Bots

Bots have nothing to do with getting sucked out, they can't alter the cards that;ll come they just play a strategy that their creator programmed.

Bots used to be pretty stupid and easily exploitable, now as the knowledge of poker increased they are much tougher and can do very well. Sites are obv against botting and there were a few cases of bot rings getting caught and shut down.

I wouldn't worry much about botting if you play on sites like pokerstars, this may be a bigger problem on crappy sites with poor management.

Good answer, NightFrostaSS

I saw an article? blog post? once from a guy who was -- or claimed to have been -- a former employee of a poker room.

They detected bots in various ways -- constant timing of actions, and constant click positions were two I remember.

We have also seen posts in thePokerStrategy forums people who have had their account investigated by pokerrooms because they were suspected of being bots.

So yes they do exist, and even more importantly, poker rooms have automated means of detecting them.

How to detect them as a player?

♦  They don't chat. Obvious, perhaps, but if you can engage a bot in a chat, then my hat goes off to the bot programmer.
♦  They would likely be quite tight, and unlikely to play speculative hands post-flop
♦  Short stack strategy. It is much easier to program a bot to "follow the rules" than it would be to program one to make complex decisions.

I'm not saying that any excessively tight short-stacker that plays a very elementary game is a bot, but since I hate playing such people anyway (unless they're 1 or 2 pos to my left), I'm changing tables regardless.

Since this thread is in "Other poker variants", I'll add that it is largely not worth the time and effort involved to program a bot to play something like NL 2-7 SD, or 5-Card Draw, since the traffic is not there, and a bot that played there for a while would get noticed I think.

The names of people that play 5-Card Draw for instance are becoming familiar to me.

Also, even in NLHE, I don't think it is worth the trouble to let a bot loose in anything less than NL 25, since there isn't much money to be made a lower limits.

I see alot of dodgy looking things since i've played

If players make really stupid calls, or play ridiculous lines, I think that the likelihood that it is a bot is low. Bots play hands you expect them to play.

Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!
--VS

WOW,

Ty guys for the great feadback I have a much better understanding about them now )))

No idea why this was in Other Poker Variants so I've moved this to Beginners' Questions .