What's The Deal With Poker Bots?

There are a few players (seemingly at all levels) that are constantly tagged by other players on PTR as bots. How much of this is people's jealousy of someone else's ability and how much is truth.

There are a few players at 2NL and 5NL that seem to have graphs so straight they're drawn with a ruler and they play a staggering number of hands yet never move up despite being easily rolled for levels 2 or 3 times higher. Surely if they are bots Stars would have busted them by now? So how widespread are they?

there are many " bot " programs available on the net. they even tell you how to hide the software from the sites. poker stars has the most players using them at most levels. i have had conversations with PS and they boo-hoo the idea saying that anyone can play 24 tables at once......bs!
the truth is ....the sites dont care. its more rake for them and that is ALL they care about. i play $50nl and $100nl and at least 5 of 9 players are at 20-24 tables......the only way to play them is to know they are doing it and trap them, and they are trappable ( is that a word?...lol ).
good luck

I've run into a lot of people that get accused of being bots (Especially on Stars) but after playing with them a lot, I found that they're just ultra-nit players sitting at 24 tables at once just doing their thing.

bots

i would like to think that i could tell which is a bot and which is not. i can see using one tryuing to keep up with that many tables.

The only way to make real money in poker today is by playing as many tables as you can and play as tight as you can. It is easier to play tighter because you will make less mistakes with marginal hands, and the tighter you play the more tables you can play. This is why there are so many people that play so many tables at a time, which in turn makes players think that they are playing against bots, because all these people do is fold, fold, fold, and show up with monster hands when they do decide to play. Im not saying that there are no bots playing on these sites, there are just a lot less then you think, hardly any at all... they are really not profitable anyway, but whatever works, or makes people happy...

From what I have read it is impossible for a bot to play nlhe, they are set up to play limit.
There are many people who do multi-table up to 24 tables, well maybe no many but quite a few.
We used to play alot of 2nl on stars for kicks and a chick would always sit at our table and she was playing up to 22 tables at once and every once in a while we could get her to talk. I think Chiefer has her locked in his basement now....

On FTP there were tons at the lower limits. So easy to spot too. I don't know why there security doesn't do a better job of eliminating them. Could be because they're also making FTP money at the same time? I even think I spotted one guy from a certain country running like a farm of bots. The funny thing is when he first set them up he had them all play at the same table. So when you ptr'd them you could see all these related with a high bot score. 12 hours a day, everyday, all start at the same time, all play the same way.

coolnout said:

On FTP there were tons at the lower limits. So easy to spot too. I don't know why there security doesn't do a better job of eliminating them. Could be because they're also making FTP money at the same time? I even think I spotted one guy from a certain country running like a farm of bots. The funny thing is when he first set them up he had them all play at the same table. So when you ptr'd them you could see all these related with a high bot score. 12 hours a day, everyday, all start at the same time, all play the same way.

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Not sure I get this? Why would you have them all play at the same table?

Also, why would a regular player play 100,000s of hands (sometimes millions) with a BB/100 of +9 and not move up?

PooffyFooffy said:

I think Chiefer has her locked in his basement now....

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Nope, not anymore, we fell in love and I married her. Ah winehouse, how you changed my live.

Chiefer said:

Nope, not anymore, we fell in love and I married her. Ah winehouse, how you changed my live.

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Lol that's it! I could not remember her name.

this is such bs. thats why i like live play better. i think bots are cheating. losers that cant play the game and only want money use bots. i read an article one time of a guy that had 13 bots going at all times. he was raking in a grand a night on 25 cent tables.

Tenessee123 said:

this is such bs. thats why i like live play better. i think bots are cheating. losers that cant play the game and only want money use bots. i read an article one time of a guy that had 13 bots going at all times. he was raking in a grand a night on 25 cent tables.

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Can you recall the article? i can't believe this, unless it was more then 2 years ago . . .

When I first read this thread I wasnt sure about bots and I for sure have felt at times that the person at a table could not possibly be real with both the cards they were playing/getting or hitting with those cards when they were rediculis. So I was playing in a tournament the other day and this one player raised every hand, bet every flop and was taking down a ton of pots, so I finally get something (A10 off) I could feel some what dominant in a heads up against this player and we get all in and they turn up (J 3 off) really? So they hit two pair and take me out so I decide to follow this player and they move to another table and are out in about 10 more hands. Now I'm thinking there are just an incredabily large number of real bad players that get real lucky for a while. Either that or this is a style of play where you raise all the time until you get way ahead (and get real lucky alot) then you would need to tighten up, I see people play that way but no sure how effictive that is.

People tend to talk a lot of rubbish about bots. Somebody raising with J3os is unlikely to be a bot, surely? Also the people that say they're really easy to recognise are again flying in the case of conventional wisdom, which says the only way (at the table) to recognise them is because they never chat. It is also not true, as far as I can tell, to say that the sites do nothing about them. The people who see a lot of bots at the tables and think they're easy to recognise are probably the same ones that have seen UFOs, or say that online poker is rigged.

I have had alot of friends use the bot detector device and they never found 1...ummmm unsure about this but gr8 blog!!

What is PTR?

Corey said:

What is PTR?

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the only PTR I know about is a website called pokertableratings.com it's pretty good, check it out!

Its funny how some people are paranoid about bots. People will chat in the box with each other calling me a bot. Lots of times I am at 4 tables and watching a movie or on the phone with one of the kids, so I have no time to be worryin about a chat box. Then when they take down a nice hand a half hour later , I will respond with a vnh message... so funny. I usually have the box set on info, such as how many players are left in the tourney, what rank I am in. That is much more useful info most of the time.

Yeah PTR is Poker Table Ratings.

I'm really unsure about bots - I just wasn't sure about them hence the thread, I'm sure they exist but just wondered how widespread they are. Playing 24 tables can't be hard when you're only playing 4-5% of hands.

The only indication that I've ever felt showed a player as a potential bot was length of time at the tables. I played at an ipoker site in limit and was convinced this one player was a bot because they never slept.

It never mattered what time I logged on to play this person was at the tables. Over 4k hands with this person later and we are about even money with each other.

Playing against a "Bot" Program wouldn't bother me at all. The question is What's your percentage of Wins on the Card Showdown? Ultimately a Bot can and will bluff off chips. How many of these hands have you taken down from it?

actualy dear i think the only way to make money is pker in todays age by playing tighter because you will make less mistakes with marginal hands, and the tighter you play the more tables you can play. This is why there are so many people that play so many tables at a time, which in turn makes players think that they are playing against bots, because all these people do is fold, fold, fold, and show up with monster hands when they do decide to play.

Are you sure you're not just referring to a person's "Bot Score" on PTR? That doesn't mean they're bots or are accused of being bots -- it's just the term for a score they use to measure a player's ability to play "like a bot." As in, very predictable, nitty, etc.

Gunn_Slinger said:

i have had conversations with PS and they boo-hoo the idea saying that anyone can play 24 tables at once......bs!

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Wait... are you saying bs to playing 24 tables??? Of course people play 24 tables. Many of the top grinders are doing so. I wouldn't say *anyone* (as in, everyone) can play 24 tables well, but there are most definitely a lot of winning grinders that can play 24 tables. I myself am quite comfortable with around 12 tables, although I don't see really going beyond that because I don't like to nit up that much. I tend to have the most fun playing 4 or maybe 6, that's just about the limit of my ability to think about some plays without having to nit up and play fit/fold like a bot.

The amusing thing is that paranoid people seem to assume that bots are good players, whereas actually NLHE is such a complicated game that it must be very complex to program, and I would assume that a good human player would very quickly learn to outwit a bot.

NoWuckingFurries said:

The amusing thing is that paranoid people seem to assume that bots are good players, whereas actually NLHE is such a complicated game that it must be very complex to program, and I would assume that a good human player would very quickly learn to outwit a bot.

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I agree with this...those players that are accused of bots (i'm thinking of one or two in particular on PS at $2NL) are quite easy to play against and you either get outta the way - or you stack them. It's just knowing who they are and how they play.