Ray Bornet, the creator of WinHoldem, has always been the most outspoken proponent of poker bots. Since the days when usenet newsgroups were the heart of online poker discussion, he's been challenging anti-bot discrimination. In recent months, Mr. Bornet has begun to shift his attention to a completely new form of poker: "Live-Digital".
Live-Digital is the term given to an event where the participants are physically present in the same location, but playing from their computer. As I understand it, any computer that can connect to Ray's proprietary PPRO server can participate and use any type of poker aid they'd like short of collusion. There have been pokerbot competitions before, most notably the University of Alberta's work, but Mr. Bornet has mixed it up in several distinct ways.
Live humans are allowed, even encouraged to play.
There are entry fees up to $10,000.
Now think of the ramifications. For the first time ever, we could see the poker equivalent of Kasparov Vs. Deep Blue. Exciting. I personally won't be attending. I do hold a Winholdem subscription, but I haven't used it for play in a long time. For $100/year, though, it's a cheap way to see what my pro bot competitors/peers are working with. Winholdem is easily the most powerful, publicly available pokerbot if you can get past the steep learning curve, but I've moved to my own proprietary bot long ago. I do credit Winholdem with pointing me toward the path of knowing what it is I don't know, as well as what it is I need to know, in order to properly operate a poker bot war room. Unfortunately there are a few things that are scary above and beyond the work needed to port my bot to PPRO server format.
Live-Digital is the term given to an event where the participants are physically present in the same location, but playing from their computer. As I understand it, any computer that can connect to Ray's proprietary PPRO server can participate and use any type of poker aid they'd like short of collusion. There have been pokerbot competitions before, most notably the University of Alberta's work, but Mr. Bornet has mixed it up in several distinct ways.
Live humans are allowed, even encouraged to play.
There are entry fees up to $10,000.
Now think of the ramifications. For the first time ever, we could see the poker equivalent of Kasparov Vs. Deep Blue. Exciting. I personally won't be attending. I do hold a Winholdem subscription, but I haven't used it for play in a long time. For $100/year, though, it's a cheap way to see what my pro bot competitors/peers are working with. Winholdem is easily the most powerful, publicly available pokerbot if you can get past the steep learning curve, but I've moved to my own proprietary bot long ago. I do credit Winholdem with pointing me toward the path of knowing what it is I don't know, as well as what it is I need to know, in order to properly operate a poker bot war room. Unfortunately there are a few things that are scary above and beyond the work needed to port my bot to PPRO server format.
- Anonymity: Mr. Bornet is intent on pushing poker botting out of the shadows and is looking to publicize the names of winners. I cannot risk that. My income is at stake. I disagree with Mr. Bornet in the value of being named the winner, I guess. I can't imagine it being anywhere close to the loss of income I'd feel from having all the poker room accounts under my real name suspended and bankrolls seized. Plus, the net is full of tinfoil hat wearing wackos looking to blame anything for their losses other than themselves. I don't want that guy tracking me down, convinced I'm the reason he's bankrupt himself at Party Poker.
- EV-: The event is taking place on a cruise ship for jurisdiction purposes. This adds expense and opportunity cost. There is a very small list of confirmed participants thus far and I doubt the larger purse events will even run. This only adds to the relative cost of travel and the cruise itself compared to buy-in.
It's a great idea, but perhaps a bit ahead of its time. Will it be the next WPT or even WSOP? Probably not anytime soon, but with Bluff magazine expected to cover the event and interest from the academic world rumored, the only thing keeping the PBWC from exploding is a celebrity face.
For more information on the PokerBot World Championship, see the official PBWC Forum.
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