hands, something a human without these tools could not accomplish or calculate -- even if there were an associated face.

What's different with a bot? Automation? If that's the key... what if poker tracker took the exact same information it has and displays the move with the best expectation based on what it knows about the opponent and you simply click the associated button. Would that be ok?

I think it's just that PT has been widely accepted because it's been around... everyone has it. What if we had been playing since the start of online poker without PT and HUDs then today someone came out with this software? It would change everything and many online pros would be pretty upset I would think.

Don't assume anything with me being a programmer, but what if a programmer used his poker knowledge and coded his own bot? Does that make it different than a random fish getting a hold of a bot to play winning poker?

More to follow after responses...