..not everyone in poker is human.
There are a lot of rumors and misconceptions about bots in Poker, ranging from how they work, to what exactly they are, and whether or not players should fear them.  Bots in competative games aren’t a new trend, they’ve been around for years dating back to artificial opponents in chess.  At its core, a poker bot is a simple program that tracks and translates the cards dealt into mathematical equations and acts (ie. raises, folds etc.) according the odds of each possible outcome.  But they’re far from a ‘set it and forget it’ program to rake in facebook poker chips.
Most experts in poker seem to agree that poker bots are only ever successful in Limit Texas holdem due to its primarily mathematical structure, and that they seem to lag behind human players in No Limit Texas Holdem due to the large “all in” variable that bots have trouble dealing with. But this doesn’t mean that they’re not out there being used in both real money and facebook texas holdemrooms to win poker chips.
No hard statistics exist about just how much bot play might be out there in poker rooms across the internet, obviously because such a thing is nearly impossible to gauge. Most real money rooms ban players accounts and freeze their funds if they’re caught using bots, because players feel that it might give others an unfair advantage to have a computer calculating odds for them. Poker pro Barry Goldstein has a different view on bots in texas holdem however:
“I believe poker sites should allow bots, but only on clearly defined tables. Players should know who the bots are, and have the choice if they would like to play them or not.”
But most regular folks feel that bots offer too much opportunity for collusion, where a bot operator might be running 4 or 5 bots at the same time, sharing hand knowledge between the bots to fleece unsuspecting players who wander into the room. Anyone who has ever played facebook texas holdem poker has probably come across a bot at least once or twice, especially in the mid level rooms. All the tell tale signs are there: mechanical better, never talks to other players, never buys any gifts or drinks, no friends on their friend list etc. The next time you’re grinding in the rooms trying to win some facebook poker chips keep in mind that the disciplined player across the table from you may not be a human at all.