RE: [ba-poker] Bots

[kubey(deleted the rest) (Ken Kubey)]

Quick writes:
>QB wrote:
> > Yes, I think limit hold'em online could be ruined by 
> > one really solid bot program.  It only takes one 
> > program too.
> 
> Time to market/aquarium will be critical... everyone
> busily working on their bots?

Time to aquarium.  What a great line.  lol.
    
> > I've thought of measures that the online sites could take
> > to slow down or defeat most bots, but there's no defense
> > against a human assisted bot.  A human assisted bot could 
> > probably play 8 or 10 games at once without too much trouble.
> 
> Seems that this would be in the online sites interest and
> I would think it simple to do. If the client insures I/O
> strictly through a GUI that is updated (changed) frequently
> it should limit the situation to bot assisted humans. Am
> I missing something?

How frequently?  
You gonna change it every hand?  
Will the buttons move all over the place?
How many different screens are you going to throw at people?

Regular players will hate it.  A really smart bot will be able
to adjust pretty quickly to most simple screen changes.

If not, that's where the human assistant comes into play.
You pay some kid $15 an hour to monitor several games at once.
He watches for the screen changes and tells the bot what
template to use or (if all else fails), the human does
all the actual card recognition and button clicking with the
bot directing all play.

The human is also there to chat and answer any questions/challenges
from the poker site.

Certainly this isn't as bad as bots playing 1000 games at once
in a completely automated fashion, but it could still kill
the low limit games.

Ken Kubey         kubey(deleted the rest)  (650) 933-3536