The increasing popularity of online poker has led not only to the game becoming more attractive to people of different age, gender and social status, but also to some not so great “innovations” in the field. One of the latest trends among programmers fascinated by the game of poker is to create a poker bot that would automatically play online poker for them, aimed at winning large prizes.
What Is a Poker Bot?
A computer poker player, which is also referred to as as poker bot, is a special computer program which has been especially designed in order to play against human opponents or other computer opponents over a game of poker. Despite the fact that some bots are sometimes use as legitimate opponents for regular players, nowadays they are most commonly used as a form of cheating, which is why the majority of online card rooms forbid the use of bots.
Since 2000, when online poker became more attractive to players worldwide, thousands of people have been trying to find an easy way to the big money prizes. That is one of the main reasons why poker bots have become so popular over the past few years, especially among players who are aimed at making an easy profit, and the ones who want to prove themselves and everyone else that they are perfectly capable of beating the game of poker, which is known as a complex game as a whole.
Unfortunately for real players, the use of poker bots that will automatically play with little or no human interaction has increased immensely over the past few years. Most poker website, or at least the ones that are reputable enough, have relatively efficient ways to detect poker bots. Of course, there are certain ways for a bot to use some cracks to slip through them and still play against real players on the Internet.
A study that was conducted about a year ago showed that 12% of online poker players were anxious that they would encounter a poker bot during their play. What is more, some of them had even decided to stop playing poker completely due to such an encounter. So, the presence of poker bots was also quite unfortunate for some online casino and poker operators, as it has resulted in some players leaving online poker websites because they preferred not to risk their money against the computer-generated players.
Currently, bots are unwanted at poker tables, which means that most online poker websites make everything they can in order to prevent them from joining. Most of them usually take measures to not allow such cheating. Most commonly, there is an implemented server message that appears on the screen, requesting players to type a certain word or combination of symbols within some time in order to prove they are not bots under the threat of being removed from the table by force. In case there is a player who does not respond to the message, they could become a subject of further investigation
Detecting a Poker Bot
The truth is that most poker bots could easily be detected by regular players in case that they had managed to slip through some flaws of the online poker websites systems. As some of the users in 2+2 claim, they prefer to write to the player they find suspicious and wait for a response. Of course, the lack of response does not necessarily mean that the player they have found suspicious is a bot, as there are also many online poker players who have automated their play style, so that they could be mistaken for bots.
According to some 2+2 users, the number of tables a suspicious player plays on could also be considered as a hint if there is a bot hidden under a certain username. Players must remember that playing on a number of tables is not enough proof that a player is necessarily a bot. However, if the same player can be detected on a large number of tables on the next day, and on the day after that, the situation is certainly suspicious.
Still, players should remember that although the bot is normally programmed to make a steady profit, there is actually no guarantee that it will be always profitable. Bots do not always win, and if a player is more conscious and pays attention at the other player’s game, they would be able not only to spot a poker bot, but also beat him as long as they manage to puzzle its pattern out. Usually, the bot’s moves are a bit too automated and somehow standard.
Can Poker Bots Be Beaten?
So, can poker bots be stopped or, at least, beaten by regular players? The truth is there is no unanimous answer of that question. Still, some experts in the fields, as well as some users of the largest poker community online think there are some methods that could give a human player at least a small advantage against poker bots.
What all players who fear encountering a poker bot need to remember is that poker websites use special computer-generated code which is used to determine the entire game, including shuffles, deals and hand outcomes. On the other hand, poker bots are programmed to make decisions based only on the statistical analysis of the game of poker. In other words, poker bots are not able to make decisions on their own, as their actions are based on the possible patterns in the game.
Of course, active protection on the side of the online poker website is also expected in order to put an end of the attempts of poker bots to interfere in games of poker. As mentioned earlier, when closely observed, the actions of the majority of poker bots are usually predictable as they are related to the game’s statistical odds and probabilities.
Probably one of the ways that are most commonly used by poker websites to fight poker bots, is the so-called CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart). These programs are aimed at determining whether a certain user is a real human player or a bot, so the majority of poker websites are protected by CAPTCHAs.
Unfortunately, it is not possible to say what the future would bring for bots in online poker. Still, despite the fact such an encounter is not a good thing for human players, they do not need to panic about such ways of cheating, especially considering the fact that poker is a game too complicated to be solved just like that by a computer program. Nevertheless, technologies develop rapidly these days, so it remains to be see how artificial intelligence would be involved in the game of poker in the future.
- Author
Harry Evans
