winholdem/bots and other such programs.thoughts for the industry
annie adlin
"The following programs and playing aids are not allowed on this site
(Insert all known programs that allow shared information...player bots...and any
other programs deemed not in the best interest of fair play).
Any person or persons detected using such programs will have their accounts
closed and all funds confiscated."
Pretty simple to solve this nonsense...use it and forfeit your funds...end of
story.
Sites should also form a coalition to share info on players using such programs
and/or closed accts for other serious violations.
The sooner the industry takes steps to monitor/regulate itself the better.
It will only improve public perception and confidence.
arlo payne
Annie:
At this point in time I don't think the bots are that big of deal as long
as they are not playing as a team.
I think the sites all need to solve the crash problems as their #1 concern.
Until the sites are legal and located in the USA where most of the players
live there is little chance of all players getting a fair shake in issues
of sites taking player funds and the way most sites deal with funds during
a crash. Still kind of one sided at this present time. Players have no
real recourse if the sites screw with thier funds so having sites take
funds when they think someone is using a bot is just overkill. A mistake
by the site which would take someones funds would leave the player with no
recourse and they would just be out of luck.
_________________________________________________________________
Posted using RecPoker.com - http://www.recpoker.com
Dave L
"arlo payne" <arlo_...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:40380354$0$219$9a6e...@news.newshosting.com...
> At this point in time I don't think the bots are that big of deal as long
> as they are not playing as a team.
>
But, these winholdem scumbags are touting the beenfits of their bot doing
just that...playing as a team. If they were really against team play, they
would disable this feature. Instead, not only are they promoting it, but
they are billing it as a "premium feature" and reason to buy.
Having said all that, based on the AI behind these bots, I'm not too
concerned. I would be concerned, however, if a competant programmer built a
bot that could not only play, but could team play well.
As it stands now, the only ones who stand to lose from the winholdem bots
are the idiots who purchase it. Not just because of the poor programming
behind the bots, but also because they are trusting people out to cheat
poker players with their login info, account info, and are giving them
access to all their hole cards. Anyone who uses this program gets exactly
what they deserve...a one-way royal screwing.
It's sort of like saying..Hey..If I give you $100, will you install this
trojan on my computer for me that lets you cheat me at will? I suppose this
is Darwinism at its finest.
Linda K Sherman
> I would love to see all sites add a few sentences to their rules....
>
>
> "The following programs and playing aids are not allowed on this site
> (Insert all known programs that allow shared information...player bots...and any
> other programs deemed not in the best interest of fair play).
> Any person or persons detected using such programs will have their accounts
> closed and all funds confiscated."
While I absolutely agree that wording similar to what you propose should
be part of every site's TOS and/or posted rules, sites need to be very
careful about the "detected" part.
The problem I have with this is the danger of false positives, where
their detection software thinks that a detected program matches one on
the hot list when in fact it's some perfectly innocent program with a
similar name or identifying feature. It's actually not that easy to
tell with 100% reliability what is running on a Windows system.
--
Linda Sherman
-
Anyone but Bush in 2004
M. Hahn
> I would love to see all sites add a few sentences to their rules....
>
>
> "The following programs and playing aids are not allowed on this site
> (Insert all known programs that allow shared information...player bots...and
any
> other programs deemed not in the best interest of fair play).
> Any person or persons detected using such programs will have their accounts
> closed and all funds confiscated."
>
> Pretty simple to solve this nonsense...use it and forfeit your funds...end >
of story.
Actually it is anything but simple. You should take some time to educate
yourself on this issue before making statements such as this. For someone
who is a recognizable figure in the industry ignorance should not be an
excuse. You do readers who assume you know what you are talking about a
disservice.
It is not as if it will even take up much of your time. Just do a Google
search on, [Online Game Security], or [Bots Online Gaming]. Bots are
ubiquitous, (and much hated) in the world of online gaming. Unfortunately
for us poker players the interface portion of a poker bot is many orders
of magnitude simpler than most online bots. Alternatively you could
research one of the games which already cannot be played effectively for
money online such as chess, backgammon, or bridge.
While Winholdem may well not be, bots in general are here to stay. Sites
cannot prevent or detect the running of a well written bot. Online poker
may continue to exist well into the future, (roulette is going strong) but
the days of +EV online poker, which I assume is the only poker of interest
to most of the readers of this group, are numbered. We should all enjoy
them while they last.
Scott Crabtree
"annie adlin" <annie...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:4037FF97...@yahoo.com...
> I would love to see all sites add a few sentences to their rules....
http://www.pokerstars.com/tos.html
"All betting actions must be placed through the user interface provided on
the PokerStars client software. Any actions through other means, including
the use of a "robot" player, is strictly forbidden. PokerStars reserves the
right to prohibit any Player from participating in any games, and may, where
situations warrant, freeze the funds of any Player suspected of cheating in
any form."
I'd say Stars is the most likely site to do anything consequential to stop
them. I haven't written them, though, to ask them.
I guess Party already put in a bot detection program that has been worked
around.
Annie Adlin
I am familiar with other such programs and the available means of
detection,
monitoring for collusion, red flags and other measures that site operators
can take to protect themselves and their players.
However I will apologize if my statement was not clear.
You seem to be reading my intent as a 'war against bots'.
This is simply not the case.
My intent was directed at programs that engage and encourage
sharing of information (read- cheating) by means of play by individuals
sharing (or bots sharing) information not available to all players.
Just my opinion (and you are entitled to yours).
As for bots in their current stage of development (which is poor at best),
I am trying to keep an open mind about them and as such will not condemn
or condone them without more knowledge and researched application
M. Hahn
> I will not cop out to ignorance.
> I am familiar with other such programs and the available means of
> detection,
> monitoring for collusion, red flags and other measures that site operators
> can take to protect themselves and their players.
If this is true then you know that there is no way to fully protect
against computer assisted play, detect the presence of a well written bot,
or collusion.
> However I will apologize if my statement was not clear.
I guess my statement was even less clear so I too will apologize.
> You seem to be reading my intent as a 'war against bots'.
> This is simply not the case.
I most assuredly was not. I can only assume it was my poor English skills
which led you to believe that I thought this. I responded because I
thought that your saying it would be "pretty simple to solve this
nonsense" could be easily misunderstood by people who didn’t know any
better. If you had said something like; the hope we have of solving this
nonsense long term is nonexistent, I wouldn’t have responded
> My intent was directed at programs that engage and encourage
> sharing of information (read- cheating) by means of play by individuals
> sharing (or bots sharing) information not available to all players.
> Just my opinion (and you are entitled to yours).
I did not give my opinion on this but since you brought it up I believe
that colluders, with or without the use of computer assistance are human
scum, considerably worse than simple thieves.
> As for bots in their current stage of development (which is poor at best),
The current state of the art in bot development is astoundingly good. The
only reason I can imagine for you to believe otherwise is you have equated
the state of the art with the recent release of the Winholdem product,
although I am truly at a loss to imagine how you, or anyone else could
possibly think that could be the case. It is pretty obvious to everyone
who has ever seen a computer program that the author is not a coding
prodigy. My own conclusions would have been exactly the opposite of yours.
Even if I didn’t already have first hand knowledge of far superior bot
technology I would be absolutely convinced it must exist using reasoning
as follows; if the Rhodes scholar behind Winholdem managed to create a bot
that even semi-functions maybe some Triple Niners out there have actually
come up with something a tad better.
> I am trying to keep an open mind about them and as such will not condemn
> or condone them without more knowledge and researched application
My point in this response to you, and in any other post I have ever made
on the subject is simply to say that it does not matter. Whether or not
you, me, or the site operators condemn or condone them is irrelevant;
there is nothing that can be done to stop them.
WinHoldemSupport
is,
right now pokerbot.com has set a $200 price tag on automatic teaming.
that is not likely to change.
we are currently selling far more pro edition licenses than another
edition.
and this is as we expected.
we have said all along that the vast majority of players are not
interested in automatic teaming whatsoever (and we are right).
but we have not attempted to ignore the subject like one might ignore a
poor incestuous bastard step child.
we are openly discussing the issue regardless of what anybody thinks about
it pro or con.
the point is, you cannot tell the internet what to do or the market at
large ... does not matter how long and how hard you scream.
the market will decide.
not any one individual.
winholdem support.
Checkraiser
> technology I would be absolutely convinced it must exist using reasoning
What does this mean M. Hahn? Did you write a poker bot too? What
limits does it play?
Regards, Checkraiser
Steve Brecher
I guess that means that it's pointless for an individual to decide on
whether it's right or wrong and implement that decision by speaking out or
by acting in accord with the decision. But what is the market except the
cumulative decisions of individuals?
Where "teaming" -- why use a new term when everyone knows what "collusion"
means? -- is explicitly allowed or encouraged, fine; there is no issue in
such cases. But in poker as played to date, collusion is not allowed, and
is a form of cheating. So, yes, individuals: decide.
Terry
> On Feb 21 2004 5:02PM, annie adlin wrote:
>
> > I would love to see all sites add a few sentences to their rules....
> >
> >
> > "The following programs and playing aids are not allowed on this site
> > (Insert all known programs that allow shared information...player bots...and
> any
> > other programs deemed not in the best interest of fair play).
> > Any person or persons detected using such programs will have their accounts
> > closed and all funds confiscated."
> >
> > Pretty simple to solve this nonsense...use it and forfeit your funds...end >
> of story.
>
> Actually it is anything but simple. You should take some time to educate
> yourself on this issue before making statements such as this. For someone
> who is a recognizable figure in the industry ignorance should not be an
> excuse. You do readers who assume you know what you are talking about a
> disservice.
Not simple but certainly not impossible.
The poker rooms client runs on the pc in question - it can do what it
likes using the Windows API.
I said this on another thread and will repeat it again - I would like
to see the poker room clients actively try and xxxx up the bot by
causing it to make mistakes.
Anybody who buys this bot should realise there is rarely a free lunch
in life - if it looks to true to be good it probably is. These are the
same people who will buy into pyramid selling schemes.
Anybody who uses this 'aide' should be banned and should have their
funds confiscated - 'team' playing is cheating - it goes on already
but to allow an automated commercial bot to do this needs to be
stamped out.
Personally I think the poker rooms will have no difficulties in
stopping this bot if it appeats successful (which I seriously doubt it
will be).
M. Hahn
> "M. Hahn" <anon...@uol.com.br> wrote in message
> news:<40381e08$0$61471$9a6e...@news.newshosting.com>...
> > On Feb 21 2004 5:02PM, annie adlin wrote:
> >
> > > I would love to see all sites add a few sentences to their rules....
> > >
> > >
> > > "The following programs and playing aids are not allowed on this site
> > > (Insert all known programs that allow shared information...player
bots...and
> > any
> > > other programs deemed not in the best interest of fair play).
> > > Any person or persons detected using such programs will have their
accounts
> > > closed and all funds confiscated."
> > >
> > > Pretty simple to solve this nonsense...use it and forfeit your
funds...end >
> > of story.
> >
> > Actually it is anything but simple. You should take some time to educate
> > yourself on this issue before making statements such as this. For someone
> > who is a recognizable figure in the industry ignorance should not be an
> > excuse. You do readers who assume you know what you are talking about a
> > disservice.
>
> Not simple but certainly not impossible.
It is completely impossible for the poker rooms client to detect a well
designed bot process. At this juncture I believe it is time for a little
old fashioned Usenet posturing and bravado. Hoping against hope you fancy
yourself a bit of a hacker I propose a wager. If we can agree on someone
from Rgp to act as arbiter and each deposit an amount of your choosing in
his account we can have some fun.
> The poker rooms client runs on the pc in question - it can do what it
> likes using the Windows API.
I think you are merely a bit clueless, so I will give you some food for
thought before you make a fool of yourself. While there are ways a bot
could be isolated within the same process space why would I go to the
trouble? Who says the bot process needs to be running under Windows? Who
says the bot process needs to even be running on the same CPU?
WinHoldemSupport
it doesnt have to be running on the same system.
future versions of winholdem will have the ability to run a bot
headquarters where a scraping service running on the users pc simply sends
an entire window scrape once a second to their second computer
(windows,linux, etc. does not matter)
again, if a human can visually understand the game state then a piece of
software can be made to understand it as well.
winholdem support.
Out of town
> it doesnt have to be running on the same system.
> future versions of winholdem will have the ability to run a bot
> headquarters where a scraping service running on the users pc simply sends
> an entire window scrape once a second to their second computer
> (windows,linux, etc. does not matter)
You guys are really really smart! Well, except for the fact that you need
a program to do this windows scraping once a second. And how where you
planning on interfacing with the poker software from a different computer?
External robot arm? Or maybe the windows scraping software can handle
this as well? Of course this new piece of software would be impossible to
detect since it can run on a third computer.... oh wait...
> again, if a human can visually understand the game state then a piece of
> software can be made to understand it as well.
Yes of course, but if the poker sites decides to make your life difficult
by changing the visuals every second day, your in for a rough time.
But I find it comforting to read your e-mails. They show that we don't
have much to fear from whatever software you produce.
Dave Hitt
<anon...@winholdem.net> wrote:
You still haven't answered my question.
What kind of cars, boats, and houses do you own? Because, if this
product is as great as you claim, you should already be very wealthy.
Dave Hitt
----
Why smoking bans kill businesses
http://www.davehitt.com/april03/homebody.html
Dave Hitt
<anon...@winholdem.net> wrote:
>hahn,
>
>it doesnt have to be running on the same system.
>future versions of winholdem will have the ability to run a bot
>headquarters where a scraping service running on the users pc simply sends
>an entire window scrape once a second to their second computer
>(windows,linux, etc. does not matter)
Now will that bot headquarters send the hole cards of other people
using your bot too, or are you reserving that function for yourself?
And you still haven't answered my question.
Backslider
> On Feb 21 2004 9:27PM, Annie Adlin wrote:
>
> > I will not cop out to ignorance.
> > I am familiar with other such programs and the available means of
> > detection,
> > monitoring for collusion, red flags and other measures that site
operators
> > can take to protect themselves and their players.
>
> If this is true then you know that there is no way to fully protect
> against computer assisted play, detect the presence of a well written bot,
> or collusion.
I have been a programmer for many years. I would agree that detecting
computer assisted play is virtually impossible, if the player is at all
smart about it. I disagree that it is impossible (or even that hard) to
detect the presence of even a well written bot. If you're talking about a
pure computer player (which is what I consider a bot), then it is fairly
trivial to detect.
(I also agree that collusion would be hard to detect -- harder than a bot,
but easier than computer assisted play. And less accurate.)
Backslider
Backslider
M. Hahn
> "M. Hahn" <anon...@uol.com.br> wrote in message
> news:40384d8b$0$220$9a6e...@news.newshosting.com...
> > On Feb 21 2004 9:27PM, Annie Adlin wrote:
> >
> > > I will not cop out to ignorance.
> > > I am familiar with other such programs and the available means of
> > > detection,
> > > monitoring for collusion, red flags and other measures that site
> operators
> > > can take to protect themselves and their players.
> >
> > If this is true then you know that there is no way to fully protect
> > against computer assisted play, detect the presence of a well written bot,
> > or collusion.
>
> I have been a programmer for many years. I would agree that detecting
> computer assisted play is virtually impossible, if the player is at all
> smart about it. I disagree that it is impossible (or even that hard) to
> detect the presence of even a well written bot. If you're talking about a
> pure computer player (which is what I consider a bot), then it is fairly
> trivial to detect.
Well I guess this just goes to show you a little knowledge is a dangerous
thing. The wager I offered Terry is open even to people with advanced
skills such as yourself, drink deep, lets have some fun! As an opening
volley why don't you use your many years of programming skills to outline
the way you would detect the two methodologies I already mentioned to
Terry.
1. The poker client is running on machine A which is connected via
PCAnywhere to machine B where the bot is running.
2. The poker client is running under Vmware and the bot is running under
native Linux on the same machine.
Terry
I agree with the comment about taking comfort. Screen scrapping - not
a good robust solution to rely on.
Perhaps this new remote software will also pick my winning lottery
numbers and solve the question of the meaning of life.
I predict nobody will remember what winholdem was in a year.
And what exactly is the point of running the software on another
machine ? What ever way you look at it something has to run locally to
perform the screen scrapping and that is what is going to be detected.
I am going to stop wasting my time posting at this point - we have now
reached the do not feed the trolls stage.
Backslider
Well, last I checked, there still wasn't a computer anywhere that
could pass the Turing test. So I don't care where the bot is running.
Every x (random) minutes, I ask the client a (psuedo-random) question
only a human could answer. If you define a bot as a purely computer
player, as a said, it's toast. (Granted, at a slight invonvenience to
human players. But if the alternative is to make a positive EV game
negative, most people will put up with the little inconvenience).
Backslider
Backslider
> On Feb 23 2004 5:03AM, Terry wrote:
>
> It is completely impossible for the poker rooms client to detect a well
> designed bot process. At this juncture I believe it is time for a little
> old fashioned Usenet posturing and bravado. Hoping against hope you fancy
> yourself a bit of a hacker I propose a wager. If we can agree on someone
> from Rgp to act as arbiter and each deposit an amount of your choosing in
> his account we can have some fun.
>
Hey, I want a piece of this action. I just described in another
message a simple way a poker room could detect bot players -- a
challenge/response mechanism that a bot can't cope with. Assuming
these bot writers haven't found the holy grail of computer ai, there
is no their bot could keep up with all the possible different ways to
ask questions that a human would have no problem with. For example,
after m hands, a dialog box might pop up that says "Type the word you
see here" with the word in an image that is blurred up so as to be
hard to screen scrape. Then n hands later a message box pops up that
says "Type in the current month (1 for Jan, 2 for Feb, etc). If you
keep changing the questions, that bot will never keep up.
So, I think "completely impossible" is a bit of an overstatement.
Backslider
M. Hahn
Be careful, you are wrong again. As I believe you know, we were talking
about detecting the presence of a bot programmatically using the Windows
API, but that said the challenge/response method you have outlined is not
the cure all you think it is. See my response to your Turing test post.
M. Hahn
> Well, last I checked, there still wasn't a computer anywhere that
> could pass the Turing test. So I don't care where the bot is running.
> Every x (random) minutes, I ask the client a (psuedo-random) question
> only a human could answer. If you define a bot as a purely computer
> player, as a said, it's toast. (Granted, at a slight invonvenience to
> human players. But if the alternative is to make a positive EV game
> negative, most people will put up with the little inconvenience).
I, and others, have written quite extensively about using
challenge/response mechanisms elsewhere. They have already been tried in
other online gaming scenarios and the workaround them is simple. The bot
writer runs a high traffic site, usually porno, and passes the challenge
through to people wishing to see more porn. Since there will always be far
more porn customers than bot challenges this technique is rendered useless.
You are correct that it is relatively easy to form a question which no
computer could answer but it is not trivial. Some of the problems:
1. The questions have to be frequent but not frequent enough to be overly
annoying. Of course the threshold of what is overly annoying will be
different depending on the customer, one an hour will be too much for some.
2. Every question needs to be new so someone needs to be writing questions
constantly. The same question cannot be used twice.
3. The questions need to be very simple to answer, the best are based on
pictures. Lets face it, not everyone is a Mensa candidate or has years of
programming experience like yourself.
4. Even using simple questions an escalation scheme needs to be in place.
One unanswered, or incorrectly answered question cannot be grounds for
account closure, what if I am disconnected, my hand slips, or I happen to
be so drunk a big dog looks like a lion?
These facts make even the porno site solution unnecessary since the bot
writer can aggregate challenges for literally hundreds of bots and pass
them through to a single terminal where a 15 year old moron is sitting
answering challenges for 5 dollars/hr. You, as a bot writer, could sell
this challenge answering service to other bot writers.
Backslider
Well, as I said, my solution was for a pure computer player (no human
intervention). If you've got humans monitoring, then it becomes much more
difficult. My original post said detecting computer assisted play would be
virtually impossible, and I think it falls in the same category if you're
combining bots with human intervention. I hadn't thought of having a whole
host of willing question answerers.
I agree with your points about the challenges. They would need to be
terribly easy (but even if they are, I think a bot just parsing the natural
language question to know what to do would be overwhelming for a bot
writer). And I agree there would have to be an escalation scheme, because
everyone would miss a challenge now and then.
If you're allowing human intervention, I'll agree with you that it's
EXTREMELY difficult (or at least a scheme hasn't occurred to me). There are
tons of things you can do to momentarily stop the bots if you know how they
are working, but it will just be an upgrade war. If you're talking
strictly computer players, I think it's quite easy to stop.
Backslider
Out of town
> I, and others, have written quite extensively about using
> challenge/response mechanisms elsewhere. They have already been tried in
> other online gaming scenarios and the workaround them is simple. The bot
> writer runs a high traffic site, usually porno, and passes the challenge
> through to people wishing to see more porn. Since there will always be far
> more porn customers than bot challenges this technique is rendered useless.
Interesting solution...
Programatically, it is close to impossible to discover a bot unless the
developers are stupid enough to make the program available to everyone
(e.g. winholdem). It does not take much intelligence to realise that
releasing the program is like shooting yourself in the foot. First of
all, the poker sites becomes aware of your program and can easily detect
it. Secondly, if you have a winning program, why on earth would you
release it so that others can use it to compete for the same money?
I think we can safely assume that winning bots will not be released in the
public for everybody to use. A team that have spent a lot of effort to
develop such a bot has few or no incentives to give their bot to others.
What it then boils down to is: how many teams are able to develop winning
bots. Developing a winning bot involves a lot of work. And if the poker
sites starts using challenge/response mechanisms, it will be a high
obstacle for many. Not everybody has easy access to porn sites etc.
Dedicated teams are of course able to overcome all this, we can only hope
that there won't be too many of them.
One bot basically equals one very good player at your table. That's ok. 7
bots at your table is not ok. I belive that there will be (and most
likely already are) winning bots playing at the poker sites. The
important question is how many there will be compared to regular players.
WinHoldemSupport
your post indicates that you would very much like a world similar to that
of blade runner. everyone was required to undergo constant testing and
verification for human authenticity.
winholdem support.
http://www.pokerbot.com
WinHoldemSupport
put yourself in the opc world.
they want to make it as easy as possible for everyone to play.
adding a blade-runner test to the software would not be good for their
business.
winholdem support
http://www.pokerbot.com
_________________________________________________________________