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All Hail The Bots!SportingLife Poker 13 Nov -- The red flag has been raised: poker bots are now officially everywhere. Be afraid. Maybe even switch to play money. These things are good. Within a year, poker software will easily outplay even the most skilled human contesters. Ok, perhaps you won't hear that from Chris Moneymaker, but the stories speak for themselves. Already this year, an employee of Absolute Poker was caught doctoring the system for big cash. When caught, authorities tried to claim that he was just 'pushing his geekiness too far', as if swindling honest players is all just a big game. Yeah. Try multi-billion dollar big. This, ladies and gentlemen, is that fabled land where money does just seem to grow on trees for the picking. However, this was a man who overcame the system by wit, and was busted. With bots, it's a little different. A poker bot is a piece of software disguised as a human at the online tables, which serves one function: scoop huge, and don't play suspiciously enough to get caught. Polaris was a program designed for just the job. In a Man vs Machine competition this year, man triumphed. But only narrowly. Economist Ian Ayres recently put it quite succinctly in the The New York Times: "online poker may become a suckers' game that humans won't have a chance to win". Back to November 2007 NewsBack to Poker News Index |
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