Poker Bots [Note: Thread bumped from 10/05]

[sassy]

A problem now and more importantly in the near future of bots playing on the internet is severe. There is only one commercial program (that I know of) that is being sold as a poker bot. Whether this program is particularily good or not is debatable. What is not debatable is that there is serious research being done on Poker bots. The main one is at the University of Alberta. They have setups that allow you to use your poker bot against their award winnng bot. They open source some of their code. And in general are encourging the creation of bots.

A really good bot would not be able to win more than a really good player - PLAYING AT HIS BEST. This is the problem and danger of bots. Assuming for a moment that such a really good bot exists - it would win MORE than a comparable really good player, because it doesn't get tired, doesn't go on tilt, never forgets the way an opponet played a hand, etc.

I suspect that fair to good bots are already playing and that within a year or two MANY excellent ones will be playing. Will these be sold commercially? I doubt it. They probably would not want to make the fact known. Can the sites stop this? This too I doubt. This is going to be a massive problem. It's reported that Party Poker has 100 people involved solely in the research and monitoring of poker bots. If they are taking this seriously - shouldn't we? For other sites that do not have the resourses of Party Poker, the problem will only be worse.

The challenge of writing a "bot" program intrigues me. I'm a fair programmer and and only a fair to poor poker player. My bot could only play as well as I could program it to, so why the big problem in letting my bot play? None really. If fact everyone should encourage it. More playing time = more profits for you! The problem is that there are excellent programmers out there and teamed with excellent poker players, they are going to write some "killer" bots that just cannot be beat.

[OrcaDK]

Bad bots could also pose problems you know. Set out 5000 slighty +EV bots, that'd totally thin out the fish market. Suddenly you'd be sitting at a table with 80% "okay" players instead of the usual 80% fish.

[smoore]

Why couldn't you write a bot that followed SSHE to the letter? That's the problem I've always had with the argument of, "A bad poker player can only program a bad poker bot." I don't know much about programming but I can read, ya know?

[SlowStroke]

[ QUOTE ]
Why couldn't you write a bot that followed SSHE to the letter?

[/ QUOTE ]

Because there is no such thing.

Poker is really a people game - it just looks like a card game.

Every decision is situational and unique.

Books can provide great ideas about what kinds of things you should be thinking about to arrive at good decisions for each of these unique situations.

In other words - there is no such thing as following SSHE to the letter. To believe otherwise is to completely misunderstand the nature of the game.

[solucky]

they still play and win but they are not commercial

[blackize]

Bots fare very poorly multiway. The University of Alberta's bot, which is one of the most advanced, sucks unless it is playing heads up.

[Synergistic Explosions]

You should worry more about people playing with multiple ID's at the same table, or colluding with others at the same table more than bots.

[tunnel]

I can still remember when the first chess bots were sold. They played awfully, and every expert told us they would never be able to beat a human grandmaster.

Nowadays, nobody can beat them anymore. However, people keep telling you that no one could program a poker bot which beats strong human players.

Wait and see.

[smoore]

Well, I'm a NLHE tournament player by choice but I of course play LHE at the micros to clear a bonus. AFACT, I'm playing as close to the strategy outlined in SSHE as I can manage. I don't even pay attention to the game and barely pay attention to the other player's habits. It takes a real donk or a complete shark for me to put a note on them. As I type this I'm clearing the Paradise bonus at the .5/1 tables. I'm sure I could make more money if I actually paid attention but I simply don't care, I'm just there to pump my BR so I can try to move into higher tournament stakes sooner.

So in a nutshell I do understand that poker is a game of betting, not cards. I don't think it neccesarily has to be a game of people though, just a game of those little stats in my HUD.

I understand almost nothing of AI so I could very well be making different moves based on something I don't even notice.

[2+2 wannabe]

OMG POKER BOTS ONLINE POKER IS RIGGED!!!!1111ONE!!