Become a master player in bridge


Online Poker Bots - Threat or Not?

Introduction
My  Poker  Bot
Online games from chess and backgammon to 1st
person shooters are rife with people who useMy program was written in early 2004 with
computer assisted play or computer robots -Microsoft .Net C++ and was developed to play
even when there is no money at stake. Withat one online room only. For the technically
the appropriate program any player is able tominded the program relied heavily on MFC and
play at a world championship level ruiningthe  Win32  API.
the game for honest players. What makes
online poker different, given that there are1)  Data  Gathering
huge  amounts  of  money  at  stake?
My bot gathered information about game state
In this article I will explain how Iand history from online poker tables by
developed a poker bot and what I learnt fromtaking repeated screenshots and analysing the
this experience. My conclusion is thatimage. To begin with I just observed games,
although it is possible to construct a pokertaking screenshots automatically so I could
playing bot the threat from poker bots to thegather data on the position of the cards,
online poker player is extremely small tochips and button. By determining the color of
non-existent.a certain few pixels I was able to gather all
this information about the state of the game.
"Games"  Theory
Eventually I was able to gather data from
For interest and college courses I hadmultiple poker tables (4 at a time) by
previously written computer playing programsrepeatedly bringing each window to the
or bots for games including chess, Connect 4,foreground and taking a screenshot. From this
Othello, backgammon, bridge and variousscreenshot I was able to determine my cards,
others. For games such as Connect 4, Othello,board cards, button position, who was left in
chess and backgammon where all players havethe  hand,  pot  size  and  player bet sizes.
the same available information about the game
state, the theory on how to construct expert2)  Data  processing
bots is well known. Deep search techniques,
looking many moves ahead, are used for gamesThis is the component that eventually bought
such as Othello and chess. Recently (10 yearsmy poker bot project to an end, unable to
ago) it was discovered neural networks coulddevelop a strong enough strategy to win
be taught to play backgammon better thanconsistently. I tried various rules based,
almost any human player. Games such as pokerneural net and simulation techniques. At best
and bridge contain hidden information wheremy bot was able to make a very small profit
the players can see their own hand but notat $1/2 and $2/$4 limit hold'em, but nowhere
that of the other players. The publishednear the thousands of dollars a week I
theory behind writing expert computer botsenvisioned earning when I started the
for these incomplete information games isproject. In the end it just wasn't worth my
decades behind the complete information gamestime to continue to put resources into
and there are doubts techniques will bedeveloping  my  poker  bot  further.
developed so that computers can play at
expert or world championship level. At3)  Output
present the best techniques for these
incomplete information games seem to involveThis was the easiest component to write. This
some form of simulation and opponentinvolved programmatically moving the mouse
modelling.pointer to the appropriate screen
co-ordinates and then sending a mouse down
Anatomy  of  An  Online  Poker  Botmouse up command signalling a left-click. I
did give consideration to adding the ability
There  are  3  basics  parts  to a poker bot:for the bot to use chat but never progressed
that  far.
1) Data Gathering - observing the game state
and  historyConclusion
2) Data Processing - using the informationAlthough you might run into a poker playing
from the data gathered to determine whetherbot whilst playing online the odds are it
to  fold,  call  or  raise.plays very poorly. At any level of play you
are much more likely to run into an expert
3) Output - Pressing the appropriate buttonhuman player than an expert computer player.
on  the  poker  room  client.



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