Who Is Smarter: You Vs. The Computer 03/15/2011

0 Comments

 

Bryan Taylor who has been playing professional poker since 2008 discovered he has been playing with poker bots in his poker tournaments. Taylor started being skeptical with his three frequent opponents when they seem to play the same.

After an investigation, it was proven that he really is playing with bot programmed to beat the odds in poker games. PokerStars.com, the online poker website where he's been playing concluded that his opponents really had been computers. As an action, they shut down the programmed robots July of last year. In October, another computer bots had been identified this time, in the Full Tilt Poker site and immediately took action by freezing accounts of the identified bots.

Quoting Michael Josem the security manager of PokerStars, “PokerStars is continuing to invest substantial resources to combat bots,”“When a player is identified as a bot, PokerStars removes them from our games as soon as possible.” Their winnings are seized and the company will “provide compensation to players when appropriate.”

University of Alberta Computer Poker Research Group has been known to produce the best poker bots. Before they are producing bots for chess games but switch to making computer bots for online poker games in 2003.

Poker bots have been taking seats of online poker players and software developers make this notable. In an instance, Shanky Technologies is selling licenses for Holdem Poker Bot online for a price of $129 dollars per annum. In its released in 2008, 50,000 copies of the Holdem Poker Bot software have been sold. Now, Shanky Technologies is the target of Full Tilt.

Brian Jetter, Shanky's co-founder said that more than 400 of his patriots has been banned from Full Tilt. “They really must have wanted us gone, we don’t think the other poker rooms we support will make a similar financial decision.” said Mr. Jetter. Full Tilt has taken more than $50,00 of his customer's money.

With regards to Taylor, detecting poker bots has earned him a career. He is now working for PokerStars where “he is helping to protect the integrity of our games,” told Josem. describing Taylor's job.

So who is smarter, human or the computer? This time it's the human that wins.

Gabriel Dance, “Poker Bots Invade Online Gambling,” The New York Times, March 13, 2011, accessed March 16, 2011 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/us/politics/28health.html.

 

Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.

Leave a Reply