If you are building a No-Limit Hold'em poker bot, knowledge of ICM is absolutely mandatory. PokerPlayerNewspaper.com put up a nice little primer that should whet your appetite. If you are new to the topic, read this introduction, then head to the 2+2 forums and start searching. You'll think of chip equity in a whole new way.
ICM is a purely mathematical system, making it a perfect tool for your No Limit tournament poker bot. Don't risk busting your bankroll...your opponents know about Independent Chip Model and so should you.
ICM Introduction at PokerPlayerNewspaper.com
Monday, November 26, 2007
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Full Tilt PokerBot Scandal Post-Mortem (Part I)
Now that the roar is dying down (Full Tilt Pokerbots(?) at Two Plus Two Forums), I thought I'd wrap it all up with what I, as a bot operator, have found interesting in this monstrous debate.
#1. "...As for 1forthethumb and mariojr, I've not only played with both of them but have talked to both of them..."
Most players still believe that a few replies in the chat window "prove" your bot is a human. You should already know how easy it is to inject a few semi-random chat messages now and then. Don't get carried away, however. Lack of response is less suspicious than a nonsensical or repetitive response.
#2. "...I mostly ignored bot issues because I agreed with the popular sentiment at the time that it was just too complicated to program a bot to play well at an kind of meaningful stakes...."
The players WANT to be deceived. They have self-inflated egos that have convinced their Id that they're some sort of super-human poker calculator...pulling information from the ether, evidently. All we have to do is lay low and allow them to believe this. Just as a fish can't believe he isn't a winner, these winning players can't believe their winning isn't the result of their own extraordinary talents.
Are these players making decisions outside the realm of what most bots do? Of course, but there is no guarantee they are making the correct decision. For many low stake players, they are talking themselves into exploitable bad plays much more often than they think...they seem to believe that the amount of thought put into a decision is a direct indicator of the QUALITY of the final decision. With the human mind, this is not the case.
#3. If you get mentioned on a forum. SHUT UP.
Don't be BrandonJoseph from the main thread, trying to spin the conversation to avert suspicion. It doesn't work and it will never work. Just keep your mouth closed. You will only give them more information by which to convict you. The forum lynch mob can't clear your name...but they can sure convict you and force the site into action. Let it die!
#4. "...30,000 hands, same site, three different players logging on at the same time, logging off at the same time, and not playing at the same table for any one of those hands?..."
If you do something so obvious, you deserve to get caught. It may take awhile for the players to catch on, but the sites are well aware. Don't rely on the site operators lax attitude. It can change on a whim and I will tell you from experience that some sites will catch you and then not take action until you've either reloaded the account for a bonus offer, or you've attempted a cash out.
#5. Players don't understand the economy of large numbers.
It's clear from this thread that many, if not most, players don't understand the scale of how a bot farm works. These players are driven to move up stakes as quickly as they comfortably can, and they assume your bot is doing the same. They simply do not understand that you can make a six figure salary mining micro stakes where each table is earning $.25/hour.
Could I move up limits with my bots? More than likely, but should I spend 100 man hours coding and testing this move, or should I spend 100 hours dropping 10 more computers (80+ tables) into my war room? The choice is easy at even the smallest of limits until you run out of IP's or funding accounts.
I will break here before this post gets out of hand. So far we've only scratched the surface of this thread. More analysis to follow.
#1. "...As for 1forthethumb and mariojr, I've not only played with both of them but have talked to both of them..."
Most players still believe that a few replies in the chat window "prove" your bot is a human. You should already know how easy it is to inject a few semi-random chat messages now and then. Don't get carried away, however. Lack of response is less suspicious than a nonsensical or repetitive response.
#2. "...I mostly ignored bot issues because I agreed with the popular sentiment at the time that it was just too complicated to program a bot to play well at an kind of meaningful stakes...."
The players WANT to be deceived. They have self-inflated egos that have convinced their Id that they're some sort of super-human poker calculator...pulling information from the ether, evidently. All we have to do is lay low and allow them to believe this. Just as a fish can't believe he isn't a winner, these winning players can't believe their winning isn't the result of their own extraordinary talents.
Are these players making decisions outside the realm of what most bots do? Of course, but there is no guarantee they are making the correct decision. For many low stake players, they are talking themselves into exploitable bad plays much more often than they think...they seem to believe that the amount of thought put into a decision is a direct indicator of the QUALITY of the final decision. With the human mind, this is not the case.
#3. If you get mentioned on a forum. SHUT UP.
Don't be BrandonJoseph from the main thread, trying to spin the conversation to avert suspicion. It doesn't work and it will never work. Just keep your mouth closed. You will only give them more information by which to convict you. The forum lynch mob can't clear your name...but they can sure convict you and force the site into action. Let it die!
#4. "...30,000 hands, same site, three different players logging on at the same time, logging off at the same time, and not playing at the same table for any one of those hands?..."
If you do something so obvious, you deserve to get caught. It may take awhile for the players to catch on, but the sites are well aware. Don't rely on the site operators lax attitude. It can change on a whim and I will tell you from experience that some sites will catch you and then not take action until you've either reloaded the account for a bonus offer, or you've attempted a cash out.
#5. Players don't understand the economy of large numbers.
It's clear from this thread that many, if not most, players don't understand the scale of how a bot farm works. These players are driven to move up stakes as quickly as they comfortably can, and they assume your bot is doing the same. They simply do not understand that you can make a six figure salary mining micro stakes where each table is earning $.25/hour.
Could I move up limits with my bots? More than likely, but should I spend 100 man hours coding and testing this move, or should I spend 100 hours dropping 10 more computers (80+ tables) into my war room? The choice is easy at even the smallest of limits until you run out of IP's or funding accounts.
I will break here before this post gets out of hand. So far we've only scratched the surface of this thread. More analysis to follow.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Reason Your Pokerbot Will Be Banned #1: Session Length
There are many ways to flush the hard work of coding a bot down the toilet. Most seem obvious, but greed clouds judgement. The most important rule is to play reasonable session lengths!
Chances are that you will have an account or two banned as you go through your career as a botter. Don't panic. Before you begin, just assume it is going to happen and plan accordingly.
The most common reason for being banned (and your bankroll siezed more than likely) is the simple act of playing an unreasonable amount of hands per day/week/month or playing sessions of inordinate length.
Need an example? Datamine a day of Ultimate Bet micros. The bots there are so obvious it is comical. You'll find quite a few players there that multi-table all day, everyday, to suck up the UB "Points for Cash" free money. They aren't the smartest bots in the world, most either being a very predictable nutpeddler or a typical TAG that takes his hands too far. The point, however, is that they sit there all day, every day, in a way that any human regular at the tables will detect.
Most of your problems will stem from human players reporting you.
Again, using UB as our example, it is obvious that even a rudimentary security check by the site would reveal these bots to the site operator. UB has a record of not finding bots until they cashout, so I think these players will be in for a rude awakening at some point. Regardless of the site's vigilance in detecting a bot on their own, they WILL react when the customer complaints come rolling in...and if you play 80 hours a week, 6-tabling $10NL, the complaints WILL come.
Whether you are playing for testing, or playing for profit, you MUST resist the temptation to play more than is reasonable for a player. Also, take note that "reasonable" differs between levels. A reasonable $1/$2 semi-pro might run 5 or 6 tables for 8 hours in a day. A reasonable $.01/$.02 player will most certainly not.
Slow down. Use your head. This is a long ride.
Chances are that you will have an account or two banned as you go through your career as a botter. Don't panic. Before you begin, just assume it is going to happen and plan accordingly.
The most common reason for being banned (and your bankroll siezed more than likely) is the simple act of playing an unreasonable amount of hands per day/week/month or playing sessions of inordinate length.
Need an example? Datamine a day of Ultimate Bet micros. The bots there are so obvious it is comical. You'll find quite a few players there that multi-table all day, everyday, to suck up the UB "Points for Cash" free money. They aren't the smartest bots in the world, most either being a very predictable nutpeddler or a typical TAG that takes his hands too far. The point, however, is that they sit there all day, every day, in a way that any human regular at the tables will detect.
Most of your problems will stem from human players reporting you.
Again, using UB as our example, it is obvious that even a rudimentary security check by the site would reveal these bots to the site operator. UB has a record of not finding bots until they cashout, so I think these players will be in for a rude awakening at some point. Regardless of the site's vigilance in detecting a bot on their own, they WILL react when the customer complaints come rolling in...and if you play 80 hours a week, 6-tabling $10NL, the complaints WILL come.
Whether you are playing for testing, or playing for profit, you MUST resist the temptation to play more than is reasonable for a player. Also, take note that "reasonable" differs between levels. A reasonable $1/$2 semi-pro might run 5 or 6 tables for 8 hours in a day. A reasonable $.01/$.02 player will most certainly not.
Slow down. Use your head. This is a long ride.
Friday, April 20, 2007
7 Things You Must Know Before Using Online Poker Robots
Online poker robots are not easy cash machines. Before you begin writing your own code (or tweaking code you've purchased) you should consider that this will not be NEARLY as easy as you expect. Some points to consider...
- You don't know as much about poker as you think you do. I can't stress this enough. I was a winning player before I turned loose my war room on the online poker world. I played at mid-limits up to $5/$10 and $10/$20 online, and higher at brick and mortar poker rooms. However, the first thing I realized was that I take some of my play for granted. I did the right things, but I didn't know why. Imagine trying to teach another person to speak your native tongue. Sure, you speak it very well yourself, but can you explain past-perfect tense? Subjective pronouns? Probably not if you've been out of school as long as I have, but this is a perfect analogy for how you teach your bot to speak the language of poker.
- Nothing with this much earning potential is easy. Expect to spend hundreds of hours creating a bot that makes any sort of profit above the lowest of micro stakes. Read that again...HUNDREDS OF HOURS.
- Don't build a rule set, build a brain. You will never be happy with a rules based robot. Trust me, I've had several. They are a quick way to get up and running but you'll find a nearly limitless amount of situations to be faced in this wonderful game. It is inevitable that you'll miss some and make EV- plays at the table. Instead, concentrate on creating a brain for your bot that uses more information than your hand strength and number of villains in the hand. Any good player will take money from an opponent that can't think above the first level of poker (seeing his own hand only). Your bot is no exception.
- You don't understand variance. I thought I did when I began. I had Poker Tracker. I had tens of thousands of hands recorded of my own play. However, it is a whole new ballgame when you start recording tens of thousands of hands per day of the identical playing style and logic. I've had runs of 100,000 hands at break even, EV-, and EV+ all from the same bot.
- Security is paramount. Don't screw around and get your accounts banned. You are thinking, "Oh, it's just $50 I put in to toy around with penny tables. It won't kill me" $50 loss won't hurt you but take into consideration what that account may be worth in the future. 6 months from now after you've built a killer bot, that account may have a very large earning potential. What I wouldn't give to have all the accounts back that I foolishly squandered away.
- Don't be greedy. So you've built a winner...don't go and ruin it all with 12 hour sessions of 12-tabling. Both the site and the players will notice this. Also, don't think you can farm the micros mercilessly forever. If a human wins at the micros over a long stretch of hands, he moves up limits. Your bot should do the same. Do you expect a site to not notice that you've played 50k hands of $.25/$.50 poker every month for a year?
- Get a second opinion. Post hands to forums for discussion. Get a session review buddy. Do whatever you have to do to get an outside perspective on your bot's poker play. It's very easy to let all of your exposure to the bot influence your own game and theory. Resist the temptation to defend your bot's play automatically. You might be talking yourself into reinforcing a bad habit that it taught you.
