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YES, THERE ARE
BOTS AND THEY ARE ONLINE
QUICK READ VERSION:
1. Poker bots have been made and they are being used on poker
sites.
2. You can purchase a poker bot program.
3. They are most effective in Limit Poker games.
4. They have been programmed to "learn" how other people bet and
respond accordingly.
5. A fairly simple way to attempt to determine if you are playing
against a bot is to ask others in your game to please type in the
chat box a simple "Hi" or "OK." This is commonly referred to as a
"Bot Check." Just type it in chat even though you may look like a
nerd. Yes, there are people who are playing multiple games and
don't chat. Also there are people with revoked chat. However, if
you feel at all uncomfortable leave the table or do a "Bot Check."
MAIN ARTICLE
Some suspect computer programs have infiltrated Internet games.
Take a seat at a table in one of the rapidly multiplying online
card rooms and there's no telling who’s sitting to your right – or
if the player is even human.
Concern is growing in online chat rooms and news groups devoted to
poker that sophisticated card-playing robots – known as “bots” in
the nomenclature of the Web – are being used on commercial
gambling sites to fleece newcomers, the strategy-impaired and
maybe even above-average players.
“It is pretty much a certainty that bots are playing online,” said
Gautam Rao, a 43-year-old Canadian poker pro who regularly plays
three high-stakes Internet games simultaneously. “… What we don’t
know is how strong they are.”
Widespread use of bots capable of beating your average player
would pose a significant problem for the red-hot online poker
sector, which has grown exponentially in recent years and is
expected to top the $1 billion revenue mark this year. Without
some way of verifying the identity – and humanity – of players,
the business could be significantly undercut.
But skeptics – and there are many – argue the complexities of the
game and the changing strategies ensure that creation of a program
that can “read” opponents’ cards using screen scanning techniques
and respond in real time is years away at best. They point to the
handful of commercial products that purport to give online players
significant advantage, which they roundly deride, as woefully
inadequate, as proof today's bots are no match for humans.
Rao and his fellow believers have a ready answer: A bot capable of
playing against the best humans already exists.
The University of Alberta’s Computer Poker Research Group has
developed an artificially intelligent automaton known as “Vex
Bot,” capable of playing poker at the master level, though as yet
it can only apply its gambling genius to two-player games. Vex Bot
has been used by researchers to test the frontiers of artificial
intelligence – and as the basis for a commercial poker tutorial
program, Poki’s Poker Academy -- but some fear it may become a
blueprint for programmers with more sinister motives.
Darse Billings, lead designer of the Vex Bot said he believes the
odds are better than 50-50 that other programmers have secretly
unleashed bots on commercial poker sites, apart from the
commercial bots. But he throws his chips in with the skeptics,
saying it is unlikely they would be anywhere near as capable as
the Vex Bot – so named for its ability to frustrate human
opponents – which is the result of more than a decade’s research
by the University of Alberta team.
“The strategy of the game is difficult and to sit down and write a
program that can beat a table of experienced human players is no
trivial task,” he said.
The biggest obstacles lie in the amount of information unavailable
to the player and the need for the program to be able to employ a
variety of strategies at different times, such as bluffing and
laying traps for opponents, explained Billings, a doctoral student
and master poker player. “With chess – I don’t want to trivialize
it – but it’s just a matter of calculation,” he said. “With poker,
you really need to write a program that can think about the game
and reason.”
The solution, in the case of the Vex Bot, was adding a layer of
artificial intelligence over its ability to calculate
probabilities. “It will show you things that no human player has
ever shown you before,” Billings said of the latest incarnation of
the bot, which also has the ability to model its opponent’s
behavior. “… One of the biggest advantages that programs have is
that they have no fear, no shame. Humans can be intimidated. They
will back off in the face of a very aggressive player. A bot will
not. It has no compunction about doing whatever it will take to
win. It will raise you with any two cards if it thinks that it has
a very slight advantage based on your history. And it can induce a
lot of anger and emotional upset. These things are ‘tilt
monsters.’”
Rao, who served as one of the testers of Vex Bot, attests to its
skills. “It was a formidable foe,” he said of his initial
encounter with the bot, before the addition of its new feature. “I
can see that (the improved) bot, given enough hands, will become
an absolute world beater.”
While the Vex Bot is undeniably at the head of its class, the mere
existence of bots is a sensitive subject for operators of poker
sites, all of which appear to have policies prohibiting their use.
Nancy Chan-Palmateer, a spokeswoman for Canadian software maker
CryptoLogic, which oversees the online card room used by its eight
poker licensees on the Caribbean island of Curacao, said some
players have been banned from the member sites for suspicious
patterns of play that could indicate use of bots.
“Sometimes you don’t know if it’s specifically (bots) … but
certainly we’ve blocked players that have shown unusual activity,”
she said.
But Ray Bornert II, whose company makes WinHoldEm, billed as “a
programmable pokerbot,” said his company developed a two-computer
strategy to foil attempts to block its users.
Bornert criticized poker sites for singling out his firm’s
products – which includes a “Team Edition” that allows players to
see one another’s cards, in violation of rules against collusion
-- while failing to ensure that others also are playing by the
rules.
“We take issue with the poker sites because they do not do enough
to communicate the fact that it is impossible to physically secure
their no-bots, no-teams policies in an online environment,” he
wrote in reply to an e-mail question. “... If the poker sites
cannot physically secure their no-bots, no-teams policies then
they need to cease their persecution of players who are resorting
to such measures in order to adequately defend themselves against
opponents that have already seen the light. Players should be free
to fight fire with fire without being bullied by the poker rooms.”
He also quarreled with those who say the software is ineffective,
maintaining that it increased its original bankroll by 35 percent
in a five-day test in January in which it was used to play 7,000
hands. He acknowledged, though, that its ability to beat human
players depends on the user’s skill in setting the formula that it
uses to play.
Rao, the professional player, also expressed doubts about the
poker sites’ professed zero tolerance of bots, though for a
different reason. He said site operators make for bad cops when it
comes to policing bots since they still collect the house “rake” –
the percentage taken from each pot – whether the player is human
or software.
“They’ll turn a blind eye as long as it’s trivial … as long as
that bot pays its rake for every pot and as long as it doesn’t
undermine the confidence (of the other players),” he said.
Moreover, Rao said, the proliferation of poker sites presents an
excellent opportunity for anyone with a bot that can eke out a
slim profit to fly under the radar of those looking for unusual
playing patterns. “If you’ve got a bot that can play 25 casinos,
two tables apiece, even if you’re playing a (mid-level) $10/$20
game … that’s $1,000 an hour,” he said. And if such a bot is
created, how long will its author be able to keep it secret? |
