Posted on 06/11/2005 10:35:25 PM PDT by CHARLITE
Of the millions of gamblers who have rushed to play Texas Hold 'Em and other fast-growing poker games online, Roger Gabriel isn't the most intimidating.
The 30-year-old Newport Beach engineer started playing for money only a month ago. He lurks online at the tables for the chicken-hearted; even there, where the biggest ante is 4 cents, he can't win consistently.
But Gabriel has a potentially powerful alter ego. In his spare time, he's perfecting a computer program to go online and play the game for him.
His BlackShark software is still a work in progress, but Gabriel has no doubt that such programs eventually will be championship quality. "In the future," he said, "robots are going to take over."
Gabriel is one of an increasing number of computer professionals who design poker robots, or "bots," that pose as human gamblers but can play endlessly without tiring or losing concentration — for real money.
Though not yet good enough to beat skilled humans consistently, these programs are seen as a threat by online casinos — all based outside of the U.S. and out of the reach of American laws — and the gamblers who spend billions of dollars chasing big pots.
"There are already lots of robots playing online, and that's definitely unethical. They should identify themselves," said Paul Magriel, a veteran professional poker player.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
bot-tool-ism infects online casinos. cool.
Sorry, BS.
But casinos know that some Ivy League Universities (and other schools) have formed teams of the "best and brightest" to play Black Jack. Some of these college teams have won millions of dollars betting in NJ and LV casinos. But you don't have to be a mathematical genius or have a total recall memory to win at this game called Black Jack. You must: (1) Master elaborate 'card counting' tricks without tipping off the casino, and (2)Know the odds tables backward and forwards until they are automatic.
And, have balls of steel (does the image of Bogart in "Caine Mutiny" come to mind?).
The problem as I see it is to create a bot that plays better than the hordes of low-limit players, and it doesn't need to be by much. The key is volume. If you can have a bot that wins 1 BB/hr at 1-2, and have it play 16 tables that's $32/hr. $768/day, 280k/year, it turns into real money.
I see a lot of online players claiming that sites won't allow bots but the more full tables they have the more rake they take.
When your business model depends on putting players in seats, I'd guess that "non-human" players will do just
fine.
Nope...real thing. Someone related to me is developing a program.....been a year in the making. He has the technology, the training, and the animal skills of a professional card player. Don't know if it's operational yet....been out of touch several months. Supergeek. Bridge champ. Ex-Vegas casino programmer.
The ironic difficulty, he says, is trusting the machine when instinct suggests alternative action. You end up where you started. So maybe it's not the threat they think. Human nature thwarts the machinations.
Countermeasures have begun and will continue. A major poker site has just yesterday instituted player-validation pop-ups, which require a player to type in characters seen on a picture.
While these systems can be defeated, the bot-writer not only has to create a program to handle the poker, but the counter-bot approaches used by the poker sites.
Furthermore, all the poker sites can confiscate a player's bankroll first and ask questions later. What is "Mr. Bot" gonna do, fly to Gibraltar and ask for his money back?
Poker sites also deploy countermeasures against collusion, and I have online acquaintances who have received lost pot shares refunded when collusion was found on a table at which they played.
You wrote: "Someone related to me is developing a program.....been a year in the making."
Wow, so this person is at a minimum $10k in the hole already in time/energy spent. If his/her time is more valuable, then this sounds lke $50k worth of time shooting for something that is a direct violation of all the T&C's he/she agreed to.
FWIW the UAlberta R&D team which developed PokiBot suggest that this is not an easy effort.
And a damn convincing one too I might add.
muhahhahahahaha!!!
He does quite well for himself playing fair n' square. I don't get it, either.
I make an average of 1-2 thousand per month playing poker on-line partime. Your gross generalization is ignorant and foolish.
As for pokerbots, they can only be as good at poker as their programmers (at best). Making a bot that can beat bad players is fairly easy. Making one that can beat good players would be a whole other prospect. I'll believe it when I see it.
What happens when 10 bots log on to the same game?!
"I'll wager 400 quatloos
on the newcomer."
They need two diferent boards , one for bots and another for humans. I could see the battle between bots as their human developers scramble to make changes and improvements.
i play the one i got a link on my about page and i havent noticed any bots on it if there are any they suck becaseu i have been winnig a lot latley and i suck at texas hold em lol :-)ive been making the biggest killing at guts and chinese poker though i dont thnk they make bots for those games online who knows though no telling what computer geeks will come up with next
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