The
poker bot users still think that they are not cheating. But there are those who differ in opinion.
To say that online poker has experienced a rocky ride would be putting things mildly. Let us recall the super user scandals, the government problems, and the financial problems that the poker rooms themselves have experienced recently. In addition there were stupid celebrity scandals that somehow make the news. It is sufficient to make players think about quitting this hobby completely. But then what would you do for fun? Plus some of us actually play internet poker for a job.
However many serious players will tell you that the tables have gotten much harder to make money from these days. Done are the days when a guy could join a table at PokerRoom.com, play for a few hours at night and predictably earn $140 while watching television. Today it seems like most folks have discovered how to play better. This is sad, but not shocking. Players are simply not going to continue to keep losing their cash indefinitely. It is simple economics in reality. Unless the poor players are wealthy they must learn to play better or they will lose everything.
One additional new aspect in the game that has earned some attention is the existence of poker bot software. A lot of players blame these for helping the tables harder. But the truth is that most of these programs are bad players themselves and consequently only play at the very lowest stakes. There are a few of good ones out there however. The poker sites vary much in their enforcement of their anti-bot regulations, but the overall trend is one of letting them play. There are several reasonable explanations for this.
First, we are back to fundamental economics again. The economy is trying. To stay in business any business must generate sufficient revenue, and internet poker businesses are no different. Poker bot programs are the best players that the poker site has. They pay the most rake. Some sites simply cannot afford to have them vanish. Only the very top sites have the permission from their accountants to do that, and the ones who do are really are just making a PR showing.
Secondly, we are compelled to examine the issue, are these poker robots in reality all that terrible of a thing to have around? What harm do they bring? The tables have more players because of them, and some poker sites may be out of business if they were gone. So in reality they provide liquidity, which is good for everybody in the long run. They possess no actual unfair advantage over real players, seeing as they have no access to any additional information. The only players who are upset over them are good players who believe that bots are to be blamed for the games being harder. But as already discussed, that was an inevitable and unavoidable progression anyway.
Lastly, poker bots do not really go against the flow of the awesome game that we refer to as poker. Truth be told they bolster it. Adjusting a poker bot profile to play how you desire it to is perhaps the pinnacle of a persons poker learning experience. It is the next logical step for the serious student of the game. Seeing it do what you want is quite gratifying, and a bunch of fun. Don’t criticize it until you have tried it. And who knows, it may very well save internet poker in the meantime.
