Bots in PartyPoker's 6-max Limit games?

[cyclonus]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
for now there isnt much to do against bots who play just simple ABC poker. But when the bots get better an start heavily working with oponnent stats, the best thing would be getting rid of all stats like hand histories.

[/ QUOTE ]

cyclo,

this is a delicate balance here.

there is already evidence to indicate
that players are gravitating toward sites
that provide excellent hh feedback and so
once again sites will be motivated to do
what depositing players want to do.

it would be a bad strategy for a new site
to not provide hh's; online players like
tracking quite a bit.

ray

[/ QUOTE ]

Maybe now, but when the bots starting to exploit stats more effective nobody will cry for hh anymore.

[SumZero]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
for now there isnt much to do against bots who play just simple ABC poker. But when the bots get better an start heavily working with oponnent stats, the best thing would be getting rid of all stats like hand histories.

[/ QUOTE ]

cyclo,

this is a delicate balance here.

there is already evidence to indicate
that players are gravitating toward sites
that provide excellent hh feedback and so
once again sites will be motivated to do
what depositing players want to do.

it would be a bad strategy for a new site
to not provide hh's; online players like
tracking quite a bit.

ray

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, no kidding. The latest UB update tries to screw the players by only letting you grab 5 hands of history at a time. Even if you are sitting at the table and playing all 6+ hands (I.e., not data mining, not grabbing the 100 hands before you sat down, etc.). This is a major hassle for me and I'm thinking of not playing there anymore and I don't use bot programs, only track players when I have tables open when I'm sitting at the time or going to sit soon (I.e., don't extensively mine and don't grab hands from before I opened the table), and don't use HUD (I do use GT with a separate table but primarily use PT w/ ultimatehistory to track my own history). But I want to track my own play, use PT to find my own leaks,etc. So when you crack down on the bots you crack down on the legit players too.

I'm not against bots playing as long as it isn't against the T&S of the site and that the bot follows the same rules as a player including no team playing and no sharing of hole cards. But if you violate those rules then I hope the site takes all your money.

[jukofyork]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
They could patrol around the tables and actually make an attempt to find them.

They can identify players that have been on for extremely long sessions and make sure they are human.

If a bot is playing for 80 hours straight then can't they at least look into it?

If a bot takes some breaks in there to try to counter-act it but has still played for some in-human amount of time like 75 out of 80 hours then it is worth looking into.

Yes, there is the risk of ticking off some crazy fish who just happened to play for an insanely long amount of time. But most winning players who play marathon sessions will understand the need to be pro-active on this stuff.


This is assuming the sites do it the right way and approach the player professionally about it.
This is different from the way many sites seem to have developed of just locking/freezing accounts and not telling anyone why.


If the sites would confiscate funds in the obvious situations that would help a lot as well.
I suspect a significant percentage of the current botters would be intimidated against continuing or trying it in the first place if they hear of someone losing a ton of money after getting caught.

Redistributing it to some of the other players should be considered also of course.

[/ QUOTE ]

micro,

try to think like a site operator for a moment.
your business model is tied to rake generating chairs.

how motivated will you be to spend money to stop those
rake generating chairs?

hmmm ...
spend money to increase rake generating chairs
... or
spend money to decrease rake generating chairs

if you as a player generate x amount of rake per day and
a pro botter generates 10 times that much at the same limit
then i can assure you that what the pro botter wants is 10
times more important than what you want. especially since
the pro botter has almost zero support cost because they
dont ever complain.

about the only thing the site really wants from us is to
appear to be human so that the anti-botters will be appeased.

ray

[/ QUOTE ]
Why would they want to sacrifice their long term profit for a short term gain?

Juk [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

juk,

bottom line is that they will be interested in the goal
of increasing the number of rake generating chairs.

ray

[/ QUOTE ]
Yes they might gain some extra rake in the short term, but if they scare away their customers by blatantly letting bots play on their site, then they will ultimately lose rake and thus their total long term profit will be lower.

Juk [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[RayBornert]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
for now there isnt much to do against bots who play just simple ABC poker. But when the bots get better an start heavily working with oponnent stats, the best thing would be getting rid of all stats like hand histories.

[/ QUOTE ]

cyclo,

this is a delicate balance here.

there is already evidence to indicate
that players are gravitating toward sites
that provide excellent hh feedback and so
once again sites will be motivated to do
what depositing players want to do.

it would be a bad strategy for a new site
to not provide hh's; online players like
tracking quite a bit.

ray

[/ QUOTE ]

Maybe now, but when the bots starting to exploit stats more effective nobody will cry for hh anymore.

[/ QUOTE ]

you dont need a bot to exploit stats.
nevertheless what makes you think pro level
bots are not already doing this?

ray

[jukofyork]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
for now there isnt much to do against bots who play just simple ABC poker. But when the bots get better an start heavily working with oponnent stats, the best thing would be getting rid of all stats like hand histories.

[/ QUOTE ]

cyclo,

this is a delicate balance here.

there is already evidence to indicate
that players are gravitating toward sites
that provide excellent hh feedback and so
once again sites will be motivated to do
what depositing players want to do.

it would be a bad strategy for a new site
to not provide hh's; online players like
tracking quite a bit.

ray

[/ QUOTE ]

Maybe now, but when the bots starting to exploit stats more effective nobody will cry for hh anymore.

[/ QUOTE ]
If they don't provide HH then their are many many ways to get them if you are dedicated. Basically it comes down to the fact that if a human can observe and understand the flow of a running game, then a HH file can be generated.

Also, did these bots mentioned in this thread not get caught because of the fact that their stats were all identical?

Without HH files, would anybody have even noticed?

Juk [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[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.

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.

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

[MicroBob]

I absolutely do not think they could have been noticed without the identical stats from the HH's.

Only other chance would be if they all played super-marathon sessions. But it's clear that the identical VP/PFR/defend BB and other stats were KEY to identifying them.


To me, Ray's logic isn't much of a stretch from saying that two or three bots sitting at the same table and sharing hole-card info with each other would be acceptable since there's no way the site would be able to prevent it anyway.

If the bots are good enough to beat 10/20 and higher 6-max limit right now and make adjustments against certain players (TAGs or LAGs or whatever) then it's not a stretch to think that multiple bots at the same table can increase their odds by learning which outs are no longer there and also raising/colluding to increase the pot when to their advantage.


Peter Rus's ideas on all this are indeed starting to scare me somewhat.

Also agree with Alobar that the sites just don't seem to care enough about this.

And they may be mostly powerless against the more sophisitcated bots anyway meaning the ones that aren't stupid enough to sit there for 100 hours straight...although currently even that doesn't seem to be that stupid either as long as the sites don't take action in such obvious situation

[StellarWind]

[ QUOTE ]
This is my second post of the day that goes:

What is wrong with you?

[/ QUOTE ]
What's wrong with him is that he is a cheat and a criminal. This bothers his conscience and so he comes to 2+2 to try and justify his actions. Subconsciously he hopes that this will make him feel better but of course it won't.

Soon he will probably answer this post by claiming that I am all wrong and he is completely comfortable with himself. But he will be lying to us and probably himself as well. Otherwise he would be tending to his bots or otherwise being productive. Instead he is here making arguments that only draw attention to his activities and increase the risk of counteraction by the sites.

We should ignore his posts and all other cheats as well. We can't stop them but we can leave them alone with their guilt. Don't provide an audience for their confessions.

[grinin]

[ QUOTE ]
I remember 2+ years ago we had arguments here and many people thought the idea of winnin bots was a joke

[/ QUOTE ]

I specifically remember these posts and this was even for 1/2. At the time I thought it would be several years before a winning 10/20 or 15/30 bot could be proliferated.

Unfortunately, now that it appers the cat is out of the bag I think this problem will soon overshadow the UIGEA. The amount of money that can be made at these levels simply makes it far too profitable to run a successful bot farm. EVEN if the farmer has to face confiscation of funds when he is caught. I simply do not think they will be caught often enough to overcome the amount of profit they can make.

[PoorTom]

Bob - i don't know if you know, but this team bot play through hole card sharing is already happening and i understand that Ray and is perfectly happy with it and openly supports it. this functionality is built into his software. i believe he justifies this on the basis that he has no way of knowing for sure that other players aren't doing this, so therefore he feels he has the right to. judge this argument for yourself.

i'm not sure if the bots collude as such in terms of bloating the pot etc, but they can definitely sit and the same table and share hole card info to gain more information.

oh, and ray - if you really, genuinely believe that bots becoming the dominant force in online poker, and the public knowing about it, would be good in any possible way for online poker... you need your head examined. i'm serious. this is like, delusional self-justifying behaviour. for just some of the reasons, see StellarWind's excellent post above.