Poker Bots
A poker bot is a program that can analyze the current situation at an online poker room and play the hand according to a set of rules. The long time asked question by many poker players “Do poker bots work?” To get straight to the point it depends on what you are trying to accomplish, who is using it and when was the question asked.
If you are looking for a poker bot that can beat an above average player, it’s currently not available. But if you are looking for one that can consistent turn a profit in low stakes games, there is a few on the market that will work.
Poker Bots are getting smarter day-by-day. Bots were pretty much completely useless in 2007. With the high demand of people looking to make easy money, many bots are available online. The sad thing is, non are perfect. I have tested many bots and I can see the potential of an advanced bot being available by the end of 2009.
So how do poker bots work?
Poker bots are programmed based on the ICM (independent chip model). Basically, it uses math to give each player a set of possible hands and determine what is the best move based on the current situation.
The limitations today, is the bots do not know how to bluff, lay traps and get the most value out of certain hands. As for the settings, it is only as good as the person who sets it up. People who do not know how to play well to begin with, will have a hard time setting up the bot to perform well. Of course, you can always get help from the bot owners.
Tags: Poker Bots, Poker Software
December 15th, 2010 at 6:51 am
That Shanky bot has really improved the last year. It now has a scripting language where you can program your own strategies. So of course there are several scripts available nowadays, like Doodle, lucky1′s grinder script, zulucash. There’s even a Gus Hansen profile, that plays loose and aggressive and can dominate a table with outrageous bluffs.
Other bots play decent poker, but the scripting language really puts it on a different level. You can just load a profile, either a tight one, an tight aggressive one or a loose one and change your style completely.
I have been running a bot overnight on FT the last month, playing 4 tables of $0.05/$0.10. I start with 50 BB ($5) and set it to quit the table once it reaches $30.
Usually it busts out on one table and slowly generates a profit on the others. So I wake up the next morning, check my PC which has been playing poker all night long, and see I made another $20 or $30.
The downside is that once you saw it play, you easily recognise other doodle bots at your table. The biggest problem was the lack of bet sizing, it could only bet minimum (1BB), bet pot or go all-in. Although the latest version adds betsizing, many people still use the default profile. If you ever notice slow players on Full Tilt or Ultimate Bet that always make huge potsize bets and raises, it’s one of those bots.
I estimate that nowadays at least 20% of the players sitting at the micro stakes tables on FT and UB are bots. Sometimes I sit down at a full ring (9 man) table and realise that 4 of the 8 are also bots. And they’re all sitting with $50 or $60 at a NL10 table where the max buyin is $20, so the rest is pure profit.