Online Texas Hold 'Em

[Czechs Mex]

I'm a big fan of decision making in games and have been thinking for a while about getting into Texas Hold 'Em. I'm pretty sure Ryner is the resident expert here, but maybe there are others, too. What I'd like to do is try building a Poker bot and play for money at a place that allows bots to play (i.e. I don't want to try sneaking a bot into a human game; that just seems like poor form). But I'm not sure such a place exists. So here's my questions:

1. Where do you play?
2. Do you play for real money? My understanding is it's not legal in the U.S., but I don't know if that's enforced. I'm also going to be out of the country for about 8 months, so maybe I won't have that problem, anyway.
3. Are bots allowed where you play, or are there any other reputable places you know of where bots are allowed or encouraged to compete?

In general I think it would be cool to have a place where you could program AI to compete in these sorts of games. I wonder how popular something like that would actually be, and I wonder what its affect would be on the proportion of bots playing in games intended for humans only.

[Big Rick Cook]

Re: Online Texas Hold 'Em

Sounds lame.

[Czechs Mex]

Re: Online Texas Hold 'Em

THANKS FOR THE INSIGHTS RICK PLEASE ELABORATE.

P.S. YOUR BOOK WHICH I HAVE NOT READ AND KNOW NOTHING ABOUT ALSO SOUNDS LAME.

[Magus]

Re: Online Texas Hold 'Em

Just make sure your bot looks like this~

[Ryner]

Re: Online Texas Hold 'Em

1. Where do you play?

The two sites with the most players would be FullTiltPoker and Pokerstars. I've played at both and would recommend either.

2. Do you play for real money? My understanding is it's not legal in the U.S., but I don't know if that's enforced. I'm also going to be out of the country for about 8 months, so maybe I won't have that problem, anyway.

It's not illegal to play poker for money over the internet. The law passed two years ago or so that led people to incorrectly believe this actually outlawed banks from conducting transactions with poker sites, the players themselves are committing no crimes. I admit I'm not certain on the effect this has on players trying to deposit money or cash out, since I've only played casually since going back to school and haven't had to do either. Though I'm certain there's still easy ways to get your money in or out since given the number of people still playing.

3. Are bots allowed where you play, or are there any other reputable places you know of where bots are allowed or encouraged to compete?

No poker site in the world would allow bots. It's a super big no-no, and if caught (which is likely, the sites are very serious about keeping their games fair and players tend to be very alert to these types of things) you would be immediately banned and have your funds ceased. On a personal level, I would morally stab you in the heart for trying to cheat people out of their money if you attempted this.

[Big Rick Cook]

Re: Online Texas Hold 'Em

I speak from the experience of games, and economies of those games, ruined by bots that exist solely to make "in-game" or "real-world" currency without actually putting in the effort it requires. I view bots for games as no better than spider-crawling bots and spam bots. They exist to make someone money by taking advantage of technology, and it usually makes the game less fun for others when they realize they're running up against a statistics machine with a built-in "decision-making" variable or randomizer to allow for bluffing.

Bleh.

[Czechs Mex]

Re: Online Texas Hold 'Em

Cool, thanks for the info. Like I said, I'm not trying to play at a place where bots aren't allowed, since I realize that's shady. And I think there's a HUGE difference between deceptively playing a bot against humans, and bots playing other bots or humans who know who they're up against and welcome the challenge. There was, for example, a World Series of Poker for bots to go along with the human World Series of Poker in Vegas some years ago, and I did see a "man vs. machine" hold 'em competition against some pro players in 2007. I guess I was hoping there was actually a place out there designed for bot players to compete.

Oh well, I guess the world's not ready for James Bot Jr.

[Ryner]

Re: Online Texas Hold 'Em

If you really wanted to work on a bot and some type of platform for it to compete on, I'm certain you could find any number of players willing to test their skills against it in non-money games.

[Valkysas]

Re: Online Texas Hold 'Em

Pokerstars advertised on the pavilion, after I got them to agree to the stupidest ad placement terms ever.

[peachy]

Re: Online Texas Hold 'Em

If you search for it, there's a lot of resources for botting in poker, ie botting on stars and ft and probably the smaller sites too. The problem with botting in poker is that it's hard to make a bot that is any good. I mean, in limit heads up you can probably do pretty well, but in general the bots are going to be pretty exploitable.

There was a guy who posted a bunch about the bots he had made and his methods of avoiding detection in hopes of trying to get a security job with stars, and it was pretty crazy the amount of stuff they put into detecting that kind of ****.

heres a link i found really quick:
http://www.mattmazur.com/category/poker-bot/

[Rodak]

Re: Online Texas Hold 'Em

If you could make one for RPGMaker 2, I'd play it!

[Hrafn]

Re: Online Texas Hold 'Em

Pokerstars advertised on the pavilion, after I got them to agree to the stupidest ad placement terms ever.

When were there ads on the Pav?

[Valkysas]

Re: Online Texas Hold 'Em

One ad. In the "how to use PS3 format saves" page. The ad is gone now, and the page has been revised, but it used to say something like "First, you'll need to go to the game directory and download a game that has a PS3 file available. If you don't want to play an RPG Maker game, but want to play poker, go to pokerstars." and pokerstars was a link.

They agreed to it, happily.

I doubt they ever saw one click.

[Perversion]

Re: Online Texas Hold 'Em

I'm pretty sure I clicked it when I found it for the first time, thinking it was another Valkysas joke (which it sorta was, actually).

[Alzar]

Re: Online Texas Hold 'Em

I used to play on the facebook one. I liked it cos everyone was bad.