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Maryann Guberman has been a writer and editor with many gaming publications, including Sports Form, Card Player, Poker World, Player's Panorama and Systems and Methods. She also has written and edited numerous books on gambling.

Nov 11, 2006

Is It A Bot Time?

It is possible that the scrupulously honest man may not grow rich so fast as the unscrupulous and dishonest one; but success will be of a truer kind, earned without fraud or injustice.

Doesn't it make you wonder? Do you ever just shake your head and ask yourself why?

Just yesterday, among the 50-odd spam messages that got by my filters and appeared in my inbox at work, one message caught my eye - actually both eyes. It was a solicitation to download a pokerbot. Now I've seen these kinds of emails before and I've visited some of the sites they direct me to but I've never been tempted to buy-or even try--any of the products. See, I have personally known guys who used this kind of marketing when they had to lick stamps and put their awesome offers through the mail to people they found by purchasing lists. They pitched this story about how they were chest-deep in debt with creditors knocking on their doors and finance companies threatening to take away all their worldly possessions. But then, miraculously, they discovered a money-making secret and within six months they were not just totally out of debt but proud owners of a 12-room mansion with swimming pool and a three-car garage, a spiffy sports car and a loving, gorgeous model-type wife.

Well, some of that is exaggerated. It's actually a composite of some of the hype people use to separate you from your money.

Since I've publicly sworn off Internet poker, I saw no reason to check out the latest in bot stuff, especially since Hal Marcus scared the living daylights out of me in his book, Dirty Poker. But the topic still intrigues me and at least one reader who doubts the existence of bots and wanted more information.

Well, I'm here to say that yes, pokerbots exist. Automated programs will play for you and will monitor the game and allow you to use them as a decision helper. Some you can turn on, tune out and go on your merry way, while they play according to a preset strategy from which they never deviate. Now, it's pretty obvious these are online tools and not something you can take to the casino with you.

And, since I don't really know anyone who uses a bot (or if I do, they aren't telling me), I'm here simply to take on the ones who are selling hype with no substance which, so far, seems to be all of them!

Let's take a look at some guy named Dr. Mike Stera. He promotes some kind of persona site review page where he claims he buys products, reviews them, and recommends only the best to his loyal readers. One of his pages has to do with the online surveys; another has to do with pokerbots.

Telling you how his crack staff (and family members) downloaded 15 pieces of software and tested them, finding two that stood way above average, he claims one bot earned him over $900 on a $20 buy-in and did it in seven hours! Now, at the end of his review, this Stera guy offers an additional question that's sure to make you believe in him. He asks you to use your PayPal account to donate money to him to keep this wonderful site going.

Smells like double-dipping to me because when you click on either of the links to the recommended bot sellers, he is recorded as the affiliate and, if this is like other programs, he gets a piece of the action from the selling point. One of his sites offers $50 for successful sale; another offers slightly less.

But back to that $900 on the $20 buy-in. I figure this kind of investment would net him roughly $650 a week or $6,500 in ten weeks, $65,000 in 100 weeks (less than a third of a year) and a whopping $195,000 per year. Now understandably someone might not want to keep his bot motor running that long, especially at just one site. So divide everything up and play at several sites and, gosh, why would you want to ask for donations to keep a web site up and running at that point?

Now, let's go to one of the bot sites itself. The same one that the good doctor's assistant ran (By the way, he made her promise not to quit work and become a professional bot player.), makes this blatant statement in his ad: Just LOOK AT THE AMAZING RESULTS from just one of my poker accounts. This particular one was funded with about $400 3 months ago. It now holds over $45,000. You do the math!

Puleeeezzzze! More than 40 grand in three months and I'm off to Jamaica with my laptop in tow, not trying to convince others to buy my secret for 200 bucks. By the way, one of the sites volunteered to play against a skeptic for a whopping $50 because anything less than that wouldn't be worth his time. And another by the way: one site cleverly inserts today's date in its online ad stating they will take the offer away for good at midnight on this date. Trouble is, I've been there before and the only thing they took down was the old date.

Seriously, folks, to be really successful, a bot won't really work with those amazing results unless it has some kind of artificial intelligence that can adjust its playing decisions to the decisions of others. Here are a couple of other things to think about :With a ten-player table and people coming and going, can a bot make as many decisions as a live player has to make? If the bot can adjust, will he know that the aggressive bluffer in seat three has just been replaced by Mr. Milquetoast? What happens if the entire table is nothing but bots? Though I doubt if sites really care if you're using a bot (they still rake the pot), won't they get a bit suspicious if they or one of their players notices you've been at the same table for six hours straight and haven't missed a hand, haven't even left the table to take a leak? What will happen when your table breaks up and your bot is the only survivor? Will it automatically shut down or move to another cash cow?

I don't know. I think this whole bot thing is still mostly science fiction. Yes, bots exist but I don't think they are making the kind of money their sellers claim and I don't think they are going to work against seasoned player.