It was Man versus Machine in the recent Artificial Intelligence poker challenge in Canada; on one side a team of scientists running Polaris, a computer program that was actually ten poker programs in one, and on the other, a team of pro poker players, two men determined to stand up and count for humans. Phil Laak and Ali Eslami eventually won the day-and the contest-but it was a close victory, and one that seems to have revised the paranoia concerting "poker bots" on online poker rooms. Of course, a recent product being advertised to allow players to cheat at online poker isn't helping much.
A poker bot is a computer program that runs mostly or completely by itself, sitting at a virtual table at a poker room and playing cards just like all the human players. The difference being that, in most cases, the bot is going to be able to make decisions instantly by tapping into all the odds and calculations not necessarily available to a human player.
In some cases bots can reportedly "see" the other cards, or more than one bot may be at a table working in collusion. You can see how the idea of a poker bot is a scary concept for players that are looking for a fair shake at the poker table.
The debate over the existence of and proliferation of poker bots is ongoing.
Now comes this PokerRNG6.0 program. This company has put out a press release bragging about how this program can "see" the next card coming from a virtual deck, thanks to its ability to talk to the random number generator used by the poker site to shuffle and deal the cards.
Possible? The jury is out, but it sounds possible. Many in the online poker world seem to have two opinions of this product-first, watch out, because this could be a scam to get your personal information and, second, folks who are trying to cheat at online poker might just get what they deserve if it is.
