RE: [ba-poker] Bots

["Dave Horwitz" <dhorwitz(deleted the rest)>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ken Kubey [mailto:kubey(deleted the rest)] 
> > 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. 

I figured I probably had too simplistic a view... some
detail would be interesting.

I was mainly thinking of client output. Primarily your
cards. Moving buttons wouldn't work.
The output would be graphical and the changes
would be more than just positional. I'm assuming your
bot would need something analagous to OCR functionality.

What if the rank and suit changed position on the card?
What if the rank and suit also changed shape somewhat and
shifted color as well?  How effective are those measures
I've seen on websites for registration and such? -- the
ones specifically to thwart bots where you input the 
displayed characters which look kind of like the ones 
when you take a color blindness test? Or is this
all easily bypassed by readily available existing code.

> A really smart bot will be able to adjust pretty 
> quickly to most simple screen changes.

Like NSA/CIA smart? Or moderate hacker smart.

> 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),

Hmmm... $15/hr, the monster pot you jammed on right after
the template changed and before the kid got to it, ...
I wasn't so much thinking (above) of something so discrete as
template changes.

> the human does all the actual card recognition and button
> clicking with the bot directing all play.

This is the case now isn't it? We're worried about the
fully automated 1,000 table player right?
 
> 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.

Well, you and Bill haven't killed the games yet.

-Quick