Poker 'bots are getting better

[mary]

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money-s...5&in_page_id=5

[largeeyes]

There is an enormous difference between colluding and the use of bots.

[eek]

Around 50% of players use a hack at non-cash games like teamfortress.

The writers are imaginative people who have come up with all kinds of cheats and hax.

Speedbots, aimbots, wallhacks, saw an invisibility one once, crashing servers, mass booting of players off a server, extra armour and ammunition.

Good job it's only for fun.
The two places that tried to start cash gaming didn't last long, no-one would play for real money because the game is haxed to death.

Poker is for serious money, which means people will be writing serious stuff to gain an edge.

I would think that bot-collusion would give the greatest advantage.

[schnozzy]

So they made a colluding bot, and it made 5/hr, and this is supposed to be scary?

This means it was playing the lowest stakes, against players who either don't know how to play, or are purposefully just fooling around, and it still didn't book a huge win.

I play mid/high stakes poker, and do quite reasonably (it's paid for all of my golf, casino gambling, and bar tabs for several years). I think I speak for most of the mid/high regulars in saying that they are more than welcome to run your bot at my table.

Running it on the low-limit tables, on the other hand, is just sackless douchebaggery.

[paul1]

Speedbots, aimbots, wallhacks, saw an invisibility one once, crashing servers, mass booting of players off a server, extra armour and ammunition.

That sounds like a foreign language to me. It flies right over MY head.

But I appreciate Mary posting that article. I don't know whether to be too concerned or not. I tend to agree with Schnozzy that for the moment those bots can probably only beat low limit games with very poor players. I wonder if bots might be being used right now for easily clearing bonuses too.

This is a fascinating subject that I really know nothing about. I hope Mary or any other CM posters will continue to keep us updated about "bots". Currently, I only play medium to small limit, and I know there is no shortage of poor players in these games, so I'm not too concerned about cheating or bots. But that's for the moment. When there's money involved, someone is going to figure out a better scam. It's human nature. Where there's a will there's a way.

[schnozzy]

I think the biggest defense against bots is that the people with the requisite skills (excellent at poker, computer security, and computer programming) to make a truly great bot are probably already making a very good living.

If somebody is already making $100-$200k/yr, between work and poker, I doubt they have any interest in making an extra $50/day in an unsporting manner. Especially since doing so would likely risk getting banned from every major poker site on the net.

I think the target market for these things is college kids who want to pull down the beer money from the $25 buyin no-limit tables.

Personally, I'm more interested in understanding what sort of bot detection mechanisms are being developed by the poker rooms. If only because that seems like it would be a far more interesting task.

[eek]

One of the gamer places where you play for money has a client that runs alongside the main game and tells them what else is running on your computer while you are playing.
I presume it looks at the threads that are running.

This is not a bad idea, must be pretty close to 100%.
You have to agree to it when you sign up if you want to play.

The thing is that these hacker/programmer guys live and breathe maths logic and solutions. Its what they live for.
This guy developed the smallest browser in the world for a laff, you can download it for free...it takes about one second.
http://www.kakeeware.com/

He's made absolutely no attempt to commercialise it...he just wanted to do it, the executable is less than 3000bytes which is 3kb which is less than your average html webpage..

[Reef]

unfortunately, bots and collusion come with the territory of playing online

[sitara]

hmm poker bot eh? never use them... im scare to e a bot.. what if they bad me and take all my mone? .. lol

[winbig]

hmm poker bot eh? never use them... im scare to e a bot.. what if they bad me and take all my mone? .. lol

Plus the fact that empire (and I'm sure others) say in their T&C they can monitor running processes and if they find a 'bot running, your account is closed, and you forfeit any winnings.