From the beginning of poker on the web individuals who have decided to risk their cash playing poker on the internet have been curious about the possible presence of robots playing in their games. This notion is valid, because as of late it has been made public that indeed these robot software programs are real, are being used by other players at your poker table, and are available for anyone who don’t mind breaking the regulations. It should not actually be all that surprising. After all, this is the internet. You can expect creative men and women to build software applications that can solve just about any challenge and make life simpler when it comes to computer tasks. Even for playing online casino games. If you are going to sit there and play poker for real money at your computer against other players whom you cannot see, and do not know, you should expect that some of them are computer programs.
Many folks do seem to get upset over the issue when they hear about it for the first time. There are some who even decide that they have been cheated. But that conclusion is mostly arrogant – because it is usually just a by-product of a person who is angry over being a losing player and shouldn’t be gambling with the rent money. Bots do not have an unfair advantage over humans because they do not have access to any additional information than humans do. Indeed because poker is such a human-oriented game, the bots most likely have a disadvantage overall. Against good players, that is. So they can hardly be considered cheating. Ironically, the biggest complaints against poker bots come from other good players.
The reason is that they see them as a threat for their slice of the pie from the games. Do you have sympathy for them? Me neither. It is not difficult to see their true intentions. They don’t want the bots to be making money from the weak, losing players because if the bots are gone then that leaves more of that money for them. Plain and simple, cut and dried. It has nothing to do with preserving the purity of the game, as they will argue. It is just a matter of who gets to fleece the less skilled players.
As a matter of fact some of poor players would prefer to lose their money to bots for the reason that poker bots do not put down them when they win. Contemplate this for a short while. Poker players who play every day are known for having bad attitudes and making the table no fun. Robots never do that. So who is really better for the game? The poor sharks (who aren’t getting enough fish to eat these days because of the bots) that throw temper tantrums and insult their very own customers? Or the quiet, polite poker bots that bring liquidity to the games and are beatable by the superior players anyway?
The players who are using the programs to play for them are for the most part purists who can’t resist playing with toys. They are in fact intelligent folks that are good for the game of poker. They are not the bad people in internet poker. They are not cheaters who are looking to gain dishonestly. I mean, tweaking a poker bot is fun, but it is also a challenge and hard work. Telling it to play a certain way in a certain situation, and then watching it and actually seeing it do what you told it to do when the situation arises, is rewarding. But it takes a while. Then you discover that you forgot an important point and have to go back and cover it and then test it again. This is a healthy, creative hobby.
Now, the poker sites themselves tend to have wacky policies when it comes to actually making sure people follow their own rules. Certainly that the use of pokerbots is officially breaking the rules at every major internet poker room. But policing those rules is another matter entirely.You see they actually earn more revenue with bots playing in the games. Consequently only a few of the major online poker companies have bothered to attempt to stop them, and usually only after a public outcry on a popular online poker forum. The ones who have cracked down have usually tolerated the bots up to a certain point and then out of nowhere (without any warning) frozen poker accounts and confiscated the funds in the accounts. Even if the account had thousands of dollars in it and the person they believed to be using illegal software had only used it once in a ten cent game.
But then internet poker companies are not exactly reputable for being moral in their service with their player accounts. For them, all they really care about is making even more money. Consider the rake that they take from the cash games for just a moment. It doesn’t seem like much, but within 24 hours every chip on the table will usually be taken by the poker room in rake. It takes a tremendous volume of continued deposits to keep the games live because all the money is constantly siphoned out of the room by the rake. The players don’t seem to mind, as 90% of them are losers in the long run and just consider it an entertainment expense.
Also consider the fact that virtually all online poker rooms used “house bots” themselves in the beginning of their existence, as a way to populate the games. Are you starting to understand their selective enforcement policies regarding bots?
That is not to say that cheating is somehow OK just because the poker room has unjust practices (and by doing so reaps huge gains for itself). Any player whom does this is assuming the risk and deserves whatever happens if the result is bad. It was not the intent of this analysis to support the people who break rules and use illegal software at a poker room, but rather to look at both sides of the issue. The real cheaters in the game are the only ones who deserve that label. Perhaps a poker room that officially allows bots will come on the scene soon and change the public image of a fascinating toy that is, in reality, good for the game.
Online Poker Observations on the Growing Use of Bots
