Matr0x says that for many botters, it isn’t about the money: “If it was all play money I’d still be doing it. This very concept is one which defines who will create a winning bot and who will not.
If it’s purely for the money then you are far less likely to have the dedication required to pull it off. If you can’t wait to sit back down and fine tune your code for countless hours, purely out of drive and fun, you’re 10 steps ahead of the other guy before even setting off.”
Botting is a clandestine hobby. Its devotees are constantly avoiding detection. To be discovered would risk having their poker accounts closed and their winnings confiscated.
“I keep to myself and am not involved in the botting community at large,” says Matr0x. “I work with a few other guys (five in total), we design our own bots and are completely non-public. Having been around a while I do chat with the known key botting figures at times.”
But if botting is so secret, why are there Internet forums dedicated to it? Why program open-source software tools to allow anybody to join the gang?
“Designing a fully automated bot playing solution is very difficult,” says Matr0x. “Why should the basic interface be a secret? The vast majority of folk will never fully commit the time required to design a winning bot anyway, let them feed yours. With the openness also comes the benefits of greater testing and bug finding too, which obviously improves your bot.”
Beating the poker bots
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However, just as it’s a challenge to build them, Trebek found them a challenge to play against. Trebek reasoned that since poker is a game of information, knowing they were bots must give him some advantage, surely?
He set about trying to capitalise on them: “I decided that before I turned them in, I was going to spend an entire night trying to exploit them on every single hand… no one else knows they’re bots yet, and if I could figure out a good strategy, I might be able to make some decent money first. I mean, if I can’t beat a bot, I must really suck at poker, right?”
First, Trebek noticed that the three bots would join the site at the same time as each other, take seats at separate tables, and play non-stop for hours on end. As he looked deeper, other aspects of their play became apparent.
When they bet, it was always the same amount. The bots would also ‘think’ for a long time before making a decision – even a fairly trivial one. In poker terms, the bots played ‘tight’ – minimising their risk by only playing very strong hands.
Trebek noticed that the bots followed a crude pattern. When they played a hand, they would call to see the flop and then make a ‘continuation bet’. However, if another player responded by raising them, they would almost always fold – surrendering the pot to their opponent.
Trebek had his strategy. He would wait for the bots to enter a pot and then respond to their bet with a raise. “It worked,” he wrote. “Hand after hand… again and again… I’m going to be rich.”
Hours passed, and Trebek took more money from the bots – until they suddenly began playing differently, seemingly adapting to his way of playing. Had they really adapted? No – as the bot began to type in the chat box Trebek realised that its owner had seen what was happening and had stepped in to take over the account to avoid a complete funds blowout.