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Online Poker Bots Becoming Problematic?
scumbucket writes "MSNBC has a story about how poker bots have started to appear on internet gambling sites and the implications. It also talks about how a 'master level' poker-playing bot already exists. Could this proliferation of poker-playing bots undermine the almost $1 billion online gambling industry?"
Here is the original post I sent on twoplustwo, as quoted at
;-) in the
the end of the news. Despite the desperate tone of the article,
I'm not depressed (;-) and I'd be interested to see bots fighting
on the poker server (Free Software) I work on at http://gna.org/projects/underware/.
---
Disclaimer: I do not favor bots, I do not develop bots, I won't
be happy if there are more bots than humans in online poker rooms.
From a technical point of view, no poker client will ever be able to
detect a bot that analyzes the window layout (to find cards, bet
amounts, player names etc). It could attempt this detection when the
bot runs on the same machine although it is likely to require frequent
updates (think anti-virus software). However, if the bot runs on
another machine and watches the display remotely, it is just
impossible (VNC is a example software that watches a display from a
remote machine).
From a legal point of view, international and national laws in most
countries (+200 of them, including US and all Europe) strongly
protects interoperability between programs. It means that the author
of a program whose sole purpose is to encode/decode the protocols or
file formats used by another program can never be sued on this basis.
Online poker rooms can forbid the use of any computerized assistance
(except the mouse, the screen and the operating system
terms and conditions that each player accepts when registering. A
contract is a powerful tool to attempt to force people to forfeit
rights that cannot be taken from them. Although the poker room may win
a lawsuit against a player using a bot that plays on his behalf, there
are more cases where they would lose.
For instance, if my only machine is running GNU/Linux, the court may
rule that I'm entitled to use my own client because there does not
exist a client except for Windows. Ruling otherwise would mean that
the poker room can force me to become a Microsoft customer. A real
world poker room can force you to wear a tie but cannot force you to
wear a tie of a given brand. This can have precedence over contract
terms and conditions. Furthermore, the features provided by my client
software (such as automated play or statistics gathering) cannot be
restricted by contract. No matter what is written, no third party can
legitimately control or restrict the software you run on your own
machine. If that was the case, no doubt a large software publisher
would state in its operating system license contract that all software
running on top of it must be purchased from them.
Summary:
. Bots can't be detected.
. Bots can't be outlawed.
. Poker room terms and conditions are inefficient to forbid bot
usage.
Will there ever be a widely spread bot able to beat most players
currently playing in online poker rooms ? I think so. It may already
exist but is kept secret. It's only a matter of time before a talented
poker player who also happens to be a good developer decides she or he
wants to be remembered as the author of the first bot that changed
online poker forever.
~
Well black jack is different than poker. In poker you are not taking the casino's money you are taking the other players money. It is a problem for the online casinos only if nobody plays because it is to hard.
I've used the program. It's available at pretty much every torrent site. It's not so much a bot as something that tells you the odds of what you have a chance at getting versus what it thinks the other players might have. It then recommends what your next step should be.
It's not like this thing wins games for you. It basically does what the good poker player can do, look at their cards, look at the cards on the table, and then compute odds.
It's less useful than the article makes it sound.
I've just signed legislation that'll outlaw Russia forever. We'll begin bombing in five minutes.
Recently I was browsing www.suprnova.org for obscure torrents in their misc area, and I found this "ebook" on how to win texas hold 'em. I downloaded it hoping that it was some kind of strategy guide or an odds list or something
turns out it was just some product promotion for a company that makes gambling bots.
I downloaded the software trial out of curiosity (I've never played online poker before, I just wanted to see how the program was set up.)
The way it worked (or claimed to, I never tried it) it would monitor my poker game and make calculations based on other people's bids checks or folds and give me tips about whether I should fold, check, bid, or bid high. It kept a percentage rating for probability of wining and stuff like that.
Basically it claimed to play the game for me, which would suck as I was looking for a strategy guide instead. I can't remember which one it was that I downloaded.
here's a link to one of them
it's easy to find software that is designed to follow along with the current game, giving you the statistically best move based on what is known, such as the face-up cards, who is on the button, and what your cards are.
That's a very misinformed statement, coming from somebody who probably doesn't play much poker himself.
A large part of figuring out the "statistically" best move is having a good idea of what the opponent might be holding in his hand. That's the very difficult part.
Here's a quick example. Say you're holding KK, the you raise preflop and get reraised. Flop comes AK5. You bet, and you get raised again. Stats will tell you that you can beat 99% of the hands out there, so raise away, right? Most good players will consider that the opponent might have AA since he reraised you preflop and would adjust their strategy accordingly. A simple stat bot would raise until he's out of money.
Visit the UofA's poker research pages for more details on where the trouble spots in poker AI research are.
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a 747 filled with CD-ROMs.
In Poker, the house has no interest in the outcome (presuming the game is not crooked - that the dealer and a shill are not in cohoots). The house gets their money by raking the pot (taking a percentage) or charging a time payment from one of the players (each hand the person paying rotates). That's why Poker is about the only form of gambling where you as a player have a fair shot (notwithstanding the story of the MIT Blackjack team).
I can't imagine trusting online Poker play. Even if the site/house is honest, players can share information secretly or use aids to calculate pot odds perfectly. They can do that in offline games as well, but it is much more difficult to get away with it.
Here is an excerpt of my e-mail exchange with Mike Brunker (the author of the MSNBC article) prior to our phone interview. It might provide some interesting information on the topic.
- Darse.
[begin excerpt]
(1) It is not easy to write a good poker-playing program.
It took us (the Computer Poker Research Group at the U of A, http://games.cs.ualberta.ca/poker/) a few years to develop a program that could win consistently in higher-level games against opponents who took the game seriously. It has been successful against human players of average skill for many years now, but it is the only known program that can make that claim.
We operate a free poker server where people can play against our bots. Hobbyist programmers can also have their programs connect to the server and play in those games, and more than a hundred programs have participated over the past few years. None of them has come close to being a winning player, so it is clearly not a trivial task.
(2) Is it *possible* to write a very strong poker program?
Absolutely.
Poker is a challenging and rewarding field for research in Artificial Intelligence (AI). There are many aspects of the game that make it more difficult and more interesting than games like chess and checkers.
It isn't simply a matter of computing probabilities and other numbers. A good program has to *think* about the game in the right way. Master-level poker requires an understanding of how each opponent plays the game -- you must observe and adapt as you play, and that turns out to be a rather difficult learning problem.
Nevertheless, these problems will be solved eventually, and the technology will become available for others to use. It took more than 20 years for chess programs to finally become a serious threat to the best players. It won't take that long before we see elite poker-playing programs, but it still might be a number of years before they participate in online games.
Of course, a practical program doesn't have to be as good as the best players -- it only needs to beat a game with average players in order to win money.
(3) Are bots playing in online games now?
I expect there are a few now, yes. Perhaps more than a few. But are they a threat? Probably not. Many of them will be losing players, at least for a while. Their authors will either lose interest, or have to invest a lot of time and effort to improve their programs.
If someone does succeed in writing a program that can grind out a small win, what difference should it make? It will be like any other solid player -- playing a conservative style (only good cards and good situations), and slowly extracting a tax from the weak players.
Look at it this way. Most people who play online poker lose money. That's an unavoidable mathematical fact. Considering the house cut (the rake), perhaps 30% of players can stay in the black, maybe less. Many of the losing players will lose slowly, so the cost is a fair trade-off for the entertainment value they receive. Some will lose much more rapidly, and they really shouldn't be playing at all (unless they happen to be independently wealthy).
Of the players on the winning side, most will only eek out a small win rate. A winning poker bot would just be another solid player at the table. Probably less than 10% of all players have enough knowledge and skill to win a significant amount of money, and I doubt there will be any poker programs in that category for quite some time.
Will the existence of good bots radically change online poker? I doubt it. Look at casinos (real and online) that offer the traditional gambling games like craps and roulette. Those games cannot be beaten -- there is no skill that can be applied to avoid losing in the long run. But that fact doesn't seem to harm the popularity of their business.
Instead of fearing bots, people should use them to help learn more about the game. Our research program is com
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