Online Bot Anecdote

Here is one person's experience with playing with a pokerbot.

"After about a dozen hands I started to notice some things about 'bumptious96', my erstwhile opponent. He was folding big and small blinds rapidly. He only raised in increments of twice the big blind, half his stack, or all in. He'd fold instantly on most hands when I'd raise or check-raise, and he checked a couple hands all the way to the river... rare for heads up at any level.

Jokingly, I chatted a couple of lines to bait him... and got no response. A one-hour break came up and I paused long enough to chat "Hey... please respond with anything so I know you're not a bot". (Insert paranoia joke here)

No response. And as soon as I clicked the 'Ready' button, the next round's first hand dealt immediately. More hands, more instant folds, more minimum raises, more calls to check raises & instant folds after the flop, a couple more all-ins. All happening at breakneck speed... actions happening as soon as action could be taken. This went on for about 25 hands, and I held my roughly 3-1 advantage until he caught a card on a called check/raise and suddenly we were even.

Then it hit me: was I really playing a bot or not? Probably not, of course, but with the way this guy was playing I was now actively considering it during play. I paused one more time to try to chat a response, and still got nothing. That did it... something snapped, and I was now Gary Casparov parked across from Deep Blue. I decided to start playing him as if he actually was a bot. Never called a single raise, and pounded every raise of my own bigger than usual. I instantly went all-in on a couple of flops I got no piece of, and he folded instantly. In short, it wasn't much of a contest anymore. He eventually called my 9-9 all-in with an A-9 offsuit, and when no ace came up... that was that in about 8 hands....

I was happy to win, but flabbergasted at the turn of events. As soon as his play was profiled as possibly being automated, he got crushed. And at that moment I knew how I felt about playing against bots: I did not care in the least. Because poker is much more than crunching odds and numbers even on the internet, where plenty of very good players find only punks, amateurs and frustration. You learn the value of getting good cards to win at poker, and after awhile your instincts start to give you an edge over any numbers crunching. Mix crunching and learned observation together and you get somebody like Chris Ferguson, complete with Ph.D in Game Theory. But take out the human element, and you get a marginal poker player at best."