Can poker bots and cheaters take over?
Millions of people everywhere are playing online poker. In some countries the poker boom is just starting, and others it’s been growing for years and shows no signs of slowing down. Poker’s here to stay right? Well it may be the advancement of online poker bots that finally burst the bubble.
Until this week i’ve never thought about bots being a problem. But just the other day I found a site named winholdem.net that lets you download a bot, that plays for you. It’s free for a day, then you need to buy a license. They aksi have a forum of almost 2000 members where people discuss ways to program it to maximize EV.
So out of curiosity I downloaded it to see if it actually works(not to cheat). Within 10 minutes I had it playing poker for me on pokerstars .02/.04 limit poker. It wasn’t playing good, but it was definitely playing without my help. I closed the table down after 4 minutes, but here’s a screenshot. In this hand the bot limped in early position with 98s, and went into auto check/fold mode after flopping middle pair, but with no draws.
Well that definitely proved that having a bot play for you at even the largest poker site is possible. A further look into the WinHoldem forum shows that programing the bot into a winning player is REALLY hard though, and most of the members are a joke trying to make $1/hour at the lowest stakes.
But what the WinHoldem site shows is that there’s a huge market for buying poker bots, which is what can really ruin the game. Licenses for the WinHoldem but cost between $25 and $200, and it’s not even set up to win! If more then 1000 people (just a guess) are paying for the 1-year subscription, imagine how much someone could charge for a WINNING poker bot, and how many people would buy it. There’s gotta be a lot more money in selling bots, then just using them for yourself. It’s safer also.
There can be a whole competitive market for making and selling bots. The prices will get cheaper and the bots will get more advanced. All the losing players will be buying these, and eventually even the largest sites will dry up.
Can this really happen? I think it’s possible.
[...] Can poker bots and cheaters take over? [...]
Pingback by PokerFilter.Net » Blog Archive » Can poker bots and cheaters take over? — April 16, 2006 #
I agree. Ironically a long time ago when the only online poker was a play by mail at xxxxx.net (I x it is now an online card room skin), I thought it would be cool to have a site were robots played to challenge programers.
Is there potential for online poker to self destruct? Huge I think. There are things going on more insedious then bots. There is a program to show hole cards. Collusion is widespread, and simple to do undetected. There is a new book out that details much of this.
The only reason it has not is becasue people don’t want to believe that they are being cheated and scammed. They dont want to face it. The potential for the self destruction is in something will come along someday that will simply burst the bubble of peoples complancy with card cheating. It might by the book, although I doubt it, he does not support his arguments with much beyond his own conjecture, it might be big names arrested in some big tournament with a cheating scam. Who knows, but sooner or later it is more likely then not to happen.
Comment by Jon — April 25, 2006 #
There are programs that show whole cards… that really work
? I always thought those things were a scam.
Send me an email with some sources if you get a chance! I would never cheat, I just want to know the different ways people cheat at poker.
Thanks for the reply.
Comment by dbirider — April 26, 2006 #
The existing Poker Bots are not very strong.
WinHoldEm can make money in low stakes fixed limit Holdém at least at 10-seated tables. But the profit at such low limits will be small. And since the user risks that the poker room will detect the cheating and confiscate his account question is if it’s worth it?
If you are playing limit Holdém at full tables with blinds at 0,25-0,5, 0,5-1, 1-2 and you are a losing- or a breakeven player you are probably losing money to bots.
But if you are a winning player at higher limits or at No-limit, the Poker bots that exists today will probably lose money to you .
The biggest problem for the bots are shorthanded, 5- and 6-seated, No-limit. I think it will take years from now before any Bot can beat this game at any level. And during those years the people who tries to beat the game with bots will constantly lose money and help doing these games even more profitable for the strong solid players.
How not to lose to Poker Bots:
- Learn to play good solid poker and beat up the bots
- Play No-limit or Pot-limit
- Play shorthanded, 5- or 6-seaters
- Chat with your opponents. If they cant tell you their name and what they do for a living its time to get suspicious.
- The Winholdem software cannot read the EverestPoker.com screen. So it is a site where you will be safe from Poker Bot users.
Comment by Erik — September 1, 2006 #
If you want to learn more about the life of a professional bot player, browse my blog. I’ve been a successful botter for a very long time and plan to reveal as much information as I can.
Comment by RoboPoker — April 18, 2007 #