New story about the threat of poker bots

[The Buzz]

The Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) has a story about the threat bots pose to Internet poker. Good, well source article, with interviews with the folks at the U. of Alberta who ran the recent poker bot competition.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/technolog...766642329.html

...

This story was prompted by the NY Times op ed Freakonomics blog by Ian Ayres on poker bots ...

But the rise of gambling bots may soon depress online poker participation for a very different reason. In the very near future, online poker may become a suckers’ game that humans won’t have a chance to win. Bots are quite scale-able and it will be virtually impossible to prohibit computer or computer-assisted online playing.

Poker sites are trying to assure customers that they will kick bots off their site and seize their assets. But unlike the statistical trail left by crude poker cheats at Absolute Poker, it is possible for bots to randomize their strategies and even hire individual humans to run them.

This, Buzzy thinks, is the most interesting section ...

Poker enthusiasts have argued for online legalization, saying that poker is a game of skill. And of course, it is (just like chess and checkers). But ironically, it’s because poker is a game of skill that humans’ chance of winning are undermined. Unlike checkers, the key to poker is to predict whether other players are bluffing. On the Internet (without the possibility of visual cues), computers are probably better at predicting a rival’s hand from his or her past play. But computers are much better at confounding the expectations of their human opponents. Computers can play randomized strategies much better than we can. Our brains are so hardwired to see patterns, it’s devilishly hard for most of us to generate random behavior.

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.co...-a-guest-blog/

[pgaming]

Very interesting Buzz! I would chalk this one down as very plausible. I believe this issue has come up numerous of times but still worthy of a second glance.

If I were to use this approach I would have a seperate PC to predict probalities.

Just a thought


greek39