Tuesday, April 18: bots, bots, and more bots

I am loving the NL learning process so far, and will post a summary of my results to date soon. It feels like a whole new set of challenges, because the skill set required is so different. Deception is so much more important

Next: cheating / bots. They have always been a concern to online poker players, but seem to have really been thrown into the spotlight in the last couple months. First there was the JJ / ZJ multi-account MTT scandal, and now the 'outing' of 20 or so suspected bots who have been playing the Party $20 and $30 SNGs. Somewhat ironically, MTTs and SNGs are two things that have never really appealed to me, so I'm not too concerned about being cheated, personally, but the obvious concern is that if these things get too much press, it might discourage the prospective fish whom I subside on from taking the online plunge. There's debate about whether these latest SNG bots are even profitable (if they are, it seems to be marginally so). They still represent one of what I believe to be the 3 biggest threats to the continued viability of online poker: restrictive legislation, the integrity of the site and its security measures, and online collusion/cheating. As far as legislation goes, I'm really not too worried, perhaps simply because there's not really anything I can do about it (but moreso because previous attempts at legislation have proved unsuccessful). The integrity of the gaming sites? My personal view is that it's only a matter of time before one of the larger sites gets hacked, or its games are shown to be non-random. And when this happens, I just hope that it doesn't get played too much in the press, because it has the ability to do some significant damage to the marketplace. If you find yourself with some extra time at school or work, read this article about the Planet Poker random-number-generator scandal...granted it's from 1999 and mathematical algorithms have come a long way since then, but it's an absolutely fascinating read. Lastly: bots -- at this point (and with the exception of these low-level SNG bots), most bots simply aren't good enough to win at medium-to-high limit and NL games. But let's not stick our heads in the sand about this: it's only a matter of time before programmers develop successful and difficult-to-detect bots -- if they can build a computer to beat Gary Kasparov at chess, you can bet they can build one to beat Joe Q Public on Party Poker...it's just a matter of time. But again, I'm not so much worried about losing to bots myself as I am about them draining the fish's disposable income before I can get to it. It's one of those concerns that really makes me want to play full-time for 2 years, build myself a little nest-egg, and then hang up my online poker cleats entirely.

**DISCLAIMER: I (very coincidentally) wrote the above section 3 days ago, before the following shit-storm kicked up. To make an altogether too long story short: very coincidentally, Stars sent my mother (who plays the micro-limits on Stars) an email accusing her of running a bot, closed her account (but let her cash out what little money she had in there) and asked her to take her poker business elsewhere. I'll just direct you to a 2+2 thread about it instead of posting all the details here all over again. If you knew my mother, you would know how incredibly laughable the idea of her running a bot actually is. She really is just a woman in her fifties who enjoys online poker. The theory I'm leaning to most is that her computer's security has somehow been compromised (although I'm still not entirely sure how that would enable a hacker to make it look like she was running a bot). Anyway, I thought I would post the latest email that she wrote to me after she had several back and forth emails with Stars support who refused to budge, convinced that she was indeed running a bot. She's a pretty smart lady, and I thought the following was eloquently written even though I can't say I agree with her skepticism / paranoia about online poker sites...in fact, I'm not concerned at all. But the following is at least representative of the fear some people have, so I thought I'd post it (fyi, she makes vague references to having poker sites take your funds -- but just to restate: that did not happen in this case...I think she told me she had like a hundred dollars in her account that Stars let her cash out):

Here is what concerns me now the most. I have seen the dark side of the highhandedness and control exercised by the "best-reputed" poker site, outside the boundaries of any country law or recourse for complaint (no board of directors, no public shareholders, not even a telephone number to make human contact). They can confiscate your funds at will. I have actually become concerned for you about this. I urge you not to keep large amounts of money on any site. It is disturbing if your livelihood depends on faith in faceless internet communications. Even if you continue to make money at a decent rate, you should not build a career on this. I went along assuming "they are a big company, they would always act reasonably." Now I have discovered that the president of the "best-reputed" poker site turns out not to be concerned about fundamental issues of integrity. He was impervious to the most blatant evidence that his security guy probably overstepped his enthusiasm on this one. Of course 5 cent players aren't important to the company, but what should have been important to Lee was building knowledge about the strengths and fallibilities of his security systems. The power he has left in Jeff's hands to be arbitrary and pig-headed should be frightening to anyone who thinks, "if I follow the rules, then I can always work things out." So even moreso should you be concerned about their ability to push a button and poof your funds are gone. This is not just PokerStars but any of the sites.

Another angle I have on this is corporate governance breaches like Enron, etc.. There is an alarming discovery that "hey the big guys can't always be trusted." Fortunately, corporate governance principles and laws have rushed in to control their arrogant mismanagement of shareholder funds. Having just been through a course on corporate governance, I have become educated about the huge gap between our assumptions that people will act reasonably, and the facts of human nature when left unbridled by law. Without being subjected to any corporate governance, companies like PokerStars make their customers vulnerable to all the risks of manager fallibilities.

Bottom line: I am not telling you to give up Poker. But I do encourage you not to assume anything about the integrity and reasonableness of people you don't know and can't talk to. Keep the money moving out. As you have already observed, Netteller is a step up because of their public listing. Also, if Poker is going to be any part of your career, build your career on your ability to exercise leadership and intellectual strength, not on confidence in someone else's "systems" that seem to be reliable from experience. Past reliability and trustworthiness of systems does not guarantee they will be that way tomorrow or in crisis, just as surely as yesterday's huge gains in the the electronic stock market provide no guarantee of what will happen tomorrow.

That is the best learning from this Twilight Zone experience with PokerStars that I can pass on to you. Don't mind--it's my job as a mum. Lots of luv.

EDIT: I have read and re-read my mom's email to me (pasted above), and have to admit that it might be some of the most incredible (and well-written) mom-to-son letters I have ever read. Wow -- big ups to my mom. They might be over-bearing and embarass the hell out of you in front of your friends when you're a teenager, but mine turned out to be pretty cool the older I get.