Invasion of the Poker Bots

One of the only major downfalls of online poker is the inability to look your opponent in the eye. This creates a playing environment where “tells” are virtually non existent. It also creates an situation where you never really know who you are playing against – or even if they are human. Poker bots have many online players worried about the integrity of online poker. In the age of sophisticated technology could bots be raking in the cash playing online poker? For many experienced poker players the answer is yes. Potential proof has recently been brought to the forefront by poker players all over the internet.

Many say bots are used widespread across poker rooms to flush out beginning or even average players. A concensus is building that poker bots do in fact exist. The next questions to be answered is, how good are they currently and how good can they become? Bots pose a serious threat to internet poker since advanced level bots will wash out weaker players – eliminating the profits of people who play poker for a their livlihood.

Do Poker Bots Pose a Threat?

Some people claim poker bots aren’t yet intelligent enough to pose any significant threat to the poker world. The complexity of poker with its various strategies ensure that bots will always be inadequate when compared to human players.  What about two or three bots playing together? Poker bot rings are also popping up across the internet where two or more bots play together again other players at the table.

Huge Bot Advantages

Poker bots can play 24 hours a day 365 days a year. They never get tired mis-click, or waiver from their programmed strategy. Bots are machines that use strict programming language, therefore they won’t go on tilt or backdown to aggression. Humans are oppositely very emotional and can be subject to “tilting” and fearful thoughts. Imagine the amount of rakeback a bot could generate, playing every hour of every day. It would only have to break-even in gameplay to win money via rakeback each month.

Poker Rooms Fight Back

Poker sites unanimously deny the presense of bots at their poker rooms. Nobody wants to admit that bots are abundant in online poker for fear of player loss. Most cardrooms won’t even talk about the potential of poker bots existing, denying interviews and press releases regarding the subject. Obviously, bots exist though since poker rooms explicitly state rules prohibiting the use of bots in their terms of service. Why create a rule against bots if they don’t exist? Rooms also monitor gameplay for unusual poker activity. Two screen names playing together frequently or suspicious hand play are two red flags that identify bots.  Human players are the main watchdog, flagging and reporting potential bots they play against.

One thing is for sure – wherever there is money to be made people with financial motives will be found.  Programmers and other poker players will be ruthlessly programming poker bots for commercial reasons. Just like the super computer chess bot, a poker bot could soon become equally intelligent to the likes of human poker players. If poker super bots aren’t yet playing among us, they can’t be too far off. Poker rooms will have to increase their watchful eye if they intend to keep human players happy – if there are any left.

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Is Online Poker Rigged?

We have all questioned the fairness and integrity of online poker at one point or another. These thoughts are often provoked by unfortunate runs of cards and horrifically bad beats. For some of us, the thought of online poker as completely fair is impossible. This would go against our internal belief that we are all winning players. It is far easier to dismiss poker as a rigged game than it is to admit that we are subject to bad runs of cards and variance. More importantly, that we may actually have negative expected value over the long term. Several features of poker lead players to question the game’s integrity – some for good reason. The topics discussed below may help justify unusual hands at the poker table and hopefully put your mind at ease.

Ultimate Bet/Absolute Poker
Starting off on a sad note, some online poker sites may possibly be rigged. Some shady play recently occurred at Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker involving a “super-user”. This user was able to see the hole cards of everyone at the table and play accordingly. Crushing tournament after tournament he drew a lot of attention to himself and was uncovered by fellow players tracking his performance. In fact his excessive winning streak and unbelievable laydowns drew too much attention. If he had simply blended in better his scheme would still be going on today. Below is a win rate distribution clearly identifying the super-user.

Variance
Winning poker is nothing more than the application of small advantages over a long period of time. In a game of such meager edges, fluctuations in profit will occur. The statistical measure of your results dispersed is known as variance. For most players variance is a scary word as it is thought of as the swings in bankroll. If you notice, “variance” is almost never discussed when a player is winning – only when a player incurs steep losses and bad runs of cards. People tend to remember when they have been the victim of bad beats and coolers much more so than when their hands have held up.

Bad Beats
For as long as poker has been around bad beats have been occurring frequently. Bad beats occur when a massive underdog hits a miracle card or running cards to win a hand. Although you might think pocket aces should win all the time, they don’t. In fact seven-two off-suit will beat pocket aces 12.74% of the time all in pre-flop. If the worst hand in poker beats the best hand thirteen times out of one-hundred be prepared for the often unimaginable happening. Good players know that poker is a game of small edges. They also know that bad beats are what trick weak players into thinking they can beat the game.

Coolers
Imagine calling a big raise pre-flop with a small pocket pair against what you believe to be an over-pair. While you are clearly behind preflop, you are probably getting the right implied odds post flop if you hit your hand. The dealer lays down the flop of three cards and you magically hit bottom set. Your opponent, the initial preflop raiser, bets out just over half the pot. You look at your stack and stall before shoving over the top all-in. The raiser looks up and insta-calls snapping over a set of his own. You have officially been “coolered”, since a set on a safe board is ahead of everything except a higher set. Coolers happen in poker, since some hands you just can’t get away from. Set over set occurs just one in ninety-eight times. In the long run these types of coolers won’t negatively affect your bottom line. Theoretically, you will set over set someone else half the time to balance things out.

Cashout Curse
The “cashout curse” is one of the most widely criticized aspects of online poker. The belief is that online poker rooms rig the cards immediately after a player cashes out a sizeable amount of money. While this sounds like a possible scenario it is most certainly not occurring. The more likely culprit is a change in the way you play after cashing out. Most players tend to play much looser and many more starting hands after cashing out. Playing with the houses money tends to loosen up new players. Playing a wider range of hands with a limited bankroll leaves less margin for error. Cashing out money usually leaves the player with the limited bankroll prone to variance.

First Deposit Runs
This type of scenario occurs when a new player starts off poker with a huge winning streak, often doubling their bankroll or better. Skeptical poker players tend to think that new players experience first deposit runs as a way to keep them from being crushed immediately. First deposit runs tend to occur because new players are taking a lot of chances and playing loose. Secondly, these deposits are subject to a one-hundred percent deposit bonus. This extra bankroll padding allows these players to take added risk, pushing sub optimal holdings. Again, nobody ever hears about a new player depositing and losing everything since its almost expected. We tend to remember only things that go against the odds.

Although many people still claim otherwise, online poker is not rigged. Poker websites make multi-millions of dollars off the rake they take in. Absolutely no incentive exists for them to push things further and risk losing their online business all together by rigging cards. Instances of cheating would immediately crush their business model by driving away all players playing at their site. Simply put, why risk losing a thing that is already making your rich many times over. If you still are skeptical, just take a look at card monitoring programs like Poker Tracker. Even this sophisticated program couldn’t statistically conclude that online poker cards were anything but random. Online poker has had setbacks and isolated instances of cheating by super-user accounts, but the integrity of randomness has never wavered. In fact, reliable poker sites like Full Tilt and PokerStars may be more secure and fair than brick and mortar poker rooms. Next time someone tries to tell you online poker is rigged, tell them that it is rigged – for the good players.

Fair and Honest Games at Full Tilt Poker

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Exposing Online Poker Cheating

Everyone has questioned the integrity of online poker at one time or another. At times it seems like the cards are rigged against us on our downturns. Although it is important to monitor the online poker sites, you would be far better served paying attention to your opponents. Anywhere large sums of money are found cheaters are likely to follow. Cheaters employ many different methods and tricks to keep people guessing. They are also becoming more sophisticated and talented in keeping their methods hidden. Poker rooms combat this with software that monitors player habits and playing environment. Although poker site software is becoming increasingly intelligent it is always important to police your own poker games. If something just doesn’t seem right at your table it probably isn’t – with that being said the following paragraphs will address things you should look out for.

Trojan Horse Spyware
One of the worst problems for high-stakes poker players is spyware programs like trojan horses. These programs are like a virus but go virtually un-noticed by the infected player. The trojan takes screen shots of an opponents cards and sends it to his or her opponent. Seeing your opponents hole cards obviously puts you at an un-imaginable disadvantage. This is exactly what happened to one un-named online poker pro who lost millions when his opponent sent him a poker “tool” containing a trojan horse program. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses later the pro finally realized that something didn’t seem right. His aces were losing, his bluffs always got called and he was always getting beat. Unfortunately, by the time he discovered the problem his money has been laundered away. Be cautious when downloading poker calculator and odds programs from the internet.

Super-Users
Some online poker sites may possibly be rigged. Some shady play recently occurred at Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker involving a “super-user”. This user was able to see the hole cards of everyone at the table and play accordingly. Crushing tournament after tournament he drew a lot of attention to himself and was uncovered by fellow players tracking his performance. In fact his excessive winning streak and unbelievable lay downs drew too much attention. If he had simply blended in better his scheme would still be going on today. Below is a win rate distribution clearly identifying the superuser – easily identified by the incredible win rate.

Chip Dumping
This situation usually occurs deep in tournaments involving two poker accounts. Payout structures at most tournaments pay the majority of the prize pool to the top three finishers. Blinds tend to rise greatly deep into tournaments as well. Cheaters playing two accounts will purposely lose chips from one account to the other in order to create a huge stack deep in the tournament. This is an advanced form of cheating since it involves a cheater going very deep into a tournament and being seated with two accounts at the same table.

Basic Collusion
Two players who know each other can easily send text messages or instant messages over the internet to inform each other of their hole cards. This is arguably the most widespread form of cheating. However, simply knowing one other players hole cards doesn’t provide a terribly big advantage. When pushing pots and trapping starts, the edge dramatically increases. Spotting this form of cheating can be tough, but again poker sites now monitor what programs you have open on your computer. They also track the frequency you win and lose money to other players over time.

Pot Pushing
One of the most common and easiest cheating methods to spot is the practice of pushing pots. Two cheating players team together in order to build a pot against opponents. The scam works much like this: Player 1 has a junk hand out of position and puts in a small raise while the second player has a monster hand. Each of the cheaters keeps re-raising desired small amounts, trapping other players between them before one cheating player moves all in with pocket aces, kings or ace-king. Again this form of cheating is very easy to spot since one of the players is phantom raising and then folding each time. This type of cheating usually occurs at low to mid stakes cash games.

All-in Disconnect
What was originally designed to be a safety mechanism for players in big pots with internet connection problems has quickly become abused. Cheating players know that if they are in a big pot on a draw they can disconnect their internet to avoid having to commit more of their own chips to see the post-flop cards. Usually poker sites allow players two disconnect protections, but players abusing this feature are reported and have this privilege removed. Blatant abuse could actually result in forfeiture of prizes if reported. Again, it is up to the player base to report disconnect abusers to poker management.

Multiple Accounts
Players with multiple accounts can be very hard to track. Since people in dorms and apartments usually share IP addresses it can be impossible for poker management to distinguish between unique and duplicate accounts. The only way to determine someone has two accounts is to monitor their playing habits. If two accounts are constantly at the same tables or always entering the same tournaments red flags go off in a poker sites security system. Once this occurs the accounts are closely monitored, perhaps even by poker site security staff. Hand histories then become monitored with playback programs to look for inconsistencies and collusion tactics.

Proper Actions
Never call out a suspected cheating player at the table. First of all you could be misidentifying their play for something fraudulent when nothing improper exists. Secondly, drawing attention to cheating play could result in the player stopping their cheating or becoming more cunning. The goal is to have poker site security actually catch them in the act for evidence. The sites usually do a good job of refunding stolen money to players who have been cheated, so don’t worry their.

Poker sites have spent millions developing software to help filter out players involved in all of the cheating methods described above. Once these cheaters are red flagged the account activity is combed through under a microscope. Suspicious or fraudulent play is immediately taken care of provided it is discovered in the first place. It is your responsibility to monitor the play of others at your table. The collective eye of the online poker community can and will successfully police tables to create fair games. If you suspect something isn’t right at your poker game immediately email the player integrity and security department of your poker room. Exposing cheaters to poker sites makes your chances of profitability better and also creates a more enjoyable game for everyone. The methods and tricks used by cheaters listed above are just the tip of the iceberg. As poker grows in popularity and more money pours into the system cheaters will evolve. Always be on the lookout for cheaters at your online poker game.

Fair and Honest Game Play at Full Tilt Poker

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