5 ms·

Former professional poker player here, no limit holdem cash games, mid stakes. NLHE cash games are considered the hardest to solve given the depth of the decisi

by jaaames 10y ago

Former professional poker player here, no limit holdem cash games, mid stakes. NLHE cash games are considered the hardest to solve given the depth of the decision trees. Other formats like sit and gos, spin and gos, and tournaments can be modeled and solved in a more simplistic way. A group of us (cash game pros) discovered a group of players on the Ongame network around 2010. We combined our databases and found a few dozen players that all shared an unconventional style and had outstanding winrates. They made very annoying, aggressive plays that were difficult to counter, not taught anywhere in professional videos, forums or training sites, and we're winning at a world class winrate. All the regular pros talk and knew each other, and no-one knew who these players were. Combined they took millions in winnings out of the network. We presented our collaborative research and investigation to Ongame and they didn't do a thing about it. In more recent years players on Pokerstars have received refunds when their security teams have deemed them to have lost to bots. Pokersnowie is the most advanced commercially available bot and they even have an API now. I quit playing in 2011 and would strongly advise people staying away from online poker. It's a scummy world, the games are tougher than ever, the sites are shadier in their operation, run higher margins, and with the current progress in the AI/ML domains you're on a hiding to nowhere. I was skeptical but saw this evidence first hand and lost thousands personally, and this was 5 years ago. Anyone playing online in 2016 that doesn't believe they're up against super sophisticated bots are deluded. Happy to share more if people are interested.

ketralnis 10y ago
What made you think that these groups of players were associated with each other? What made you think that they were bots, beyond just winning often?
- ec109685 10y ago
  He said it: their strategies were very similar and never seen before, nor taught anywhere.
  - jsprogrammer 10y ago
    So, some people got together, or one person was playing many accounts, and cleaned the amateurs out. Similar, novel strategies does not imply a bot net.
    - jaaames 10y ago
      I'm glad you're playing devil's advocate, and you're not wrong in that a single player could have multiple accounts, this was especially true on the Ongame network, as it provided the platform which sites could whitelabel to run their own poker room, with individual promotions/branding etc, while leveraging the benefits of a large shared player pool. The thing that stood out was the length of the sessions played by these players. The regular professionals (regs) would play multiple tables at once, usually 4-8 tables (Ongame software was shitty and prone to crashing) for a few hours at a time (poker is mentally taxing). These guys were playing 8-12 sessions on single tables. In terms of amateurs, I'm not taking offence, but many of us were playing full time for a living at the time, and their winrates were beating many of us, without any game selection (explicitly choosing to play with weak players). The strategies were indeed novel - the one I can describe in layman's terms - they never just called a bet before the flop, they always folded or reraised. This is a huge paradigm shift from all conventional wisdom at the time, and a strategy that is very difficult to execute well (hard to go into details without getting into poker terms/theory). While poker strategy was (and still is) constantly evolving the overall stats/strategies deviated so far from the norm that we all agreed we were up against a bot. Again, without going into details the strategy had a much more mathematical/game theory approach than the far more commonplace exploitative strategies that everyone was using at the time.
      - jsprogrammer 10y ago
        Raise or fold was an aggressive strategy when I was playing in the early 2000s. I think SuperSystem even talks about it. The players I knew were very much into theory and the math of the game. It wouldn't surprise me if one, or multiple, of them were who you were playing against. Of course, great bots can be made and run easily.
- samsonradu 10y ago
  There are software tools which aggregate huge amounts of data (hands) from Poker platforms, like Holdem Manager. That's where you can see player stats like pre-flop, turn, river actions, percentages and so on. Once you have 2 players who played a lot of hands (+10k) and have the exact same stats numbers you should be a bit suspicious.
  - jaaames 10y ago
    Yeah this. Dozen's of them with this weird strategy with a few very identifying features. Edit: I can't recall the exact figure, but we had a few million hands combined.
- hanasu 10y ago
  To put it extremely simply, there are specific ranges of acceptable statistics about what winning play looks like in poker. With thousands of hands of data winning players can intuitively pick out stats that are out of line. For example, there are two related stats: went to showdown, and won money at showdown. These calculate how often you get to the last card and reveal your hand against another player/group of players to win the pot, as well as the frequency you actually win these showdowns. Generally, the more you are showing down hands against opponents, the lower your chances of winning money, simply because it's not always possible on average to have better hands than your opponents above a certain frequency of times you're getting to showdown. If a bot/player had access to other players' hole cards (like actually happened on the Ultimate Bet network) a telling example might be that they go to showdown way more than average while also winning money at showdown far above an average rate. There are tens (if not hundreds by now) of common poker stats, this is just a simplified look at one related pair.
fabriceleal 10y ago
> They made very annoying, aggressive plays that were difficult to counter, not taught anywhere in professional videos, forums or training sites Mind sharing more on these strategies? I'm curious about what sort of strategy a poker pro would find so unique as to not recognize it from anywhere
- jaaames 10y ago
  Sure. In poker you never play like you or your opponent(s) hold a specific hand, you always do the analysis against a range of hands. Every action (bet, call, raise) at any point (preflop, flop, turn, river) in the hand gives you extra information, which helps you narrow that range (more tightly define it) and help you make better, and hence more profitable decisions. Your range in every hand starts with all possible hands, and with each action gets more narrow. The first strategy which we first noticed intuitively/by feel and then confirmed from stats, and which tipped us off to the whole thing, was that they would always fold or reraise (3bet) preflop. This was unheard of, as having a calling range preflop is incredibly important, as it has so many flow on effects for the rest of your strategy postflop (where the large majority of the hands play out). Most players (at least in 2010), had a polarized reraising (3bet) range, meaning they would mix very strong hands, with very weak hands, call with medium strength hands, and fold weaker hands. These bots had a very wide (higher %), and merged 3bet range, meaning they'd pick hands from the top down. It was mind bending to deal with as all of your experience, maths and theory away from the tables was wired to deal with a certain type and width of range and this was just so different. The second main one was as follows. I've already described the situation where the action goes preflop raise, and reraise (referred to as a 3bet). You can counter this with a 4bet (yet another reraise), a valid and common strategy, again, ranges get even narrower here, but would still happen frequently (dozens of times a day). If each player started with $100, the action usual goes raise $3, reraise (3bet) to $10, reraise (4bet) to $22, then usually fold, call (very rare), all in $100 or reraise again ($30ish). The reraise is just so uncommon as it's difficult to make sensible range that isn't obviously strong. These bots would do this frequently. It's a very ballsy move, stops you in your tracks, and your only options are really to fold and give up your $22 and leave you scratching your head, or costs you $100 to call bullshit and go all in and find out if he's bluffing. The last one that stood out off the top of my head was the river check raise. Check raising is when you act first in a hand, elect to check, let your opponent bet, then raise. You can do this both for value and as a bluff. It's an essential part of everyone's strategy, most frequently on the flop, less so on the turn and river. These guys would check raise the river a ton, and it was extremely effective. Again, it's a ballsy uncommon move (at the time) and was very profitable. Here's the link from TwoPlusTwo (biggest and oldest poker forum) if you want more info. http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/56/medium-stakes-pl-nl/alarming-news-about-botting-ongame-1112918/ http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/56/medium-stakes-pl-nl/ala...

by jaaames 10y ago

ketralnis 10y ago

What made you think that these groups of players were associated with each other? What made you think that they were bots, beyond just winning often?

ec109685 10y ago
He said it: their strategies were very similar and never seen before, nor taught anywhere.
- jsprogrammer 10y ago
  So, some people got together, or one person was playing many accounts, and cleaned the amateurs out. Similar, novel strategies does not imply a bot net.
  - jaaames 10y ago
    I'm glad you're playing devil's advocate, and you're not wrong in that a single player could have multiple accounts, this was especially true on the Ongame network, as it provided the platform which sites could whitelabel to run their own poker room, with individual promotions/branding etc, while leveraging the benefits of a large shared player pool. The thing that stood out was the length of the sessions played by these players. The regular professionals (regs) would play multiple tables at once, usually 4-8 tables (Ongame software was shitty and prone to crashing) for a few hours at a time (poker is mentally taxing). These guys were playing 8-12 sessions on single tables. In terms of amateurs, I'm not taking offence, but many of us were playing full time for a living at the time, and their winrates were beating many of us, without any game selection (explicitly choosing to play with weak players). The strategies were indeed novel - the one I can describe in layman's terms - they never just called a bet before the flop, they always folded or reraised. This is a huge paradigm shift from all conventional wisdom at the time, and a strategy that is very difficult to execute well (hard to go into details without getting into poker terms/theory). While poker strategy was (and still is) constantly evolving the overall stats/strategies deviated so far from the norm that we all agreed we were up against a bot. Again, without going into details the strategy had a much more mathematical/game theory approach than the far more commonplace exploitative strategies that everyone was using at the time.
    - jsprogrammer 10y ago
      Raise or fold was an aggressive strategy when I was playing in the early 2000s. I think SuperSystem even talks about it. The players I knew were very much into theory and the math of the game. It wouldn't surprise me if one, or multiple, of them were who you were playing against. Of course, great bots can be made and run easily.
samsonradu 10y ago
There are software tools which aggregate huge amounts of data (hands) from Poker platforms, like Holdem Manager. That's where you can see player stats like pre-flop, turn, river actions, percentages and so on. Once you have 2 players who played a lot of hands (+10k) and have the exact same stats numbers you should be a bit suspicious.
- jaaames 10y ago
  Yeah this. Dozen's of them with this weird strategy with a few very identifying features. Edit: I can't recall the exact figure, but we had a few million hands combined.
hanasu 10y ago
To put it extremely simply, there are specific ranges of acceptable statistics about what winning play looks like in poker. With thousands of hands of data winning players can intuitively pick out stats that are out of line. For example, there are two related stats: went to showdown, and won money at showdown. These calculate how often you get to the last card and reveal your hand against another player/group of players to win the pot, as well as the frequency you actually win these showdowns. Generally, the more you are showing down hands against opponents, the lower your chances of winning money, simply because it's not always possible on average to have better hands than your opponents above a certain frequency of times you're getting to showdown. If a bot/player had access to other players' hole cards (like actually happened on the Ultimate Bet network) a telling example might be that they go to showdown way more than average while also winning money at showdown far above an average rate. There are tens (if not hundreds by now) of common poker stats, this is just a simplified look at one related pair.

fabriceleal 10y ago

> They made very annoying, aggressive plays that were difficult to counter, not taught anywhere in professional videos, forums or training sites Mind sharing more on these strategies? I'm curious about what sort of strategy a poker pro would find so unique as to not recognize it from anywhere

jaaames 10y ago
Sure. In poker you never play like you or your opponent(s) hold a specific hand, you always do the analysis against a range of hands. Every action (bet, call, raise) at any point (preflop, flop, turn, river) in the hand gives you extra information, which helps you narrow that range (more tightly define it) and help you make better, and hence more profitable decisions. Your range in every hand starts with all possible hands, and with each action gets more narrow. The first strategy which we first noticed intuitively/by feel and then confirmed from stats, and which tipped us off to the whole thing, was that they would always fold or reraise (3bet) preflop. This was unheard of, as having a calling range preflop is incredibly important, as it has so many flow on effects for the rest of your strategy postflop (where the large majority of the hands play out). Most players (at least in 2010), had a polarized reraising (3bet) range, meaning they would mix very strong hands, with very weak hands, call with medium strength hands, and fold weaker hands. These bots had a very wide (higher %), and merged 3bet range, meaning they'd pick hands from the top down. It was mind bending to deal with as all of your experience, maths and theory away from the tables was wired to deal with a certain type and width of range and this was just so different. The second main one was as follows. I've already described the situation where the action goes preflop raise, and reraise (referred to as a 3bet). You can counter this with a 4bet (yet another reraise), a valid and common strategy, again, ranges get even narrower here, but would still happen frequently (dozens of times a day). If each player started with $100, the action usual goes raise $3, reraise (3bet) to $10, reraise (4bet) to $22, then usually fold, call (very rare), all in $100 or reraise again ($30ish). The reraise is just so uncommon as it's difficult to make sensible range that isn't obviously strong. These bots would do this frequently. It's a very ballsy move, stops you in your tracks, and your only options are really to fold and give up your $22 and leave you scratching your head, or costs you $100 to call bullshit and go all in and find out if he's bluffing. The last one that stood out off the top of my head was the river check raise. Check raising is when you act first in a hand, elect to check, let your opponent bet, then raise. You can do this both for value and as a bluff. It's an essential part of everyone's strategy, most frequently on the flop, less so on the turn and river. These guys would check raise the river a ton, and it was extremely effective. Again, it's a ballsy uncommon move (at the time) and was very profitable. Here's the link from TwoPlusTwo (biggest and oldest poker forum) if you want more info. http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/56/medium-stakes-pl-nl/alarming-news-about-botting-ongame-1112918/ http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/56/medium-stakes-pl-nl/ala...