Bot 'tells'

I've seen some discussionabout bots and how beatable they are.

So what are the 'tells'?

[BTW - my reckoning is they are illegal, as it constitutes fraud.]

Yes, bots are beatable. A bot is only as good as its program and it takes a lot of work & knowledge of writing code to program a successful bot. But even the most successful bot is barely above the break even line. Also, a lot of the bot's style of play comes directly from the the programmer's knowledge of the game and how he himself would play. Since every bot is simply an extension of its maker, it's nearly impossible to give a general list of 'tells'. Most bots, however, are programmed to play fairly tight, quality hands and when reaching a specific point, like say 10 times the big blind, will push with even a moderate hand. They can also be programmed to steal the blinds randomly.
In summation, just play your game, learn & improve your game and you won't have to worry about a bots tells. Remember, a bot will never tilt and a bot will never chat, unless its programmer is watching it play and chats for it or overrides its play.

I have noticed several people buying into cash games for the minimum. They seem to play pretty tight, which is understandable with a short stack. But then when they do win a hand, they leave the table. Oh and when the blinds pass them by, they always reload their money back to minimum buy in. Could these be bots, or is this some kind of stratagy I havn't heard of? Again, I have noticed several doing this.

tgarner said:

I have noticed several people buying into cash games for the minimum. They seem to play pretty tight, which is understandable with a short stack. But then when they do win a hand, they leave the table. Oh and when the blinds pass them by, they always reload their money back to minimum buy in. Could these be bots, or is this some kind of stratagy I havn't heard of? Again, I have noticed several doing this.

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It's called 'short stacking' and/or 'hit and run'. Two common 'strategies' that really unnerve some other players.

I have my account set to automatic re-load, so that anytime my stack drops below the max buy in, chips are purchased and placed in my stack. This will even happen when I fold the small blind. The short stackers may have the same settings.

Short stackers basically wait until they get premium cards and try to get all the chips in the middle before or on the flop. If they win... they leave the table and go and sit at another table with the minimum buy in.

I used to notice while playing on UB the short-stackers. They would almost never play a hand unless it was premium, and when they got that hand, it was all-in preflop. Every once in a while they would limp into a pot, but I would say 95% of the time, if you bet into them on the flop, min-bet or not, they would fold.

Like Dantigua was saying, as soon as they busted out, they would rebuy with the same exact amount every time, and if they won a hand, they would leave the table and go to another.

I know back when I played the micros on UB, you would have 3 or 4 bots at a table, and I swear they were all the same cheap/crappy program because they would all be a mirror image of one another. The funniest thing is that some are programmed to say something into the chat every now and then, mostly "nice hand" or "nice bet", but a lot of the times, it isn't a hand that you would ever say that for, like "nice hand" when the table folded around to the BB or something.

You can make money off the bots, but I would only call one of their bets if you yourself has a premium hand, because you can almost be sure that they do.

Yep, and another 'tell' is that the bots are very consistent in the amount of time it takes for them to act. Usually, the bots can have so much code that they take almost every bit of the 15 seconds to act. It can be very frustrating to real players who get tired of constantly waiting on the bot to act, even just to fold.
I'm actually surprised that someone would try to write code for the bot to chat randomly b/c it would rarely fit the case & make sense, as absoluthamm mentioned.

Yes, I also believe it is the consistently taking the majority of the time to act that is the tell tale sign. Granted there are some people who seem to enjoy taking all of their time on every play just to get under everyone elses skin, but usually they'll chat as people complain about them. The bots tend to either not comment at all, or always have those generic comments that don't tend to fit the situation.

tgarner said:

I have noticed several people buying into cash games for the minimum. They seem to play pretty tight, which is understandable with a short stack. But then when they do win a hand, they leave the table. Oh and when the blinds pass them by, they always reload their money back to minimum buy in. Could these be bots, or is this some kind of stratagy I havn't heard of? Again, I have noticed several doing this.

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Hit and run is quite popular in the micro's. I've often bought in with $0.40 and played simply to double up. Its not tough to camp for a monster hand and double through 'coz you'll nearly always get action for that amount. Anything under a dollar in fact. Then quit, and start again with another $0.40.
Its not a great strategy, just a quick-fix when your low!


As for bots.....YAWN. Yes they are beatable, they are generally programmed to play a certain range and nothing else, so pretty simple to min-raise off a pot. There are a million threads about this, search a couple for more insight into what they are and how they work.