War Against the Bots

[illunious]

Not necessarily,

Rotate the cards 15° (or offset them), move the buttons up/sideways 50 pixels, stop writing hand histories to the HD/chat box for a brief period, popup an additional window after a rebuy, slightly hue/saturate the cards.

If this type of thing was done rarely, it would appear to a user slightly strange, might cause them to look twice, but wouldn't cause them to misclick/timeout every single time. It could also used only against suspected accounts, which would prevent any uproar from casual players.

This stuff works for screen scrapers, if the bot is directly accessing controls/memory, any number of things could be done that would screw up a bot and be 100% transparent to the user.

[intensity]

[ QUOTE ]
Not necessarily,

Rotate the cards 15° (or offset them), move the buttons up/sideways 50 pixels, stop writing hand histories to the HD/chat box for a brief period, popup an additional window after a rebuy, slightly hue/saturate the cards.

If this type of thing was done rarely, it would appear to a user slightly strange, might cause them to look twice, but wouldn't cause them to misclick/timeout every single time. It could also used only against suspected accounts, which would prevent any uproar from casual players.

This stuff works for screen scrapers, if the bot is directly accessing controls/memory, any number of things could be done that would screw up a bot and be 100% transparent to the user.

[/ QUOTE ]

I see this as the ultimate solution against bots. Also, upgrading the software about every month where the very roots of the poker software is altered will result in a dramatical decrease in bots. Basically, poker rooms need to build a strong team that will invest massive amount of time tweaking the software to counteract against popular bot mechanics. I'm not saying they should try to make the software botproof, but by randomly changing variables in the software, they can make leading bot softwares obsolete against their new software. I know it's asking much and this can only happen if the pokerrooms are willing to invest money to keep their site completely bot free. It is not impossible to do at all, but it will require full-time attention on their part. Frankly, it is up to us to email the pokerrooms and let them know our dislike towards bot or they'll never do anything about. Look at MMORPGS, most are very succesfully in keeping their online world clean from bots, online poker should not be any different.

[William]

Hmmmm. I think sites like bots.
I know I would if I was a site owner....

[TheTid]

I have a question about all of these people complaining about bots, what is really the difference between some guy programming a computer to raise or fold based on position and stats and someone 8 tabling using PAHUD and simply raising or folding depending on the stats of a player in the hand which was collected by a computer?

I mean, lets say someone writes a program thatevery time a guy w/ 30% vpip limps you raise w/ any top PP, t9s+, continuation bet every flop, then check or bet turn based on the guys stats. Is there really a difference between someone doing the same thing themselves by simply looking at another players stats which were collected by a computer program? player sees a 38/2/1 player limp utg, he has JTs and he raises automatically, everytime.

One person using a computer to store information and make decisions is very similar to another person using a different computer program to crunch numbers and then make a decision.

[Bobo Fett]

[ QUOTE ]
I have a question about all of these people complaining about bots, what is really the difference between some guy programming a computer to raise or fold based on position and stats and someone 8 tabling using PAHUD and simply raising or folding depending on the stats of a player in the hand which was collected by a computer?

I mean, lets say someone writes a program thatevery time a guy w/ 30% vpip limps you raise w/ any top PP, t9s+, continuation bet every flop, then check or bet turn based on the guys stats. Is there really a difference between someone doing the same thing themselves by simply looking at another players stats which were collected by a computer program? player sees a 38/2/1 player limp utg, he has JTs and he raises automatically, everytime.

One person using a computer to store information and make decisions is very similar to another person using a different computer program to crunch numbers and then make a decision.

[/ QUOTE ]
Computers get more powerful, software gets better, bots get better. Soon someone has rooms of computers playing hundreds of tables with bots that never tilt, never sleep, never eat. Never chat. Fish have no fun. Human online poker dies.

An extreme scenario, of course, but a possible end game if NOTHING was done.

[WordWhiz]

The big difference between bots and sweatshops, as I see it, is volume. A good human can 8-table 8 hours a day--maybe. Even that's damn tough without fatigue/ tilt setting in. A bot can 100 table 24 hours a day. The amount of money that sucks out of the poker economy is huge. Even a human/bot hybrid (bot makes recommendations, human does all the actual clicking) can't put up any where near those numbers. If you want to expand your sweatshop you need more workers. If you want to expand your bot farm, you just need another ISP.

Bots are like an invasive predator that destroys an ecosystem. In a healthy ecosystem, you can always toss in a few more predators without throwing things too out of whack. But if the predator eats all the prey before they can reproduce, soon everything dies.

And this is everyone's problem. High stakes players winning 10PTBB/100 aren't immune, any more than a coyote can say "I'm a carnivore. Why do I care if something's killing off all the vegetation?"

[Jeff W]

[questions]

[ QUOTE ]
I have a question about all of these people complaining about bots, what is really the difference between some guy programming a computer to raise or fold based on position and stats and someone 8 tabling using PAHUD and simply raising or folding depending on the stats of a player in the hand which was collected by a computer?

I mean, lets say someone writes a program thatevery time a guy w/ 30% vpip limps you raise w/ any top PP, t9s+, continuation bet every flop, then check or bet turn based on the guys stats. Is there really a difference between someone doing the same thing themselves by simply looking at another players stats which were collected by a computer program? player sees a 38/2/1 player limp utg, he has JTs and he raises automatically, everytime.

One person using a computer to store information and make decisions is very similar to another person using a different computer program to crunch numbers and then make a decision.

[/ QUOTE ]

I see it the same way. All this drama about this issue is naive. We're talking about MONEY. Any time a situation involves money changing hands, people are going to look for ways to get their hands on it, that simple.

[TheProbst]

[ QUOTE ]


[/ QUOTE ]

The irony of this post is awesome.

[Sigurd]

[ QUOTE ]
I have a question about all of these people complaining about bots, what is really the difference between some guy programming a computer to raise or fold based on position and stats and someone 8 tabling using PAHUD and simply raising or folding depending on the stats of a player in the hand which was collected by a computer?

I mean, lets say someone writes a program thatevery time a guy w/ 30% vpip limps you raise w/ any top PP, t9s+, continuation bet every flop, then check or bet turn based on the guys stats. Is there really a difference between someone doing the same thing themselves by simply looking at another players stats which were collected by a computer program? player sees a 38/2/1 player limp utg, he has JTs and he raises automatically, everytime.

One person using a computer to store information and make decisions is very similar to another person using a different computer program to crunch numbers and then make a decision.

[/ QUOTE ]

The bot sucks the poker economy dry. We want to make it very very hard to run a bot since if it is cheap and easy, someone will quickly set up a very large amount of computers and bleed the fish dry very quickly.

The difference lies in who ultimately makes the decision. If I click the button, I'm makin a choice to do so. If I'm sleeping, and a program presses the button, I'm not making a choice.

It is both the ethical and practical problem that makes bots baaaad..