Poker Bots Are Not A Problem Today

Some day poker bots will really be a problem, just not today.  The current poker bots can be programmed to accept instructions for specific hands. If you have 2, 7 fold, if you have AA raise. If you’re playing a full table of bad players then you can come up with some general instructions that will give you a winning game.  

This works great until someone starts watching your play and notices what you are doing.  Then you’re screwed.  At the lower tables this is only going to happen if you are unlucky enough to be playing when there are only a couple of players at the table.  This is when some of the players might start noticing how you’re playing.

If you’re playing for high stakes poker then everyone will probably be watching the way you’re playing and as soon as they figure it out then like I said you’re screwed.

Someday, poker bots will be able to keep a database on each player, every hand they have played and how they played it.  If a computer could look though a data base like that and search for patterns then you’re in trouble.  Everyone had patterns to their play and if these could be analyzed and exploited then playing online against an opponent like that would prove to be a problem.

But that’s not a problem today because there are no programs that can do this, and even with a small data base it would consume so much computer time to try and make a real time decision that it would not be practical.  Burning up $1000’s of dollars in computer time to beat a $1/$2 poker game would not prove very profitable.

But as computer speed improves and gets cheaper, someday there will be a computer out there that will know every move you have ever made and be watching for you to repeat one of your patterns so it can take advantage of it.